Question:
The real reason the jobs are drying up is not because you failed towork for the right professor or to do the right research. The reason the jobs are drying up is because the invisible people who have been footing the bill for all your frivilous research have had enough. You can't go on maximizing your earning potential through education while weighing the odds of finding a higher paying position with a PhD versus a lower paying, but more easily located, job without one. While you are busy studying to get your PhD to get a bigger salary (as if you deserve it) sombody is footing the bill for that nice building you study in and all those resources you are tying up. It's over.

Answer: he's right. I think it's time to jack in the ol' PhD. I figured,hey, a PhD in cancer research, studying separation of leukaemias from blood,sounds like a worthwhile move! But no. Whilst doing this, I have not (gasp! -Yea,'tis true) caused this mighty establishment to Profit. I'm draining the resourcesof the nice big building I work in. And until I finish the research I'm doing,which obviously doesn't take the kind of training a PhD could offer, it mustbe said that people will keep dying from cancer. So, with no upturn in the nextfew months we'll have to conclude this is a bit of a waste of time. frivilous, noless.

Hey, may as well take the rest of the department too - the guys working on waterpurification contracts for the Water Board (removing bugs from the water supply),the yeast separation contract for the Breweries, the petrochemicals contract forbiopurification..... let's be honest, the world'd be better off if we take upthose vacant posts at MacD's. Anyone joining us? It's time to bag that biggersalary none of us deserve.