Mulligan, please

And by mulligan, I mean can I go back about 3 months in time?

I have been struggling to find a good way to purify my protein out of cells in order to study it further. I will spare you the details, but for a number of reasons this has been very difficult. And finally, after months of frustration, I found (or so I thought) a way to do it that didn't destroy the function of my protein. Go me.

And then this morning as I sat doing a bit of troubleshooting I had one of those giant light bulb moments. My strategy wasn't going to work - and for the most incredibly obvious reason - one that I should have thought of about 3 months ago. All the work that I was going to do this week and most of the work that I've done for the past 3 months......all for nothing. To say that I was unhappy would be an understatement. I wasn't angry, but very sad - disappointed with my skills. Why did it take me this long to have this revelation?

I had to tell my boss, there was no way to escape that. Happily, he took it very well and that helped a bit.

What makes this worse was that I had already planned on having an "I'm being kind of slow and I need your help" moment with my boss today. I find it's ok to have these moments, and in fact the PI's kind of like them since they feel needed, as long as you spread them out a bit.

Basically, I need to find a reagent in a published manuscript. My boss told me what reagent and told me the senior author's name and said "Go, fetch." I tried, I really did. I searched through all the manuscripts that came from the particular lab that I could find. There was no mention of this anywhere, but my boss was convinced, so I was convinced that I just wasn't looking the right way. Finally, I realized I really did need some help and had planned on talking to the boss about it today. And then stupid moment number one happened and I decided to postpone talking to my boss about stupid thing number 2 until tomorrow.

Sadly, he didn't get the memo and managed to ask me about that on his own. Ugh. In the end though, I was redeemed - at least for this. Turns out that what he had sent me searching for wasn't actually in any published manuscript. He was remembering a conversation in passing with one particular PI....clearly I wasn't going to be finding that on-line. As soon as this dawned on him, my boss said that he would go e-mail the other PI and see what they could come up with and he'd get back to me. (Insert sigh of relief)

In the end, I don't feel quite as ridiculous as I did this morning. I was only a little slow about one thing, not two and I've already taken the first steps to correcting that mistake. Really, these things do happen and all you can do is (to borrow one of my dad's favorite quotes, from the movie "Heartbreak Ridge.") "improvise, adapt and overcome."

Monday Blahs

Today wasn't the greatest of days as far as feeling upbeat about this whole situation.

I sat through a postdoc seminar at noon and spent most of it thinking about the fact that I was supposed to give one of these seminars in just 3 weeks. I started out sad and thinking about how I would miss the people in that room and then I moved into extremely angry about all the effort I've put in over the past 7 years only to end up here and then into even angrier that I can't get a job.......correction, that I can't even get an interview for a job..........and then I moved into extreme depression about not being good enough to cut it in my chosen line of work. Probably the fact that my boss was sitting right in front of me and spent the whole seminar staring quite pathetically out the window in a pensive sort of way did not help my mood.

Later that afternoon, the boss appeared in the doorway, pointed at J and then did that come here finger thing that he does when something not good is going to follow. J returned 5 minutes later with "the packet." Our boss had to hand her this thing in front of the department's budget secretary detailing her termination date and a few other official things. She said it was amazingly awkward. And then the 3 of us had to think about the reality of the situation again - mostly we try to avoid that. My turn to the "the packet" will probably happen later this week. I'm not sure if I can handle that. I'm not sure if I can look at my boss in the eye as he goes through the official motions of termination. I got a little teary just thinking about J going through it, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

(Yes, I realize I was very melodramatic today, but once in a while you just have to indulge)

On a much more annoying note, J noticed while looking through her summary of benefits etc. that she would have her un-taken vacation days paid out......postdocs, however, would not have their vacation days compensated for. WHAT?? I was super annoyed. I need one vacation day this coming Friday and then I had no plans to take my other 5. That adds up to a fairly significant amount of money, especially when facing unemployment. I don't understand what makes postdocs not important enough to not be compensated for extra vacation days, but I'll just add this to the list of reasons that this life in science is not the way to go. And while I was a little mad about the money that I'll lose, I did decide right there that I'll either a) take a week off when the weather gets nice and have some time to myself or b) take 3 days weekend for the entire month of June. One way or the other, those days are mine.

Which one would you do - a whole week off or lots of 4 days weeks?

Updates

Since the initial shock wore off last month we've been able to get basically back to normal. Four and a half months is a long time, and so we're back with our noses to the grindstone with a little job searching on the side. I haven't been really sad about the situation in quite a while, but then this morning there was a little bit of a new reality check.

J told me that our boss talked to her this morning and she now only has until June 12, rather than the 30th, or the actual end of the fiscal year. Now, she's not under a contract, so technically she can be terminated at any time, but it's difficult to see the benefit of just 2 weeks. She was ok with it, there's not much she can do about it, but suddenly we were talking about the end again. And now it's closer. She's told me that she is kind of scared to come in each morning because she has this sense that one day our boss will tell her that this is her last day - and while only two weeks were shaved off, that kind of came true.

Then J told me that our secretary in charge of all things financial explained to her that we'd be getting our "termination packages" next week. Basically this is all the paperwork and information we need to prepare for being laid off and potential unemployment. It will explain Cobra insurance and how to sign up for it. It will detail how we'll have the vacation time we never took compensated for in our final paycheck. It will tell us how to sign up for unemployment and what we might be eligible for.

It wasn't until J mentioned collecting unemployment that I really got sad. I just don't feel like that person. But for a while again this morning we had to think about the inevitable again and I don't think we liked it very much.

In other news - I'm a little worried about the data upon which our graduate student has built her research. I'll spare you the details, but it seems like effects she's seeing may just be an artifact (that's when any differences in your gene/protein of interest are caused indirectly by the tools your using to study it or the environment/biochemistry you're using). Basically, it's a very bad thing. I worry because she hasn't got too much other data from other projects and if this main project falls through, it will be extraordinarily difficult for her to come up with enough data for a new paper (you need a 1st authored manuscript to graduate) within the very limited time frame she's got left. I'm trying to very subtly light fires under her, but it's difficult. That won't stop me though - I love a challenge, and I would hate to see her not end up with her Ph.D. after this effort.

And in other, other news - we're having our first "real" (with all due respect to our mothers) company at the house tomorrow night. We're starting out small - a guy S works with plus his wife and 3 year old for pizza, beer and basketball. If that's a success we can work on a larger gathering. The highlight of the night promises to be my cats' reactions to a human who isn't much bigger than they are. I suspect that my uber-brave felines will take one look at mini-human and go hide under the bed - if that's not the case, I foresee a lot of hissing and bottle brush tails - lets hope they go with the first option.

If I were the one trimming the budget

Lunch discussion today veered towards the budget trimming that it currently going on at our institution and it's fairly clear that we all (there were three departments represented) think that there are many many places that departmental spending could be fixed. Of course the following will not provide enough money for me and J to keep our jobs, but still we might be able to accept our fate with a little more grace if we knew these things weren't going on:

1) When graduate students defend the department buys cake and champagne for the whole department to celebrate with. That's cake and champagne for 50 people about 5 times a year. In one of the other departments represented, the department provides the defendee's lab with $250 with which they can go out and buy supplies for the after-defense party. Now, I'm not suggesting that defending your thesis isn't a huge deal that doesn't deserve celebration. But perhaps the defendee's lab should be responsible for the finances of the post-party. That's how we did it where I got my degree and not one lab complained about this. They all spent what they could afford. Alternately, the office staff in charge of the cake and champagne should perhaps keep a closer eye on how much cake is actually needed. Without fail, each morning after a defense in this department there appears left-over slices of cake, usually about 1/3 of the cake. Perhaps the department could start buying smaller (and less expensive) cakes?

2) Outside speakers. When a speaker from another institution visits their schedule is typically this: arrive at airport the night before, a car is hired to get them from airport to hotel (maybe a PI or students could volunteer instead) where they will have dinner (on the department). The next morning their first PI appointment of the day will pick them up and get them over to the institution where they meet a few other PI's before giving their seminar in the late morning. Those attending the seminar are treated to breakfast pastries (also on the department - I don't think we really need food, especially in the late morning, timed such that as soon as the seminar is done it's lunchtime). Following the seminar the speaker has lunch with about 15-25 students and postdocs - lunch is provided for all. I suggest that the lunches be kept to 4-5 students with the closest interests to what the PI does, that will significantly reduce the amount of food required. The afternoon is then spent shuffling around more PI's and finally the day ends with a huge dinner at the finest restaurants in the city (the $50 per person is on the low side restaurants where they all drink a bunch too). The department foots that bill (18 times a year). Throw in 18 2-night stays at a nice area hotel plus 18 round-trip airline tickets to here and back a year. Of course we have to have guest speakers and they have to be treated nicely, but there must be ways to trim here.

3) The front office staff. And I know this isn't the case only in my department at this institution. There are 5 (yes, 5) front office staff for our department of 15 faculty. One is the overall administrator, she is the most senior and runs all the details of department personnel and she works very closely with the department chair on the budget. She is very important and very busy. We can keep her. One is the purchasing secretary - any time any lab must order something we fill out our purchase order, have our boss sign it and bring it down to her. It's her job to forward that PO onto the main purchasing office. She's ok at her job but it doesn't keep her busy enough all day long - forgotten orders are common. She's often found on the phone or wandering the hallways chatting and gossiping. I like her, but I'm not sure we need a whole position devoted to transferring purchases from this department to purchasing. Next there is the assistant to the department chair. We can also keep her - she works very hard and our department chair is a very busy person. Keeping all of her work-life in order is a daunting task. And finally, my personal favorite, is the "face of the department." She's the gateway between the world out there and us. She answers all the phone calls, she sends out seminar notices she greets visitors and she is absolutely useless. I know I sound harsh, but spend one day with me in here and you will feel this way too. A phone call that should last 20 seconds will last 5 minutes because she cannot articulate what she is saying. A person that has visited the department 15 times must still be given the 3rd degree as to why they are here. And the list goes on.

I vote to combine her job with that of the purchasing secretary and I vote to give that job to someone who will keep busy all day, to someone who will seek out extra things to do when the official work for the day is done, rather than roam around chatting. That clears up an entire salary.

This post makes me sound harsh. I'm not. But I am realistic. Because of upcoming changes in my and S's lifestyle I've become hyper-aware of those places in our lives in where there is superfluous spending. The departmental budget (minus about $750,000 from last year) was due on Monday. I will never see it. I will never know who and what has been cut (besides me and J), but I do hope that they have done their best to trim out the little things as well.

Timing is Everything

Today's post has little to do with my job search - other than maybe serving as a reminder of the greater picture.

I had one of those "If I'd been here 5 minutes earlier....." moments while driving to work today.

There was a fairly severe 3-car accident on the exit ramp that I use each morning. This exit ramp ends at a stoplight where you can turn either left or right onto the secondary road. From what I could see, it appeared as though a minivan traveling north on the secondary road wanted to turn onto the ramp that would lead back onto the highway. This on-ramp begins immediately next to where the off ramp stops at the light. The minivan from the secondary road as well as a second car which had to be traveling on the secondary road as well had hit the first car waiting at that off-ramp light head on.

Either the minivan just mis-read which lane was actually the on-ramp or the second car somehow tried to occupy the same space as that minivan trying to get to the on-ramp forcing the van to shift over enough to aim right into the off-ramp. I have no way of knowing the specifics.

There was an ambulance and fire truck present, but based on the damage to the cars, any injuries were not likely to have been too severe, thankfully. Regardless, the scene shook me up. I'm often the first or second car in that line. It easily could have been me. And, this morning it very nearly was.

As S and I got ready to go our separate ways he mentioned something about having to move the dry cleaning out of my car into his so that he could drop it off on his way to work. I told him not to bother. When I get to work is more flexible, I have the shorter commute at the moment and the weather was bad, so who knew what kind of traffic he'd run into. The time it took me to drop the clothes off and get back to my normal morning was probably somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. Just enough time to ensure that I was not at the front of that line when that accident occurred.

And yes, I realize that if I'd gotten on the highway when I normally do, instead of 5-10 minutes later then I would have traveled with a whole different set of cars in a completely different traffic pattern and who knows if that accident would have happened at all. But it still makes me sit back and think, just a tiny bit.

Finally a little truth......Maybe

Perhaps the most difficult aspect to our situation is the fact that we're not allowed to talk about it. I think I've mentioned before that our boss put a big giant gag order on the 3 of us last month. We can chat about this to our hearts' content among the ourselves and obviously with friends and family who have nothing to do with this institution. But, we are not in any way allowed to mention this to anyone here, especially within our department. Our boss said that we're just to go along our daily lives around here and "come July 1st, people will just notice a change in the lab." (You think?) The problem with this is that our department is tiny - everyone knows what's going on in everyone else's lab. And our boss is just a little bit crazy to think that people aren't going to figure out that something is up in here even if we don't come right out and say it.

But we've respected his wishes to the greatest degree possible. There are definitely a few people who know. I was sitting down at lunch that day with a technician when the grad student came to find me to warn me that the boss would be looking for me - she obviously knew something bad was up. And then two weeks later she too was told by her own boss that she was out of a job after June 30th. It was a horrible moment when she came sobbing into our lab and all we could do was say we're sorry. But we've very quietly let her know that she's not alone and she's been very good about keeping it to herself. There's another tech who's husband's lab is in a very similar situation as ours and she too knows that two of us are on our way out. It's clear that she really needs and wants to talk to us about it, but we can't and so we leave her hanging every time she looks hopeful that we'll talk about it.

Harder than those interactions are the ones in which people stop by just to chat and somewhere along the way ask us if our boss is nervous because of the funding situation or are we still employed or what's wrong with our boss (who has been in a perpetually and obviously bad mood for 6 weeks now - how we want to kick him in the head for calling so much attention to himself and the situation while the 3 of us motor along pretending everything is ok is a subject for another post). None of us want to lie. That's not our style. Instead, we've become masters of deflection. "Oh, he's been in a bad mood for a while now." "Everyone is nervous because of the money situation." And so on.

Today though, I got the first glimmer that we might be able to stop completely avoiding the situation.

In a previous post I explained the ease of convincing my boss that I should not have to give my scheduled seminar, now just under a month away. He sent me on my way to come up with a legitimate excuse for why I could not give that talk on that day. And so this morning I went knocking on his door with two options: 1) We've talked and with just 9 months of a postdoc under my belt I simply don't have the amount of data yet to make giving the presentation worthwhile for anyone involved, including those who would have to waste an hour sitting through my talk. I will be sure to sign up for the earliest date during next year's postdoc seminar cycle. And that would be an absolutely true statement - if I were still going to be a postdoc next year. And if I really had to have a reason for being off campus that day 2) There's a career development day at Major University in the next city over that day about science education that we've agreed is more important for me to attend that to give this seminar on that exact day. I'll reschedule. This one would be a complete lie and didn't make me too comfortable, but if it's what he preferred.......

Once again my boss surprised me. Instead of having me deal with the situation using one of those excuses he said that he was going to talk to the PI in charge of the seminar series and he was going to be (gasp) up front with him. He'd tell him that I really didn't have the data to make a seminar worthwhile and coupled with the fact that my position is about to be terminated (I have really come to loathe that word) should equal a pass as far as this seminar is concerned. So, not only do I (maybe) not have to lie but my boss is apparently starting to warm up to the fact that we can be honest about this. I'm not sure how long this will last or how far we'll get with it (perhaps this next PI will also have to keep this to himself) but at least it's a step in the right direction. Baby steps are better than no steps as far as I'm concerned.

Different Perspectives

There is a job opening at my institution for a Research Scientist. Essentially, a research scientist has the same role as a postdoc - they have a Ph.D., they are responsible for independent research within their lab, they must give presentations and work toward publication of manuscripts and they are often responsible for training graduate students and postdocs. The one big difference between a research scientist and a postdoc is that the RS has no intention of ever running her own lab and therefore the RS position is an 8-5 job.

I have been debating with myself for a week now about whether or not to apply for this job. My outlook as far as getting the sort of teaching position I would like is grim. And I've mentioned before in this blog how I feel about wanting to positively contribute to our life. If I decided to stay at the bench I would certainly be happier with an 8-5 job rather than what I've got now, which is more like "You're a horrible scientist if you leave after having been in the lab for any less than 10 hours and if you go home and aren't constantly thinking about your project and if you aren't here all weekend." That being said - I'm sure this wouldn't just be an 8-5 job, I don't really want to stay at the bench and this would certainly close all doors on a teaching career (I'm 99% certain that there would be no flexibility there for me to take days off to teach).

Really, my motivation for thinking I should go after this position is that I would still have a paycheck and I would still have my own insurance. In the grand scheme of life those aren't the most important things, especially considering that a) we can survive on S's salary and b) I can get on S's insurance without any hassle.

S does not think I should apply for this job. Again, (and I'll repeat this a whole lot more I'm sure) he's amazingly supportive of me finding the right job this time, even if that means I'm at home for a while before I find that position. Most of my friends and my family don't think I should apply for this job - for the same reasons above. There's even this nagging feeling that this might be the "right" time (there's never a right or perfect time for this) to have a kid. This is a notion heavily supported by my Mother and at least one very close friend. After talking to any of them, S included, I feel confident again about the possibility of not transitioning immediately into another job.

And then I get to work and have a conversation with J, our technician who is also frantically searching for a job and all that security goes out the window. She really thinks I should apply for the RS job. She thinks it would be fine to do that for a year and then look for teaching positions again (even though I know that I'll have an even harder time then than I am now given yet another year between me and my last teaching experience). Also, I won't get hired for this position if they have even an inkling that I'd jump ship so soon. J said I don't have to let on that that's my plan (which is true, but people have a pretty good sense of what an interviewee's mindset is, even if we think we're playing the game really well).

I have to keep reminding myself of the different places that J and I are coming from. I've spent all my time since college working toward my goal of teaching. J got this job right out of college and is perfectly happy to tell you that she has no desire to go to graduate school and she is very happy working a regular job and going home to her husband and dog each night. I also would like children and some point and have always struggled with myself and how I would manage to do both my job and being a mother well not to mention trying to figure out when I could manage to have a kid without killing my career. It's hard not to view this as a big giant sign. J doesn't want children so not getting a new job and having this chance to be at home for a little while really doesn't make sense in her life. Once I remind myself of these differences I feel better again.

It is interesting though to take a step back and remember that even though J and I are in essentially the same situation we have very different takes on the situation and how we feel about our jobs/careers and what comes next. That being said, I think I'll focus on the people who are thinking the same way I am about this whole thing........

Insult to Injury

When the economy soured, the institution where I work lost a large portion of its endowment. The powers that be got together, decided how much money each department needed to give back and then left it to the department chairs to decide how and where they would get that money. I don't envy the decisions that our chair had to make and, being as objective as I possibly can, I understand why she made the decisions she did.

But that didn't stop me (and a large portion of my department) from getting angry this morning over what greeted us as we walked in the department. On the counters immediately below the departmental mailboxes (located just outside the main office, in a central, public location) she had placed 3 copies of a sign up sheet. For what were we to sign up for?

To buy coffee as part of a fund raiser to help her kids (and others in their high school) go on a trip to France.

Really. I wish I were kidding. Now, don't get me wrong. This is a fairly common occurrence - the department chair from my previous location offered us the chance to buy Girl Scout cookies from her girls every year. And apparently in my current department many PI's will take their kids' fund raisers to school, my boss included when he puts out the box of candy bars to raise money for his daughter's soccer team. But seriously? Our department chair, who just a month ago decided to un-hire a bunch of us and who has more money than she knows what to do with (have I mentioned that her husband is the head of a major research center within our institution as well) wants us to send her kids to France by spending money (which we now are trying to save since we have no idea when a new job will come along) on coffee?

I don't think so. And I'm not alone.

Based on what my lab-mates told me, when the department chair has done this in the past her lab members and other PI's are the only ones who sign up. Those are both groups of people with obligations to her. But I'm not so sure this year. As of the end of the day there were only two names on that list - a research scientist in her lab and one PI, who does happen to be a coffee junkie, so he's not simply sucking up. As for me, I certainly have no intention of spending money on that particular cause.

Tales from the Lab

While all this job searching is going on, I'm still coming into the lab and working full days and so I thought I'd start throwing up some stories from the lab up here simply for your enjoyment.

Our boss has slowly been getting better. He talks to us a bit more every day and is now in a decent mood 2-3 days of the week. Still not back to normal, but better. This morning he walked to the doorway of our lab, didn't say a word and with both hand did the "come with me" finger motion. The last time he did that to me I got told I was losing my job. Needless to say my stomach flipped over. Turns out that it wasn't really that much of a big deal. My official first day of work was July 7th of last year and since I signed a 1 year contract that would make my official last day July 6th. Well, the administration wants to clean out at the end of the fiscal year, meaning that my last day has to be June 30th. I reassured my boss that I had kind of assumed we were going with fiscal year and that a week wasn't going to make or break me. He was very relieved, although I'm not sure why he was so nervous about telling me I had a week less than I may have thought.

Our graduate student has just submitted a first authored paper. Actually, our boss did the physical submission - he's a bit of a control nut like that. It's been a long time coming. When I first joined the lab the paper was supposed to be submitted in September. A publication would be a great boost for the lab. Maybe not the boost needed to get more funding and keep going, but a boost nonetheless. The process of getting this paper together has been painful to watch. I'm hoping that the reviews come in with minimal changes to be done for all of our sakes. We'll see.

My department is seminar-obsessed. We have faculty yearly updates every-other Monday at noon. The in between weeks are for the postdoc yearly updates. Tuesday mornings at 11 we have an invited speaker seminar series. Thursday mornings at 11 we've got student seminars and Friday's at noon we have student research in progress seminars. Everyone is pretty much expected to show up at every seminar but that doesn't always happen. I was "raised" by a PI who really didn't want to sit through a seminar unless you were going to tell her a whole, nice neat story. She found "in progress" seminars to be a waste of time. Additionally, I came from a department that was not at all seminar obsessed. We had a weekly invited speaker that I always went to because the speakers were generally very good and we had a weekly "in progress" seminar only ran from September to May, featured graduate students and postdocs, but we weren't required to participate every year. Basically, in the summer the coordinator would e-mail the PI's and ask for a few names from each lab. Our boss put us on the schedule if we had something useful to say and that was about it. Because of all this I'm very choosy about what seminars I go to. I make great effort to go to the outside speakers' and the PIs' talks out of respect. Everything else is negotiable with my schedule.

I am scheduled to give my seminar on April 20th. I knew going in that it was going to be horrible - I will have 9 months of postdoc under my belt by then and while things are getting there, I certainly won't have enough of one coherent story to make it worthwhile. I had finally convinced myself that it would be fine. No one would expect me to have moved mountains in 9 months and I could give a sampling of the things I'm getting off the ground. Then I found out I wouldn't have that time to follow up on anything I'm doing and in my head my seminar truly became a profound waste of time for all involved. I decided that I wasn't going to give that seminar - now all I had to do was convince the boss who is a bit of a stickler for seminars (and for hiding the fact that there's not a thing wrong in here). I've put it off for a month and I've rehearsed all my logical reasons for why I should cancel and I even asked my husband how to best approach the subject (he's much better at phrasing and dealing with people in general). This morning was the ideal opportunity to bring it up since I was in the boss' office anyway. And so I took a deep breath and launched into my request. The "conversation" went something like this:

C: So, I have a question. Actually not so much a question, but a request. (Big breath) So, I'm supposed to be giving a seminar in a month......

The Boss: "Cancel it."

C: (shocked silence) "That was easy."

The Boss: "Come up with a good excuse and cancel it and just don't reschedule."

It was a nice and unexpected boost to my day. Sometimes people can surprise you.

Two Applications Out.....

There is not a lot for me to report from the job front. I sent off the application materials to the local technical college with the full time position. I immediately got the auto-response saying that they'd received my e-mail, so at least I didn't have to sit around worrying that my files were lost somewhere in cyberspace. I haven't, however, heard from the dean there that I've been communicating with. I'm chalking this up to one of two things: 1) He's super-busy and/or 2) He might think it's a good thing for me to apply for this job but can't really be giving me "insider" tips and so maybe there will be e-mail silence for a bit. Unfortunately for me, this means waiting for a few weeks - the auto-response said that I would be contacted about two weeks after the close of the application period. That's still a little over three weeks away. I thought that I would sit around obsessing over hearing about an interview, but it turns out that knowing I won't hear from them anytime soon is a good thing. I've put thoughts of this application to the back of my brain and have been able to concentrate on other things.

Two days ago, as I was going through the daily check of the websites I came across an advertisement for an instructor position in Microbiology. Now, Microbiology isn't my exact field, but I've had to deal with quite a bit of it over the years. Additionally, this advertisement went on to say that besides Microbiology, the qualified candidate would be proficient in A, B and C.....all of which are my field and so I figured I would apply. This one was pretty easy, they just wanted me to e-mail a cover letter (I now have a really good one, thanks to all the effort I put in before I applied for the job in the first paragraph), CV (honed nearly to death) and teaching philosophy (which I had also significantly improved a few weeks ago). It took me 15 minutes to change a few words here and there and to send it off. This application process is a bit different than the one mentioned above. It's an ongoing process - they'll start interviews right away and just keep going until the fill the position. I e-mailed at the end of the day on Tuesday, so I'm not counting that as a day. Really, it's only been one since I applied, and it is the very end of the week in which the job was first advertised. I suppose I won't give up on this on until the first couple of days of next week have passed with no word.

That's the job search update. It's been a month and a day since finding out I needed to be looking and I have to say, that while I'm not getting many bites, I'm encouraged that there are a few jobs coming out each week that are what I'm looking for. I feel like it could definitely be worse.

Stem Cell Post Coming Forthwith - Give or Take a Week

I told you earlier about the slight scolding my husband gave me about using this blog to break into scientific writing. While he thinks it's a good tool, he mentioned that I actually have to write about science. I asked him what my first post should be and he threw out that ever so easy topic......stem cells. I yelled at him for giving me something ridiculously hard and controversial to start out with while he calmly explained that I shouldn't make a mountain out of a molehill and should just keep it simple. Namely, I should just explain what stem cells are and I should explain why they are excellent for science - enough said.

I've been procrastinating my research.

But I feel that today is an appropriate day (Executive Order lifting stem cell ban) to start studying and researching that post. I'm giving myself a week's deadline - so hopefully by next Monday I'll have my first real science post up for you.

Dear HR Staffer Who Stands Between My Application and the Person Who Would Hire Me.......

Please give me a chance. As you go down the checklist of requirements for this position and compare that against my resume and cover letter please do not get stalled on the fact that I don't have quite the amount of teaching experience "preferred." Please notice that I have quite a few smaller bits of teaching and realize that I clearly tried everything I could during graduate school to teach while not causing my boss to kick me out of the lab. Please also notice that while you only require that an instructor have a Master's degree I have a Ph.D. Let that count for something. Let that be a sign to you that I have a huge amount of experience training and teaching people in the laboratory setting - and that's a good thing. Please, somehow, see between the lines and know how much I want this job and how I absolutely know that I am the right fit for it. Pass on my paperwork to the head of the division who will see what an asset I would be to your school. Know that if you let me get past this formal, fill out the forms and sign on the dotted lines portion of the process and into that part of the process that you actually get to meet me you will find a smart, eager, hard working, patient person who would make a great instructor. Really, I promise, I'm worth it. Thank you for your consideration and I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Me

More Cautious Optimism

Last week I blogged about the relief I felt after hearing back from the dean of the sciences division at a local technical college. I filled out the job application form that he had attached for me over the weekend and sent that on its way back to him on Monday.

Ironically, in his e-mail back to me he said something to the effect that he assumed that I was looking only for part-time work. That's a perfectly logical assumption given that when I had originally e-mailed him I absolutely did not mention that I'm about to be job-less. Many postdocs continue their research while getting some teaching experience on the side. However, that's not quite the case with me. And so when I e-mailed him back on Monday I devoted a couple of sentences to explaining my current situation and that while yes, I was searching for part-time work, I would have a completely open schedule and would be happy to discuss full-time work either now or in the future should the need arise. He hasn't e-mailed me back yet, but this isn't horrible. It took him 2 weeks the last time and I really don't expect that the dean of an entire college division has the time to drop everything he's doing to return my e-mails.

I receive alert e-mails from Higher Ed Jobs whenever something new is posted in my area. Imagine my surprise and delight this morning when into my e-mail popped an alert for an advertisement for a full-time life sciences instructor at the particular technical college where I'm trying to get a job. I didn't know what to do. I had an entire dialogue with myself that went something like:

"Oh crap, I just told him I wanted part-time work. But I also mentioned full time, so that's probably ok. Why hasn't he e-mailed me to mention this job? Should I e-mail him about it? But then I'm relying on my personal connection - I should just apply for the job. But if I don't get the full time position, I'd still like to be considered for part-time work. And I should e-mail him, that's what networking is all about. But I don't want to be a pest, I just e-mailed him my application back 2 days ago. They want a cover letter, application, CV and transcripts. He's already got half of that - would I just need to send what he doesn't have?"

Finally I settled on asking our tech and my husband what they thought and we all came to the same conclusion: do both. So I immediately sent an e-mail to my contact mentioning that I had seen this advertisement and wondered if this was something he thought I should apply for. This way I'm utilizing my contact and the networking I've done so that I won't be just another name in the pile and at the same time I was able to demonstrate that I'm not just sitting at my computer waiting for him to get back to me - I'm actively seeking out this opportunities.

And now I'm working on finishing up the official application. My CV and the application are ready to go - I just need to print the application once more to re-sign and date it (how psychic of me to have filled out and signed an application before the job was even advertised). I'll be faxing yet another set of transcript requests this afternoon. The only thing I really need to deal with is the cover letter. Of course I have one from a previous application that I can just re-work to my current need, however, they specifically say in the description that I should gear my cover letter to address how I fit into what they list for qualifications. This is nice in a way, because they mention that 2 years teaching experience is preferred but they only require a Masters. I plan to use my cover letter to explain that my Ph.D. and 1 year of postdoc experience should be considered as extra experience. This is an application that can be e-mailed and so I should have it out this afternoon - tomorrow morning at the latest.

Hopefully, by the time he writes back to me (I'm guessing encouraging me to try for this position) I'll be able to say that I took the chance he'd like me to apply and have already done it. The applications are due on the 24th of this month - so I have to deal with 20 days of potential competition being able to submit their paperwork as well. I feel like this would be a really great first full-time teaching position for me and I'm really optimistic (probably too optimistic - my husband had to tell me to calm down) about my chances, but at the same time I'm having the same doubts that I always have........I don't have enough teaching experience, someone else is going to look a lot better on paper than me. Of course I can't let those feelings stop me. And so off goes this newest application with new optimism. Now, if I can just wait patiently until after the 24th without making my husband and co-workers want to lock my outside........

Motivation to Change

Over the past weekend I found myself talking to a very smart, well-educated and successful woman. She has a job, is good at it and makes a lot of money doing it. That is a fantastic set up. Except for one thing......I'm not sure that this particular woman likes her job as anything more than what she is trained to do and what pays the bills (Disclaimer: this may be far from the truth, it's just my speculation). She brought up a mutual friend of ours who went to school in one field and then after a particularly bad postdoctoral experience ended up going to get another degree in a completely different field. This friend is now very successful in his new field - and is much happier and despite being incredibly busy and stressed on a regular basis I'm pretty sure that he actually enjoys his job and feels like it's a much better fit for him. Ironically, he was very very good at what he did pre-second run at graduate school.......but that's not always enough. I suspect that he knew for quite some time as he was progressing from college to graduate school and beyond that this wasn't quite right for him but there was no motivation to change course - he was good at what he had been trained to do and he was paying the bills. Until one day his post-graduate situation made him unhappy enough to endure 10 months of unemployment followed by 2 more years of school all the while amassing a large debt of student loan. If he'd just stuck it out life would have been much easier and much more comfortable.

My conversation partner didn't understand the use of a miserable situation like the one our friend found himself in during his postdoc. I offered her my take: yes, it was an extremely rough 2 years for him in this particular lab but if his postdoctoral experience had been a good one, he may never have gotten quite uncomfortable enough to actually go back to school. In other words, sometimes those rotten situations are exactly what we need to make us take control back and take steps towards what will make us happier. While she failed to understand what I was getting at all kinds of bells were going off in my head. The situation of the above mentioned friend totally parallels what I'm going through and I came to the sudden realization that without the trauma of having my job and essentially my current career path taken away from me abruptly I would never have had the motivation or the courage to do what I'm doing now........figuring out a way to get into teaching regardless of how much clawing and scratching I have to do to get there.

And for the first time since this whole thing began I truly felt like I was doing the right thing. I have struggled with my decision since that first day - with the economic climate in its current state, who am I to turn my nose at all the jobs that I am the most suited for (ie, another postdoc)? Who am I to choose right now to stand on my soap box and scream out that I'm finally done following the typical path of people who've gotten a Ph.D. in a scientific discipline? Who am I to put all kinds of pressure on my husband to perform at work so that he never gets laid off so that I can work part-time just to get the experience that I never had the courage or the gumption to get while I was in graduate school? I should just suck it up and get another postdoc and hope (again) that eventually I'll get the teaching experience I need to get out of this miserable life in research. I can't tell you how many times over the past 3 weeks I've berated myself for not sticking up to my graduate advisor a little more and getting that teaching certificate that would have allowed me to skip this postdoctoral step and that if I'd been a bit smarter and more selfish and career savvy I wouldn't be in this mess.

But that's not true. I may not be in this mess, but I'm sure I'd be in a different one. And I realized after this conversation that I really needed this. In my one year of postdoc experience I've met amazing people who will always be my friends and I've had the chance to work for someone who realizes that I'm a human in addition to a data machine and I've gotten the experience at the bench I needed to realize that I'm better at this than I thought and, most importantly, I realized that I gave myself the opportunity to see if research really was for me (graduate school is painful enough that you shouldn't make that decision while you're still in it)........and it's not and that's ok and now I'm doing something about it. Because of this year I've see that it's ok to change your mind and follow your heart or gut (you pick) and that the thought of doing a job I don't love all my life is far far more terrifying than what I might have to go through to find the one I do love.