Ask a New Yorker: What’s going on here?
Tracy: I’m standing here at Occupy Wall Street in Liberty Plaza.
Ask a New Yorker: Why?
Tracy: Today and for the past few days that I’ve been protesting – I’ve been looking for a job. I made a sign that says,”Ph.D., Bio-medical scientist looking for a full time job” and I’m standing here handing out my resumes.
Ask a New Yorker: What do you think of the protest and its statement?
Tracy: It needs to be said.
Ask a New Yorker: What’s being said?
Tracy: There’s a large amount of economic injustice in this world. It’s perpetrated by the people who work a couple of blocks from here on Wall Street. We need to change our system. We need to take back the money that was stolen from us and support the poor people of this country, the 99%.
Ask a New Yorker: Have you spent any nights here?
Tracy: No.
Ask a New Yorker: Are you planning on it?
Tracy: Nope. I mean I live here. I am not a hippy. I am a radical. Poverty has radicalized me. So I have become a radical slowly but surely throughout my life. I’ve done everything I was supposed to in life. I‘ve gotten my education. I’ve searched for jobs and have only found part time and temporary jobs. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that after I received my Ph.D. that I’m able to work in my field.
Ask a New Yorker: Can you name the first four presidents of the United States?
Tracy: I might or I might not be able to. But I can tell you what I can do. I can name the four nitrogenous bases for DNA, cytosine, guanine, adenine and thymine. So there you go.
Ask a New Yorker: You’re very Uberchic.
Tracy: This is what I wear when I am working.
Ask a New Yorker: Where did you go to school?
Tracy: Plenty of places. My undergraduate is at Washington University in Saint Louis, as it is on my resume that I have given you, and I graduated with a PH.D from the University of Texas Health Science Center. And I have an additional degree in education from Pace University here in New York City.
Ask a New Yorker: I hope I’m not coming across too strong.
Tracy: There are a lot of unfriendly right wing corporate-loving, corporatist people around and they kind of get into people’s faces. So whatever you are and what ever purpose you have for doing what you’re doing to be so upfront and in close like this is why I’m reacting to you this way by protecting myself.
Ask a New Yorker: You’re feeling the love of Ask a New Yorker?
Tracy: Not really.
Ask a New Yorker: Dang!
Tracy: I’ll feel your love if I see my resume on your website, ok?
Ask a New Yorker: Our website. You’re a New Yorker right?
Tracy: Right.
At this point another reporter/journalist/student starts asking Tracy questions. I’ve been demoted.
Student: There’s a divide in the student body and the students don’t really know how to feel about it. What I’m looking for is that I want my article to show the students what Occupy Wall Street is and I’m hoping that you can shed some light on it.
Ask a New Yorker: I thought my first question was much more to the point. “What’s going on here?”
Student: Where in the country are you generally from?
Tracy: Houston, Texas
Student: And why are you specifically here?
Ask a New Yorker: To get a job. See the sign.
Tracy: I am looking for a job in my field.
Student: Why is the movement here?
Tracy: Because it has not been said otherwise or elsewhere. The reason why I am not talking to you is because this person,(that would be Ask a New Yorker, Kennedy Moore) he has been bothering me and I don’t trust him….
Ask a New Yorker: I wasn’t quite expecting this kind of a left-field response which escalates with Tracy continuing expressing her distrust of me. Offended, I mutter something about her over qualification and lack of job prospects.
I continue to observe the hippie-dippy crowd by walking around and through Zuccatti Park. Feeling slightly unsettled by Tracy’s PH.D scientific, project-manager lack of trust comment, I circle back to apologize. As I approached and she said, “You again. You’re like a bad boyfriend that keeps coming back”.
I asked her why she had such a negative reaction towards me. I asked her by chance if it was because I was wearing a suit. She replied, “yes”.
Tracy Postert, B.A., Ph.D
Seeking: Full time employment as research Scientist, Laboratory Manager, or Project Manager
Education: Professional Certificate in Education (2010), Pace University, New York NY. Doctor of Philosophy in Biomedical Sciences (1999), University of Texas Houston, TX. Bachelor of Arts in Biology (1992), Washington University in Saint Louis.
Experience:
Adjunct Professor of Biology Touro College, Lander College for Women ,NYC, Advanced Placement Biology High School Teacher, NYC Project Manager Huntington Life Sciences, New Jersey Postdoctoral Fellow/research Scientist, Rice University Department of Bioengineering, Houston, TX Post-doctoral Research Associate
University of Texas Houston Medical School Department of Integrative Biology, Pharmacology and Physiology
tracypostert@yahoo.com
