Comparisons

“Barbie? This is Post-doc. We’ve talked before.”

My parents have always paid for my car insurance. It’s little facts like this that make me pause when people ask my age, because in certain ways I still feel incredibly young. I’m not sure if it’s remaining single and retaining such strong ties to my parents, or feeling as if I’m still in school – coddled and cared for – at work.

Upon beginning my “job” here, I proudly announced, after 11 years of driving, that I would begin paying my car insurance. It was a good day.

I called State Farm and asked for a car quote (they hold the policy to my house), we were mutually unimpressed. They gave me a 6 month price that was about $250 more than my parents were paying. The woman, who had taken 4 of my phone calls without returning any of them, was a bit snippy when I expressed my surprise.

Pushed into irritation, I informed her that I would be checking elsewhere and would not require her services for my home or car needs.

“OK.” Barbie from State Farm replied. In the day since I had talked to her last, I called Allstate. It takes forever to go through all the questions, decide on coverage, move around deductible levels and check on price changes. But I went through it.

Then I called my mortgage company since I pay insurance and property taxes through them.

Armed with an envelope scrawled with notes, I was ready for State Farm again. This time, I was playing hard to get.

“I don’t have a copy of my home policy and I wondered if you could confirm the property value.” I was starting slow, lulling her into thinking I was a reasonable person.

She pulled it up and gave me a number.

“And what is the yearly premium for that?”

Another number, which I added neatly to my columns of numbers on my envelope.

“OK, so here’s the deal. The car quote you gave me last week was way high. In addition, I felt I was imposing on you in asking for it at all. So I talked to Allstate, and they can do significantly better in price for home and car. Are you able to compete or are we finished talking?”

“Um…can you hold on a moment? There’s someone waiting at my desk.”

“Of course.” So I waited, checking my numbers again and assessing the situation. I didn’t really want to move my insurance around. It sounded like a pain with contacting everyone and setting up new payment schedules. Plus, State Farm has been good to me – I had a car accident a couple of years ago and was very well cared for. I had absolutely no complaints about the experience, and hated to switch loyalties because Barbie might have had a bad week.

She came back to my call a different person. Polite and happy, she was eager to change coverage and check prices, adding discounts and providing many details about the options and benefits.

In the end, I saved $80 on my home, which put that quote lower than Allstate. More importantly, the car premium came down about $150. I dropped the check off yesterday with great relief. No messing with the home policy. Finally taking care of my own car insurance. I just had to make State Farm a little jealous. Poke at them a little to show that I could do better if I wanted.

Comparison shopping isn’t often an indulgence for me. I value my time greatly and will often pay a price I think is slightly high rather than talking to people, making charts and trying to negotiate. But I was pleased with myself for making the effort this time.

A comparison was the starting gun to my sprint from grad school. My pretty pastel timeline said I had another 18 months before it was time to graduate. I wasn’t sure where I was headed since I’d done what I had planned in less time than anticipated, but I had smaller projects demanding my attention.

So I went to a group meeting, asked some questions about a few of my side projects and expressed that I wasn’t sure where to head with my thesis work. Advisor had some suggestions, most of which I’d already tried.

Then George spoke up, talked about how he had started writing his thesis and was putting together 2 papers. Advisor talked about setting up a post-doc for him in our lab as if it were a foregone conclusion.

And I got jealous.

First, George is great. I have consistently enjoyed having him around since he started. He works hard, but thinks about research and learning in general much differently than I do. I like to do – accomplish tasks, find projects, make concrete progress. George likes to think – work through textbooks, recreating proofs, rewriting existing code so he can truly understand how it works. My work habits drive him crazy, and vice versa. But I believed that we were equals in some way – we just had very different approaches.

George is also very likable. He has a very gentle way about him, always asks about my family and dog, answers questions about his family. He was the one who would invite me to lunch when the rest of the guys would already be out the door. He helped me move, gave me a ride to the airport for a conference he wasn’t attending. He is truly a wonderful man. However…

George started about a year after I did, and hadn’t contributed nearly as much as I had (at least in my mind). Very focused and intent on his own work, he rarely wrote code for anyone else, as I was prone to do. He didn’t take over clinical projects when younger students faltered. The MDs never visited his cubicle when they had a need for some analysis. I thought all of these elements – the collaborations, the random projects, training other students – were vital to the graduate experience.

Those different approaches I talked about? The ones I thought were equal, or at least close to it? The end result was that he’d spend 2 years fewer than I in a graduate program? How did I fail so badly?

I couldn’t take it. It didn’t ever reach the point of acceptance in my head. I sometimes get to the point where I can’t lose anymore. Many people have more publications, teaching experience, conference presentations, mentoring opportunities, service hours, social lives, better handwriting. Whatever. But at some point, I can't smile and be happy for them anymore. I have to do something cool myself rather than mope through feeling inadequate.

So I pushed to finish. Wrote my thesis in about 6 weeks, editing thereafter. I finished paperwork, always trying to think of an answer to “You’re finishing already?” other than “George is finishing! And he started after me! I’m not losing again! Dammit!” as I stomped my foot, crossed my arms and pouted.

I don’t think it was Advisor’s intent to force me out. I had funding for more than another year through an F award from the NIH. I was doing good work. But once George had followed a quicker path to the end, I was desperately unhappy with my own progress. I wrapped things up – allowing time to be spent in work or sleep. Nothing else.

I went into interview travel mode while my committee made thesis edits and discussed my headlong rush into the job market. That three month period of giving talks, touring labs, and meeting people validated my work. All those extra jobs I’d completed were important – people did care about them and were surprised I was leaving a place early where I had done so well.

I don’t know if it was the right decision or not. I wonder if State Farm looked over my paperwork and thought it would have been better to let me go as a customer than make cuts to their prices. My guess is they only went as far as they were willing to go. It’s difficult to force people in to something they truly resist. But when it’s an suppressed desire, the seduction out of the standard path is easy. At least for me.

I sat with George at graduation. We had both already moved, started new jobs, and talked quickly to catch up. I still like him – wish him all the best with complete sincerity. But when I go into my standard spiel about recruitment issues and interest in certain areas unavailable at my graduate institution in response to questions on why I finished unusually quickly in my department? I’m thinking of that day I sat in a conference room, breathless with shock, thinking about how I’d come up short when being compared to George.

Sometimes I think it happened for a reason. The series of events that were set into motion occurred for the greater good of my life. Other times, I wonder if I was manipulated inside my own head. If I got caught up in the comparison too easily and forced myself into a move that was ill-timed. I'm still trying to figure out the lesson.

But at least I got a good deal on car insurance.