Welcome to the real world

1. My prof has applied for a research grant on which he plans to hire me as a post-doc (with a very good salary btw). I would be very happy with this except I have a few restraints:

• I would, again, most probably, be the only one working on this project


• I do not really want to stay in Singapore, it is very far from home! I want to go to europe. Hell, even the US. It's still closer ...


• It would just mean more and more work all by myself though (with $$ comes more work work work)

2. There is no news of the grant yet.

3. In the meantime, I have started to apply for a lot of jobs, out of which at this point in time, one in particular looks very promising. In the process, I have asked the prof and another two Dr. if they would be my referees. All of them said with pleasure, etc. I need 3 reference letters for this promising application.

4. So the prof comes back from his sabbatical and starts to tell me that next year (jan) he is going to hire me as a post-doc (increased $$) in a field that is totally unrelated to what i have been doing for the past years (he does not yet know the project!). And, says he, if the grant gets in, he will switch me to work on the grant. And, after my Dr.Dr. gets confirmed, another more $$ in for me (regardless if i am working on the grant or not)

5. And then he says. I have not yet sent in your reference letter and I have told Dr. X not to send it as well because I wanted to talk to you if you still want to go ahead, considering all this (i.e. point 4), do you still want to go ahead? And I am like WTF?! I wanted to shout but I answered nicely and politely that yes, I want to go ahead (and then some more bla bla bla)

6. I feel strangely betrayed and scared shit because I am still applying for cool jobs. What if they don't send out any letter? What if he gets pissed at me for leaving and then makes Marian's life a living hell?