RIP: My Time as a Postdoc

Well, it's official. I won't be returning to my former lab as a postdoc. The road here has gone something like this:

February 11 - find out I can't be re-hired

June 12 - last day of work

July 23 - phone call from the old boss saying he had money and would I like to come back. My response: I need to wait just a few more weeks to hear about a full time teaching position, but my chances aren't great - yes, I'll come back.

July 29 - I'm back visiting my old college and in chatting with my old advisor get the impression that research isn't what I should be focusing on - I need more teaching experience. I have a little panic here, considering that right now I'm more likely to end up back as a postdoc than with a teaching position.

July 30 - an e-mail from the associate dean of the local technical college (via a student who worked in the lab across from me) wondering if I'd be available to teach a General Biology class as a part-time instructor. Yay! Teaching experience - and it was part-time, so I could do both the postdoc and this class. I still haven't heard from the potential full time college though and so I send out a few feeler e-mails of "I know you can't tell me much, but is there a timeline - I've been offered another position."

August 4 - am officially hired to teach at the tech - I accept that job even w/o hearing from the full time teaching position because I can't refuse any form of teaching experience. Also, I'm still leaning towards going back to the postdoc as well - in fact, I've had a rather sudden panic attack about not having done enough of a postdoc to have my own little project to take with me someday. I call the old boss to let him know I've taken the one-course job and have pretty much decided on the lab over the full time teaching position. He tells me that he's not sure what the final numbers are for the grant, he's still thinking about hiring a technician (sort of a different story than what I got during his original phone call), he's going on vacation the following week and he's not making any decisions until after he gets back.

August 6 - I get summoned into the lab by the ex-boss to help the grad student find a reagent I had gotten from my grad lab. Turns out I didn't save it - very bad move, but in my defense, I wasn't totally into the lab during the last few months. My boss was not too nice to me that day and I didn't have the sense that I really wanted to go back. I find out the true story behind his funding - not only does he not know exactly how much money he's getting, he's not completely sure that his institution isn't going to treat it as a loan repayment. I also discover that he thought he could demand that I come into the lab because "she's just sitting at home. She can come in here." And, best of all, I find out that he's talked to the grad student who set me up with the part-time job trying to figure out exactly how much time I'd have to spend teaching/preparing for class. He also discusses with her how he doesn't believe I ever produced very much data. I decide, taking all of this into consideration, as well as the fact that he never quite valued my opinions as a scientist (ie - when he had questions about phosphorylation he'd visit everyone else in the department but never talk to me.....his own postdoc who spent 6 years of graduate school working on phosphorylation and who has connections to a major phosphorylation expert) that I no longer wish to return to his lab. Of course this causes me to have a few new worries. First, I've told him that I really want to come back and second, what do I do about getting my own research. I solved that second problem by calling my graduate mentor who was thrilled to help me and will give me whatever piece of research I want when the time comes. I decide to deal with the other problem when I hear from postdoc advisor. (August 6th was a mentally taxing day)

August 7 - August 26 - I prepare to start teaching - I will blog much more on getting that up and running and how my first class went etc. I also hear from the potential full time college - they've hired someone else and I didn't even get an interview. I was a bit mystified how I could have been a final candidate for a much longer-term job and not even get an interview for a one-year position, but if I've learned anything during the past 6 months it's that virtually zero rules apply in the world of hiring and firing. I come to appreciate my position - I still get to keep up with my house and the errands and all the books I want to read, but I get some people contact and teaching experience at the same time. Not a bad deal.

August 27 - I find an e-mail in my in-box from postdoc advisor entitled "Laboratory position." Well, I'm not stupid - it's got a formal title and it's an e-mail. He explains that based on the final numbers from the NSF he's decided to hire a technician. Unfortunately I find out that the tech he hired is not brand new - and therefore she's not an inexpensive hire. She probably costs at least exactly what I would have cost, but I can see why he tried to use that as a decent excuse to make me feel better about not being hired back. This has made my life easier - however (and this is a big however) he gets to feel all smug with himself since he was able to reject me. I desperately want him to know that I decided long ago not to return to his lab, I want him to know that my graduate advisor has come to my rescue since I knew postdoc advisor never would and I really want him to know that my decision is largely based on his behavior. Pride is a terrible thing.

And so, in one of those weird twists of fate that only our universe can conjure up, today is both the official end to my life as a postdoc and the official start to my life in education.

A Giant Sigh of Relief

In an earlier post I alluded to a recent concern of mine - that I lack a research niche to take with me when I apply for a permanent position at a small, liberal arts college. That concern transformed from something that just briefly crossed my mine into something that really worried me with regards to my chances to achieve a position. Yes, I need more teaching experience, but yes, these small colleges are expecting their professors to be able to provide the students with some access to real, live, hands on, at the bench research experience. All of a sudden, the need to get my postdoc position back seemed maybe more important than getting the year-long teaching position. And yesterday, once I knew that I'd have at least one class at the technical college per semester the idea of passing on a teaching position for a postdoc made even more sense. These were suspicions confirmed by my former college advisor, who has been invaluable lately with advice on what I need to be doing now in order to get where I want to go in a few years.

I was prompted to get in touch with my postdoc advisor, just to let him know that taking a postdoc was a little bit more of a priority now. I thought he'd be happy to hear that - but while he certainly wasn't disappointed, he clearly wasn't doing vocal cartwheels either. He told me that he's still waiting to hear about exactly how big his grant will be, he's going on vacation next week and isn't going to even begin to think about making any decisions until after. Great, more people putting me on hold. But as of last night I was still crossing my fingers that he'd decide in my favor in a few weeks' time.

Coincidentally, the grad student from that lab contacted me yesterday asking for help finding a plasmid (little DNA construct) that I had gotten from my grad lab. I called her and gave her all the directions I could think of....she couldn't find it in the stocks. This morning I had to send my postdoc mentor a form to fill out with regards to my new position at the technical college. I got a reply telling me that he'd sent the form and that S was having trouble finding this plasmid and basically ordering me into the lab to help her. By the time I returned home 4 hours later I had discovered that I never froze down this plasmid (big giant oops and not in my favor as far as getting re-hired), had eaten a lovely lunch with all the girls I used to eat with daily, and had learned a bit more about my post-doc mentors potential funding situation. I left not loving my odds - I also left not really wanting to return to that atmosphere. Big problem there.

And so I came home, screwed up my courage and called "the big gun" aka my graduate mentor. First, I apologized for being an idiot and asked if she'd re-send that plasmid to my other lab. This was not a problem. Then I very carefully explained what worried me about getting the job of my dreams someday and started hinting/asking what she thought of sharing reagents and projects with a former graduate student who would never be her competitor and would always want to work with her. To which I heard (in a tone of voice clearly suggesting that I'm a ridiculous person for sounding so nervous for asking about this) "No problem, C. What do you want to work on? I can think of at least a million projects that you could take. Seriously, no problem. You probably need more teaching experience. The research part is taken care of."

I nearly cried with relief. I thanked her profusely and sheepishly added that I was in fact asking about this nearly 2 years in advance. She laughed, but understood when I explained that I needed to know this now so that, should I be lucky enough to have a choice about job within the next few weeks, I can make a better decision that I would have been able to this morning.

What do I have them call me?

This and a whole host of other questions are now filling up most of the space in my head......

I'm officially teaching in the fall! I went in and met with the Assistant Dean of the division this morning and by the time I walked out I was officially a part-time instructor.

I knew walking in that something very strange would have to happen for me not to be offered the class, but I was still overwhelmed when it became official. I'm finally going to have my very own class - complete with 24 students and a textbook and all the other things that come along with a class - and I start in 3 weeks. This is not quite as bad as it sounds. Because it's a technical college the curriculum is statewide and therefore the overall progression of the subject has been set for a number of year - I walked out with a "syllabus" detailing the order in which I'll be teaching the various aspects of biology. So, while it's up to me to decide exactly how I'll split up those topics and where I'll put a lab section instead of lecture I won't be starting from zero as far as curriculum. Additionally, I'm instructing just one of three sections of this particular class. One lecturer is also part time and the 3rd is actually a full time instructor and is in charge of the course as a whole. I'll be meeting/communicating with these two instructors frequently in the weeks leading up to the course and then as the semester progresses. Basically, I'm not just being thrown in and I'll never feel alone as I begin the teaching portion of my career.

Ironically, it's not planning the lectures or the labs or remembering all my basic biology that worries me the most. Instead it's issues like the question I posed in the title of this blog. How will I remember all of their names? What do I do if someone ignores my "all cell phones will be turned off during my class" rule? The Assistant Dean came right out and said that one of the biggest problems that new, part-time staff face is that students view us as not having much status - ie, we have the substitute teacher problem. He asked me if I had any experience managing students in a classroom and then brought up an issue that had vaguely entered my mind at some point but was quickly shoved to the back......."You look like you're about 16 years old." Yes, I look young - but I don't dress like a 16 year old, I'm married, have a Ph.D., don't act like a 16 year old and can shoot someone a dirty look like no one's business........I'm pretty sure that if I walk in there on my first day and act confident and in charge then this will not be an issue - but I'll keep you all posted on that.

I have about 2 more days of peace before all lesson planning hell breaks loose. I was sent home today with paperwork to fill out and a new appointment for Thursday morning where I'll get more of the details of working there and about the curriculum. After that, it'll be time to settle into the lessons and lectures.

Here goes nothing........

Further confusion, but forward progress

When I last left you my postdoc mentor had contacted me to let me know he had money and that I could very likely have my position back. I was left a bit conflicted as to what I most wished to happen - go back to the postdoc or get the teaching position - and I was worried about having to commit to one before hearing about the other.

Of course things have gotten a bit murkier since then.

At the end of last week I was offered a chance to teach one course at a local technical college and while I do have to go in tomorrow to meet with the dean of the Health Sciences Division at that college it's pretty much a sure thing that I would get the class if it works with my schedule. When I first found out about this opportunity I panicked. Essentially, I felt that agreeing to a part-time position meant that I couldn't take the full time position should I be offered that at some point. In the end, I realized that I cannot pass up a sure thing for a possibility and have accepted that I could do either the postdoc or the full time teaching job too, even though that would equal one miserable semester.

Having this extra option did prompt me to e-mail those people in charge of the visiting instructor search just to see if they could give me a bit of a timeline. I don't know much, but did manage to find out that the committee will be offering interviews to candidates within the week followed by a quick decision. I've heard that before, but hopefully they really do stick to this timeline. If I could know about that job within 2-ish weeks, I think that would be early enough to not really lead to me having to decide about returning to the postdoc before I know all my options.

But now I have a bit of a new dilemma. While I've been proceeding for a long time thinking that a teaching position is the best way to go I realized that I'd been distracted from the importance of having a bit of research that I can call my own, even to get hired at a smaller, liberal arts school. This has been a natural side effect of applying for a job that was teaching only. However, a visit to my own alma mater over the past week reminded me that I would be expected to provide my students with some sort of research program in virtually every other position I might apply for. I never quite got that far in my postdoc. Of course I had a project - but it wasn't the one my boss was going to let me take with me some day, many years down the road. More to think about while I wait to hear back from both the university and/or my postdoc mentor.

I have to say that I'm considerably calmer now that I know that I'll be teaching one way or the other this fall. It has taken a while, but things are beginning to come together. Now all I have to do is wait a few more weeks to figure out what my full time work will be - and whether I have a decision to make about it or not.......

It's Never Simple

Visits to the eye doctor provide us with simple choices......A or B, C or D.......and we just tell her which one makes our eyes happier and then we're on the way out with the right prescription and the ability to see.

Life in general never presents us with such clear cut options.

For a while now I've progressed day to day thinking that I would have no choice regarding working or not working. If I'm offered the visiting professor position I would of course take it......for what I eventually want to accomplish in life there would be no option for me to turn down a teaching position, even if it is for only one year. Alternately, if I'm not the candidate for that job then I continue with my nice quiet life at home.

And then this morning I got the call from my old boss that I never in a million years thought I'd be getting. He just found out that he's getting funding from the NSF (yay NSF!) and that it would be enough to support a postdoc for 2 years and do I want to come back. I suppose I should have been thrilled - now, one way or the other I can have a job. But I wasn't entirely thrilled. Now, I'm going to be presented with a choice and it's not really one I was prepared to think about.

He was honest with me - he knew that for what I want to do with my career that signing up for 2 more years of a postdoc may not be first on my list. And I was honest with him about how I've reapplied for the teaching position and I would need to hear about that before I agreed to go back to his lab. He was quite understanding and it's not like there's a giant rush. Generally, finding out you have the funding occurs 3-4 months before the funding actually kicks in so it's not like I'd go back to work next week - there's time for me to find out about the teaching job first. And, should I go back to work for him I think we'd sit down for a chat first and I would pretty firmly mention that I'm happy to sign up for 2 years as long as he's ok with me seeking adjunct teaching positions as well - and right away. It could work.

But do I want to go back to the bench? I've been kind of bored for the past 6 weeks but I've been happy and well rested. I've enjoyed keeping up with my house and the errands and having my weekends as weekends and not as 2 days in which to fit all the errands, laundry and housekeeping I can possibly fit. I would certainly like working again though. I liked being up at a certain time and having a place to go where I was productive and made an impact on something (small though that impact may be).

I kind of feel like going back to work in the lab would be for health insurance benefits and for a second salary and to keep from going stir crazy maybe more than it would be to go do science. That's not necessarily bad, but it's not great either. If I'm not going back for the right reasons, maybe I shouldn't go back at all. On the other hand - even though a postdoc is not the ideal path toward my ultimate goal I think it's more likely to get me there eventually than a hiatus at home and that certainly is an excellent reason to go back. And then of course there would be the guilt. Months ago my boss took me aside and told me he'd hire me back in a second if he managed to get funding - would I come back? And I said yes, of course. But I really thought he had a snowball's chance of getting funding (don't take this the wrong way - he's very smart, a great scientist and mentor and deserving of funding - but generally once you've lost money you'll never get funded again. In short, his getting money after all that's happened is pretty miraculous) and I didn't think I'd be as content as I am puttering around the house every day.

To make matters a bit more confusing - the money he's getting will cover a postdoc OR a tech for 2 years. He told me that there's a senior tech in the department looking for a job and he's wavering a bit between wanting a tech vs a postdoc. I'm pretty sure I'd win the battle if it came down to that because a postdoc is a stronger path to publication, but I'm worried that if I show even the smallest sign of disinterest he'll just take the tech. Either that, or I won't know about the teaching position before he needs to decide between the two of us.

For the moment though - there is still no decision for me to make since I don't know about the teaching position. That is my number one option. And I can of course make myself ill and keep myself up nights worrying and planning out every possible scenario but at the moment it's not worth it. So for now I'll keep myself busy by crossing my fingers for the teaching position.

I suppose if all decisions were easy life wouldn't be any fun, would it?

Girls Night

Last night was a girls night. Dinner and a movie with the girls I worked with and ate lunch with most often. I was excited. I miss them a lot, I miss our conversations a lot and frankly, I needed to leave my house for longer than the time it takes to run a few errands. I wasn't worried about awkwardness - no one blames me for having lost my position and I didn't leave angry.

I envisioned a nice dinner where we took our turns talking about whatever ails us. I would talk about going a little stir crazy and waiting to hear about my new job application. One girl (C) would tell us about waiting to hear if she gets to keep her job. The student from across the hall(T) would tell us about how her qualifying exam proposal is going and about how her boys are doing. And the student from my old lab(S) would tell me about her project and how the boss is driving her crazy and maybe she'd let me know a little bit more about what happened to my protein**

Of course nothing ever goes like you envision it. Don't get me wrong, the evening was very nice, just not exactly what I pictured.

The main "problem" (and I hesitate to call her a problem, she was very very nice) was the girl that I wasn't expecting to be there. She's a brand new addition to the department - her first day as a student was my last as a postdoc - and she was new to our girls nights. That's great. I like new people. The problem was that she's a talker - and by talker I mean went a hundred miles a minute and rarely took a breath. If one of us managed to get a sentence in she would latch on to that new topic and start again at a hundred miles a minute. And again, I hate to call her a problem because I think she had no idea that we weren't really having a conversation and she was just so excited about everything she was saying. Meanwhile, we did get to hear a bit about T's kids and C did tell us about how she'll find out this afternoon whether or not she gets to come into work tomorrow. They asked me about the new job application but as soon as I said I've reapplied we were being seated and by the time we got to the table new girl started talking about something else. And, a little bit disconcertingly S barely said 3 sentences all night. She never said hello to me and didn't really look and me and was quiet in general. She's generally very loud and the first to be complaining about work and the boss so I took this as a sign that her life in the lab isn't great at the moment and never asked what was going on in there and she never volunteered.

And then the conversation took the inevitable turn towards hard core science. Most gatherings of people all within the same field of work usually turn towards work. It's what everyone has in common and when you spend more of your time with the people you work with than with your friends and family the problem gets even worse. I knew it would happen and I wasn't worried about feeling excluded since I know everyone they're talking about and I know science, it would have been easy to participate. But I didn't. As they got deeper and deeper into how many experiments do you have left before working on a paper and don't take that class at the same time as preparing for your mock and EM gets sent away and someone else does it and this person shouldn't be training you on the scope because they can't focus and during lab meeting..............I just sat back and listened. I had a fantastic moment of realizing how nice it is to not be in that environment anymore. I almost felt a little embarrassed for all of them for this to be so important that it's all they could talk about even away from work at dinner with someone they hadn't seen in a month.

And I realize that just one month ago that was me too - but it's amazing what looking in from the outside does to perspective. I've been having a pretty tough time feeling ok with myself - that what I'm most qualified to do I refuse to do anymore. But after last night's dinner I was certainly well on my way back to remembering why I chose to stay home for a while.

**The saga of my protein is a blog for another time - and it's one of those that will probably never be written because I'd have to include far to much science and I will end up having a rant of exaggerated proportions which is never a good idea.   

Home Improvement(s)

I'm taking today off. You'll be able to find me on my living room couch enjoying the Harry Potter marathon that's going on and reading. That's partially because I went to sleep at midnight last night and woke up at 4:30 to get S to the airport. It's also partially because it's Sunday and I've always liked to keep Sundays for myself. It's mostly so that I can prepare myself for the bigger projects around the house that await me.

Up until now, I've spent my time at home doing a thorough spring cleaning and while it took a long time and the house is much better looking because of it it really wasn't that taxing. I didn't have to spend money on supplies and I couldn't really mess up. Well, the spring cleaning is done and that means that the bigger projects remain. Starting tomorrow I become a regular at the local Ace Hardware and Home Depot. Instead of a rag, dust polish and a vacuum cleaner my tools will become paint brushes, drop clothes, an electric sander, spackle and a putty knife.

I think I'm prepared. My father spend an extraordinary amount of energy while making sure that I was useful. I spent all my summer throughout high school and college around the house doing things like sanding and staining/repainting stairs and storage sheds, mowing and triming the lawn, washing and waxing the cars and even pouring cement steps.

I'm a little nervous now though. This time the supplies are on me - if I waste or buy the wrong things then it's our money down the drain. I won't be able to just yell around the corner to Dad to see if I'm doing something correctly (although the cell phone will be handy). Of course the motivation to do my projects and do them well the first time is huge. There's the aforementioned problem of the supplies no longer coming from the magical parental bank account. There's also (and more importantly) the fact that I'm working on our own house. Everything I do to make it look nicer will make our time in it more pleasant and will help somewhere down the line when we try to sell this place.

And so the two major projects for this particular week are:

1) To fix the paint trim around the ceilings (and in some cases the ceiling paint itself) where we got a little tired last summer when we first moved in. In our defense we did all of our painting in about 3 days and it was hot and we had just moved and well, we just got tired and after a while that blue tape (that didn't really work all that well to begin with) just seemed like superfluous effort. I've gotten pretty used to the ragged trim in our rooms and even those occasional splotches of brown or blue that we managed to get on the ceiling.....but......it's not the prettiest........and now I have the time to go around and fix it.

2) To strip (with my brand new electric sander - yay!) and then paint the deck railing. I'm not sure if it's because the paint that's on there now was cheap, wasn't waterproofed, or this amount of peeling and fading is typical after suffering through a winter but it's not at all a pretty site out there. So I'll be taking my little chip of paint to Home Depot and requesting a gallon of the same stuff. Someone remind me to pay attention to the weather forecast before I decide to tackle that one.......

I'll let you know how it goes.