Professor in Training

Moooooooooving time

2010-08-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

It's Monday, my first day back at work after a most excellent vacation, and changes are afoot.

That's right, peeps, my blog has now moved over to new digs at Scientopia. Many thanks to the magnificent MarkCC over at Good Math, Bad Math for pulling the new site together.

Apart from the new location and new look, nothing much else will change. Rest assured that there will still be a lot of bitching and complaining although I'm hoping to reduce the amount of motherfucking cursing. Don't anticipate that the latter will be very successful.

Several of my bloggy brothers and sisters are also now at Scientopia and, if they haven't already provided you with their new addresses, you can find them all in the second blogroll on the new page.

I will not be updating this Blogger account from now on so you'll need to adjust your RSS feeds or whateverthefuck it is you need to do (the info for this is all on the Scientopia page).

See you on the flip side!

Update

2010-07-31T14:23:00.000-07:00

Back from vacation. Need another few weeks to recover. That is all.

Weaning the trainees

2010-07-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

It’s always difficult when newbie trainees start work in the lab. They’re bright eyed, bushy tailed, full of energy and itching to sink their teeth into some science. At the same, they’re usually a tad freaked out at the animals, the expensive machines that go PING!, the chemicals that smell like dead fish and the stuff that breaks easily.

A few months down the track, however, and they’re old hands with their protocols. They can recognize when things go wrong and fix them. Multi-tasking starts to become the norm. They begin to learn how to critically analyze their work.

But as soon as the PI mentions that she’s taking a vacation, all hell breaks loose.

How will they function without you?

What should they work on while you’re gone?

What if something goes wrong?

How will they interpret their data?

Will you be able to be reached by phone or email in the event that they have questions?

OMFG!!1!!! We’re all screwed!11!!ELEVENTY!11!!!!!

As a PI, one needs to have trust in one’s trainees. Trust that they won’t destroy the lab while you're gone. Trust that they’ll continue with their experiments and generate supercool data. Trust that they’ll use their initiative to continue to develop their projects. Trust that they'll pull together and help each other if something goes awry.

Sigh. And hope like hell they don’t burn the place down.

The pressures of the tenure track

2010-07-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

As you’ve probably already figured out either here or at other blogs, being an assistant professor on the tenure track is not an easy thing. I can only speak from my own personal experience, but the combination of setting up a lab, teaching, service, politics, advising, etc, can be a crusher.

For me, the biggest obstacles have been initiating and then maintaining research momentum and trying to deal with all of the somewhat-extraneous demands on my time and energy.

Setting up the lab itself was no easy task, particularly as I started with a lab that was a room with benches and essentially nothing else. Even a year after getting all of the basics together and hiring a postdoc, we’re still dealing with the frustrations of getting protocols up and running and producing data. We have finally started to generate some momentum but the data still isn’t flowing at the rate I need for grants and I can't simply hire another postdoc because there just isn't enough money left in the pot.

I have some teaching responsibilities which, while not overly onerous, are still a big time suck. The great things about teaching though are that it breaks the monotony of lab/research/grants and also brings you into contact with students who have a passion for learning.

The service commitments can be good and bad but, on the whole, take up a disproportionate amount of energy relative to how much they actually contribute to the nuts and bolts of your progression on the tenure track. After almost two years on the TT, I now serve on a few departmental committees, am an associate editor for Middling Journal and am on a committee for Big Professional Society. The latter brings me into contact with both Professors BigWig and LittleFish in my field which can only be a good thing. The journal gig has helped me develop an appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes when I submit a manuscript for review. The departmental committees have done very little except give me a tiny role in shaping and developing the academic programs with which I am affiliated.

The biggest thing I struggle with, however, is the assumption that I am available for additional tasks - I think this is largely due to my reduced teaching load and the amount of time I spent in my office working on my computer ... ie clearly not appearing to be busy enough. I’m popular with our current students, so I’m constantly being asked to talk to potential grad students as well as incoming undergraduate students and their parents. My research lab is the biggest in our department so I’m expected to be the face of our research publicity efforts. The students I teach feel comfortable with me and seek my advice when they have career questions and then inundate me with requests for letters of recommendations for job and grad school applications. My reputation as a hardworking faculty member means that I have been requested to serve on almost every single departmental committee in existence. Every time I say no to any of the above requests, the spurned individual seems to take it as a personal affront instead of realizing that I just can’t be everything to everyone all of the time. There’s just not enough of me to go around. Period.

My primary focus is, and needs to be, on increasing the productivity of my lab and getting external funding. While I have confidence in my teaching abilities and know that those abilities alone will probably be sufficient to keep me employed in my current department indefinitely either on or off the tenure track, for me to get promoted and gain tenure, I need my research endeavors to be a success. Losing momentum at this stage will be very very bad. Which means I need to be firm about declining some of the other stuff. I’m not in this job to make friends and I know that some of my colleagues have taken it personally when I’ve refused a request for whatthefuckever. But there is only one of me. No matter how good I am.

The summer grind

2010-07-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

By an unfortunate stroke of luck, I have four grants due on the same day this month. I’m basically on top of all the bits and pieces I need for each one and the proposals are all at the final draft stage but my poor grants manager is not dealing with the situation very well. His stress is largely due to the fact that each grant is going to a different agency and each agency has their own stupid rules, regulations and requirements, different budgets with different percentages for indirect costs, different websites, different ways of submitting the grants, etc.

I thought I was doing ok and handling the stress pretty well until I discovered a new gray hair this morning. Unlike the others that can be covered with the rest of my hair, this one is front and center where everyone can see it.

Shit. These goddamned grants are causing me to look like a skunk.

Aaaaaargh.

I can only imagine what they’re doing to my grants manager.

Can't please everyone/anyone

2010-07-06T18:10:00.001-07:00

I'm so goddamned busy right now, my head is spinning.* I have several grant deadlines looming yet everyone else seems to think they and their needs should be my number one priority. Telling all of them they'll just have to wait hasn't gone down very well but they'll all have to suck it.

Grrrr.

* There's obviously enough time in the day to spend 2 minutes writing this post, though.

The challenge of grant writing

2010-06-25T21:28:00.000-07:00

Part of my responsibility this summer has been to introduce our new interns to research articles and teach them how to read, interpret and critically analyze the literature. After struggling through a particularly complicated paper a few weeks ago, the question arose as to whether publishing research is more difficult than grant writing.

From my perspective, grant writing is more challenging but this is for several reasons.

1. There is always a journal out there somewhere that will publish your work, even if it’s the Journal of Useless Stuff. On the other hand, there are a limited number of agencies that would consider funding your work and convincing them to do this is getting more and more difficult by the day.

2. Writing and publishing a manuscript is telling the story about what you’ve already done and why it’s amazing. Writing a successful grant should involve telling the story about what you’d really like to do, why it’s amazing and convincing the reviewer that it’s worth pursuing. More often that not, though, grant writing is also about telling the story about what you’ve already done (aka preliminary data), why it and you are amazing (aka biosketch) and why your potentially interesting follow up ideas deserve the cash.

3. Publishing a manuscript is working with knowns and is often the end of a long journey. Grant writing is dealing with a lot of what ifs. What if aim 1 is shown to be shit? What if my preliminary studies cannot be replicated? What if the reviewers don’t see that my preliminary data are the coolest things since Doritos?

Interestingly, I think #3 can also be the best part of grant writing. In essence, I get to come up with my own ideas and find ways in which to test my hypotheses. I spend my days asking myself questions. What studies do I really want my lab to do? Does my supercool hypothesis make sense given the existing data? Can I generate enough preliminary data within my meagre budget to convince reviewers that my hypothesis is going to blow the lid off my field? If my hypothesis is proven, how will this impact science as a whole? Where are the Doritos I hid in my desk last week? Why am I wearing socks that don’t match?

Granted, though, writing proposals that don’t get funded can be a frustrating experience, much like banging one’s head up against a brick wall. On a bad day, I see grant writing as a complete waste of time, time during which I could be writing the manuscripts I’ve put aside in order to meet grant deadlines, time that could be better spent with my trainees actually doing science rather than crafting ways in which to ask for money to do it, time that I could spend hiking. On a good day though, going through the sometimes nasty comments from grant reviewers can be a good lesson in designing your research, looking more objectively at your proposal and seeing the flaws, coming up with a better approach, finding better experimental groups, learning to write more clearly, and being more critical of your own work.

Sigh. In an ultra competitive grant era, having seemingly flawless proposals, an incredible track record and an environment that is unbeatable seems to be beyond reach, at least at the moment for this newbie. Start up funds will only stretch so far and showing that 95% of your Big Ass Multi-Year Proposal has already been done just isn’t feasible within the time, personnel and budgetary constraints. I spend most of my days trying to make my grants better, tighter, and to provide more convincing evidence that I’ve done the work I’m asking for money to do in the hope that someone, somewhere, sometime will point the magic funding wand at my proposal. At this point, I’m not sure what else I can do. In theory, it’s fun. In practice, sometimes it is, but sometimes not so much.

No publicity for you

2010-06-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

Was contacted by our PR office last week regarding the work my trainees are doing as my school wants to publicize our work in the hopes of attracting potential donors for scholarships and the like. My lab uses various animal and cell models to study Common Disease and as soon as I mentioned the animals, the PR person said he wasn't interested in publicizing our work because that would attract the wrong kind of attention.

Hmmm ... while I can understand not wanting to attract attention from animal rights extremist groups, the work we're doing could have very important implications for the way in which Common Disease is treated in both humans and animals. Surely that would be a big plus in terms of publicizing the work that we do in order to boost donations, not to mention the potential benefits of getting our name out there a bit more in the local scientific community.

Grrrr.

The PR office will certainly be singing a different tune when I win the Nobel Prize for this work.*

* It's a long shot but stranger things have happened to stranger people.

Troll sub-types

2010-06-23T21:00:00.001-07:00

Commenters are an interesting breed, ranging from bloggy friends who drop by to laugh and swear a lot, to spammers, to trolls who like to argue inane points. Saw this article this evening and it made me laugh and think of the diverse nature of the commenters on this and other blogs.

The troll classifications (according to the article) include:

A: Useful -- if not slightly caustic -- contribution to internet society
Congrats! You are the glue that holds the Web together. A descendent of the "lady who writes letters to the paper," you keep bloggers and writers on their terrified toes.
Other platforms to consider: Why not start your own blog? You seem to have all the answers.

B: The shameless self-promoter
The offspring of the still-kickin' telemarketer, you spread your insipid message where it is clearly not welcome.
Other platforms to consider: Might we suggest a less annoying option? Link exchanges. Merely ask another site to link to yours if you link to theirs. Thus, everyone wins and no one vows to track you down and murder you in your sleep.

C: The echo
Instead of making like some highly trained macaw, why not contribute to the conversation? Isn't that what a comments section is for?
Other platforms to consider: Twitter. Just go retweet some stuff, mmkay? That way you're sharing an opinion/story/something of value with your followers with proper attribution, instead of driving the moderator to alcohol abuse.

D: The classic troll
We know, we know -- puberty can be a difficult time. There's your changing body, the fact that you have yet to kiss a member of the opposite sex, the -- Huh? You're 45? Nevermind. Say "hi" to your mom for us. ...

Recognize yourself (or others) in any of the above!?

Sigh. Only two more days until the weekend.

The overlooked demographic

2010-06-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

With all the recent chatter in the blogosphere about the need to highlight the ways in which guys in academia deal with home, parenting and family issues, there has been ~~little~~ no discussion about how single people deal with the whole academic lifestyle. I guess the general feeling is that us single peeps have it good all the time and that the apparent lack of responsibilities or family duties make it that much easier to get both work and home stuff done.

Well, think again.

As a single chicky living alone in a country where I have no family, believe me when I say that life isn’t all that easy. Examples ...

1. There’s nobody with whom you can hug and cry when you’ve had a grant annihilated by reviewers. Or when you’ve had a frustrating day at work and need to vent with someone who has an understanding and non-judgemental ear.

2. When you live alone, you never come home to a cooked meal unless you’ve miraculously remembered to turn on the slow cooker before you left for work at dark o’clock. It’s either cook it yourself or eat cereal. Or forget about even considering the cooking thing and just eat cereal for dinner. For weeks. Until you forget to buy more milk. And lunch often becomes a granola bar when you just don’t have time to prepare anything and can’t even spare 10 minutes to go out and buy anything at lunchtime.

3. Being consumed and overwhelmed by work can often lead to forgetting basic household chores such as laundry. Nothing like going to work in your running clothes when you’ve got nothing even remotely decent left in the closet. And eventually you come to the realization that the floors aren’t going to clean themselves and the lawn needs to be mowed more than once a month in the summer (am seriously considering getting a sheep or two). And don’t even get me started on discovering there are no clean plates in the house because you keep forgetting to start the dishwasher.

4. And who do you ask for help when you need a ride home from the hospital after surgery? Who holds your hair when you’re vomiting uncontrollably in the middle of the night from the post-op narcotics? Who drives you to work on the days after surgery when you’re not actually supposed to be operating a vehicle? Ummm, usually a colleague for the first one and nobody for the rest.

5. And then there are the countless nights spent on the phone with family in the land far, far away. When they go to the physician and have questions about their test results, they call the only person they know who could possibly be able to explain it to them in a way in which they’ll understand.

People with partners and/or children aren’t the only ones who find it difficult to juggle the home/work balance.

Just wanted to point that out.

Letters of reference for a PI? Really?

2010-06-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Grant Agency,

Please explain why I, as a new investigator who is already an assistant professor, am required to provide a gazillion confidential letters of reference in addition to a letter of support from my department chair when applying for your grants? Can you explain the logic behind this? Will this alter the supercoolosity and fantastic potential of the science I'm proposing? Do you understand that as I will be submitting two different proposals to your agency that means I will need two gazillion motherfucking letters of reference plus two from Dept Chair? Do you have any idea how stupid this is? Do you also need a letter from my mother giving me permission to submit these goddamned grants?

You fucking suck. And you don't have a fucking clue about anyfuckingthing.

That is all.

Yours in a most outraged motherfucking state,

PiT.

Sacrifices

2010-06-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

Working from home today to crank out a metric fuckton of mega-excellent grant applications with minimal distractions. Just discovered that there are no tea bags in the house as I took the entire stash into work. Suffering through a vat of hot chocolate instead.

Sigh.

The sacrifices I make for science.

The cool new PI moment

2010-06-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

This time last year my lab was relatively uncluttered. We were in a tiny little lab, barely had any equipment, no animals and no cell culture. And when I say “we” I am referring to myself and my former undergrad summer intern. So it was uncluttered when it came to people, too.

How times have changed.

We're now in a much bigger lab and I walked in yesterday to find a bunch of trainees flitting here and there, timers going off, every bench being used, trainees consulting each other about their experiment(s), the phone ringing, and Big Expensive Machine and Supercool Apparatus both in operation at the same time. And not all the trainees were there yesterday so it wasn’t even at its busiest.

And it’s all my responsibility.

Sigh.

That moment was pretty magical. And scary. All at the same time.

Now I just need to get some funding to help pay for all of this stuff otherwise next summer could be the same as last year.

Summer boredom

2010-06-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

One of the annoying things about being connected to the internet during the academic year is the constant influx of emails, mostly of the useless or semi-useless variety, that make your delete key wear out. You know the ones ... student questions about a basic principle discussed ad nauseum in class, central admin alerting you to the new design of their website that you never use, a memo from the university president alerting all faculty that she is doing her very best in these hard economic times, reminders about the upcoming committee meeting that is already on your overcrowded schedule, emails enquiring as to whether you can provide alternative times to hold said committee meeting, the facilities office alerting you to the fact that the water will be turned off in Building That You've Never Ever Set Foot In on a day you won’t actually be on campus, and so on.

And then there are the emails that just drive you up the fucking wall ...

[phone rings]

Me: Aaaaaaaaargh. WHAT?

Colleague: I just rang to let you know that I sent you an email. Did you get it?

Me: Yes.

Colleague: That's good. I just wanted to check.

Me: I'm kinda busy. Was there anything else?

Colleague: Have you had time to read the email? I wanted to hear your response.

Me: No, I haven't had time to read it. The subject line clearly said "No Rush" and I'm busy preparing for a class that starts in 5 minutes.

Colleague: Ok, then. Give me a call after you reply to the email.

Me: Grrrr.

Well, now it's the summer and those emails have slowed to a trickle. Which is where the problem lies. One becomes so used to the information overload during the academic year that the relative paucity of useless and semi-useless emails during the summer leaves huge chunks of time that can be spent devoted to your research and mentoring trainees.

Which is good, I suppose. And more conducive to increased productivity.

But then you discover that sometimes the faster pace is good. Because you're filling the time previously spent deleting emails frantically looking for candy in your office or bothering summer-appointment colleagues for anything loaded with sugar or fat. Like a crack whore searching for your next fix.

Or so I've been told. I would never do such a thing.

Sigh.

Sad. So very, very sad.

Today

2010-06-04T18:41:00.001-07:00

You know when you have one of those days where nothing goes right, everything you touch turns to shit and you find yourself asking why the fucking fuck you decided to get into this business in the first place?

Ok.

And you know when you have one of those days where everything goes right, you get shit done, you see your trainees shine during their moment in the sun and you ask why the fucking fuck anyone would ever want to work in any other business?

Ok.

Well, today was one of the second kind. One of the good ones. I guess this must have set the universe out of balance though as one of my colleagues had the day from hell.

Bummer for him. But I finally had a good fucking day.

Huzzah!

Productivity

2010-06-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

I’ve been wondering why I was having trouble remembering which paper I was working on or which grant was due or which intern was working on each project until I sat down and listed everything.

Hmmm ... seems as though I’m a bazillion times more productive than I thought as I have 11 papers either in press, submitted or in preparation (a couple of these are from my own lab); 2 grants pending and another 3 due out by the end of the summer; and 5 trainees working on 3 different-but-related projects.

Doesn’t make me feel so bad about dragging my sorry ass into work in time for a mid-morning break.

Moving from unpaid to paid position

2010-06-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

I came across this comment sitting on an old post waiting for moderation (oooops, sorry) and thought it warranted a post all of it’s own:

I have been doing an unpaid research internship position for the past 7 months in the field I love, during which I have developed and carried out two projects which are now ready to be written and submitted for publication. Two weeks ago, my PI offered me a paid position for the next year before I attend graduate school (applications due this coming Fall). However, in those two weeks, our collaboration has gone far downhill for reasons that I consider to be a bit ridiculous. A few examples:

- lowering my salary after I had verbally accepted his original offer (which I made no complaint or comment about)
- he became very angry with me when I asked to know what benefits would be included before I signed the contract, saying "I was being more aggressive and demanding than any employee he'd ever had."
- I offered to willingly work overtime because I truly enjoy the work I'm doing. He later became angry when I indicated I was thinking 10-12 hour days, while he was expecting 14-16 hour days.

Each of these issues has prompted a long and dramatic "discussion" with him questioning my dedication to the job and my "disingenuousness" with my communication, which of course I deny and re-express my passion for the project. Still, the job offer has not been rescinded, and he always indicates his "respect" for me and the work that I have done thus far. If I continue with this PI, I will have to rely on him as one of my recommendation letters for grad school, as all my previous recommendations will be from 1 or more years in the past.

Here's my question: Under these circumstances, is it possible for me to expect a good enough recommendation to get me into graduate school when I apply this fall? Or should I expect that he'll only write a mediocre letter (despite his continued job offer and "respect" for me and my work), and thus cut my losses and try to find another research opportunity from whence to get a recommendation in the next 3-6 months?

Sorry for the long post! I'd appreciate any advice/insight.

Hmmm. Not sure what my two cents of advice, insight or opinion is worth these days but here it is ...

This person has had you working for free for the past 7 months during which time you could have packed up and left at will. Now that you’re going to be on the payroll, the game has changed. You’ve obviously worked well and will be rewarded with a publication. I would usually encourage potential grad students to take a year out to get more experience if they think it’s something that would benefit them but in this case I’m not sure you need it. Nevertheless, a few questions ...

What are the finances like in this lab? Paying someone to work for a year costs more than you might think, particularly if/when benefits are added. This still doesn't excuse changing the terms of the verbal offer. But it was just a verbal offer which means it didn't really exist so ...

If he/she is offering you a one year contract, ask for the details in writing. Then you can make your decision.

Is it possible that this is just a case of miscommunication or misunderstanding on either or both sides?

And are you sure you didn’t catch your PI on a bad day?

Now for what I think ...

Don’t offer to work overtime. Research isn’t a 9-5 job. If you’re getting paid on an hourly basis, you should get paid for the hours you work ... ALL of them. If you’re on a flat rate, you work the hours you need to work in order to get everything done ... if 40 hours per week is the norm, adjust your work schedule accordingly. The expectation that you would work 14-16 hour days is ridiculous but might be required occasionally if you’re doing extended or time-dependent studies ... if this was the case in my lab, I would expect that my lab peeps would take a day or two off here or there to make up for it.

If your account of things is accurate and you’ve decided not to take the position, it would be worth sitting down with the PI, explaining your plans and asking if he/she would be willing to provide letters of recommendation for grad school based on the work you’ve done thus far. Don’t burn this bridge if you can help it.

Introductions

2010-06-01T19:26:00.000-07:00

So it’s summer (yippee!) which means sleeping in, getting back to a regular gym routine, getting into the office after 9am and leaving at or before 4pm, working on grants, working on long-overdue papers, playing music really loud with my office door open, etc.

But summer is also the time to catch up on those pesky regular medical check ups. You know the ones ... routine annual physical (which I had done during the work up for the ablation), annual mammogram (thanks to last year’s scare and the family history), dentist, eye exam, and so on.

So I had a routine eye exam mostly because I suspected that I needed a new prescription for my glasses. After chatting with the assistant about life and stuff, the eye guy walks in, calls me PiT and then introduces himself as Dr Eye Guy.

Hmmmm. I was tempted to ask him to call me Dr PiT but had to refrain as I knew he would be putting stinging drops in my eyes and shining lasers and stuff into them. Not someone I could afford to piss off at that moment.

At no point in my post-PhD life have I ever introduced myself as Dr PiT. It’s just not something I would ever think to do. My students call me Dr PiT but that’s because it’s a departmental policy and I don’t require that anyone in my lab do this (I actually request that they don’t).

I don’t even know why this bugged me so much, but it did.

If I ever had to introduce myself to anyone as Dr PiT, I’m not sure I could keep a straight face. I have enough trouble telling people I’m a professor because it sounds really wanky.*

Someone suggested I introduce myself as Her Royal Highness PiT.

I think that’s what I’m going to do from now on.

* Wanky: Indulgent, pretentious, simultaneously showy and useless.

Only men review manuscripts?

2010-05-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Reviewed a revised/resubmitted manuscript for a journal today. In the response to reviewers, the authors consistently referred to all three reviewers as being male. Him. His. He.

WTF?

Surely they could have used he/she, the neutral, albeit maddening plural, they/them, or just referred to the reviewers as ... reviewers.

This made me a little cranky. Why would one automatically assume that, not just one, but ALL reviewers were male?

Ironically, the first and senior authors of the paper were both female.

Sigh.

Thus endeth the rant. Bring forth the pre-dinner chips.

Momentum

2010-05-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

After a very busy semester filled with classes, grants, illness, surgery, meetings, invited speakers, immigration paperwork and house renovations, it’s nice to be able to relax and settle into a summer of research stuff.

The lab is buzzing right now as my trainees are making good progress with their projects and our new summer interns are still excited about learning how to pipette. While they’re all working hard, I’ve been sitting in my office cranking out yet another grant and preparing to finish yet another paper from my postdoc lab.

After a pretty damned stellar annual review last month, I know that I’m doing almost everything I’m supposed to be doing at this stage; i.e. getting excellent teaching evaluations, doing various service thingys and cranking stuff out in the lab. The only things I really need to do now is to start publishing the work from my own lab and to start bringing in external grant funding. Duh.

The good thing is that the momentum has finally shifted in my favor. I’ll have one, maybe two, grad students starting in the fall. My current trainees are cranking out some nice data. Upcoming grants and resubmissions will have even more data in them which will hopefully silence the reviewers’ concerns about whether we can do the stuff we’re proposing.

Now all we need is some money so that we can maintain the momentum. Sigh. Nothing like looking down the barrel of bankruptcy just when the lab is gaining speed. At least I know I’m not alone in this but it’s still unnerving.

Translation issues

2010-05-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

Summer’s here. The halls are empty of both students and faculty. Peace and quiet. Bliss.

The perfect time to get grants and long-neglected papers written, to catch up on replying to emails that were flagged for immediate follow-up weeks and months ago, and to enjoy long lazy lunches with some supercool colleagues who are also ~~unfortunate~~ lucky enough to be working over the summer.

Over lunch earlier this week, I found myself at the mercy of the vast chasm that exists between different countries over the meaning of some words.

The word in question? Fanny.

For me, fanny refers to the female genitalia. And it's not usually a word used in general conversation.

In the US, fanny refers to the butt, ass, cheek, gluteal region, whateverthefuckyouwanttocallit.

Being the juvenile idiot that I am, I laugh every time some I hear someone talk about a fanny pack.

So imagine my initial shock and then intensely paralyzing giggle-fit when my colleague was discussing a recent accident and announced that her fanny was bruised.

Small things. Small minds. Indeed.

The post in which I explain why I’ve been absent from the blogosphere ...

2010-05-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

[TMI warning: if you’re turned off by details of gynecological stuff, now’s the time to go to elsewhere. Don’t say you weren’t warned.]

Ok, peeps. It’s no surprise that I’ve been working my ass off since I started my faculty gig and that the stress of my job has been getting me down both physically and emotionally. Well, there has been another factor that has been playing havoc with my stress levels and well-being.

I’ve been suffering from iron-deficiency anemia for as long as I can remember and, as dietary interventions haven’t been sufficient to boost my iron levels, I’ve been on supplements since forever. This has been enough to keep me at least functional ... until a couple of years ago when my menstrual cycle began to get heavy. Really, really heavy.

Initially, I didn’t really think much of it and just learned to deal with it. Until I couldn’t deal with it anymore.

So at what level of bleeding is one officially classified as menorrhagic?

According to the Mayo Clinic, the loss of 80 ml or more during the menstrual cycle is the basic definition of menorrhagia.

Well, so what happens when you’re losing 100-125 ml PER DAY during each cycle?

Yes, that’s right. I was losing 100-125 ml per day for about 3 days each month. And my period was lasting for 10 days. And I only had about a 2 week break before the next one would start. And I was spotting during that entire “break.” And spotting heavily every time I exercised.

To put it into context for those of you who use the Diva Cup (which I love, btw) ... the “average” woman can get away with emptying the cup every 12 h or, on heavy days, perhaps emptying every 6 h. How often was I having to do this? Every hour. That’s right. EVERY HOUR. For 2-3 days. Day and night. Every month.

So what happens when one loses that much blood each month?

Ummm. Well, let me tell you what happens. From first hand experience, I can tell you that your life becomes a misery, that’s what. You can’t go anywhere. You can’t do anything. You can’t sleep through the night. You can’t teach a 3 h class. You can’t even make it through a 2 h faculty meeting without needing to go to the bathroom. And dating? Just not possible. At all. Misery. On so many different levels.

So what does one do when one’s menstrual cycle gets to this level?

First of all, you do what you can to get through each day and pretend that it isn’t a problem. Until it is. Until you realize you’re bleeding every single time you exercise, even when you’re supposedly between periods. Until you have to go home to change clothes because you were so focused on writing your grant, you forgot to set the timer to remind yourself to go to the bathroom. Or until you cancel your weekend plans when you realize it clashes with the heaviest days of your cycle. Or until you realize you haven’t been to the gym in a month because you’ve been bleeding too much. Or when you’re between periods but you’re still too damned tired to get out of bed.

And then, finally, you wake up one day, cry all the way through breakfast, and call your physician to organize a referral.

Well, this is what I did, anyway.

I’d been considering my options for a long time but just hadn’t had the energy to do anything about it but I finally took the first step last summer. This was hormone therapy involving a cycle of a mega dose of progesterone to induce complete sloughing of the uterine wall and hopefully correct spotting. The outcome? It didn’t work. Everything went back to “normal.” Or, in my case, the usual misery.

I didn’t want to mess around with birth control and more hormones so there was really only one option left: surgery. Fortunately for me, I don’t plan on having children so this wasn’t a difficult decision to make.

So I had surgery. An endometrial ablation, to be precise. Basically destroying the endometrial lining of the uterine wall in the hope that it will scar over and either reduce or eliminate the menstrual bleeding. The positive things for me are/were that it doesn’t affect hormone production and the procedure is covered under insurance.

This was an outpatient procedure and I had it done a few weeks ago ... yes, in between going to the EB meeting, grading papers and giving finals, I found time to have this done. If you’re wondering which procedure I chose, it was the Novasure and it was done under a twilight/general anesthetic. Easy, quick, relatively pain- and complication-free.

So far, everything has been going well. I only took one day off work (I told my coworkers I was “working from home”), have had minimal post-op bleeding and had cramping for the first few hours after the surgery which was eventually blunted by lovely narcotics.

My cycle is due to start in the next couple of days though so I’ll have to wait and see what happens. If I never have another period again in my lifetime, I’ll be ecstatic. If my bleeding is significantly reduced, I’ll be very, very happy. If there is no noticeable improvement, there’s really only one option left and that’s a hysterectomy. Yes, that’s how bad my life had become.

So that’s it in a nutshell.

TMI for some but I don’t care. There is more to being a female on the TT than just grants and associated work stuff/bullshit. There are far too many women out there suffering with menorrhagia or post-natal depression or miscarriage or other female stuff and it rarely gets discussed out in the open.

Yes, I say this even though I am a hypocrite. I chose not to tell Dept Chair. Or my mother. Or my sister. But that was mostly because I knew they would freak out and start worrying and panicking. Like the two colleagues and two close friends I told. And I really only told the two colleagues because I needed a ride home from the hospital. Because that’s what I do. I think I’m too strong and too independent to need help. Until I get to the point when I do.

Sigh.

Anyway, hopefully this will be the start of a better time. Or, at the very least, the end of a miserable time.

And hopefully this will open the eyes of some readers to what your female colleagues may be experiencing. Or why they look so damned tired all the time. Or why they need chocolate just to make it through until lunchtime.

Actually, I anticipate needing chocolate on a regular basis regardless of the success of the ablation. And Doritos. Lovely, tasty, Doritos. So maybe we should scratch that last point.

Hooray for summer!

2010-05-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Exams are over. Everything has been graded. Final grades have been submitted.

The semester is ovah!

O.V.A.H. ... !!11!!111!!ELEVENTY!1!!!

Summer is here! Huzzah!

It’s time to crack open the chocolate, hiking books and backpack.

There is that little thing about attending the faculty retreat and having to work over the summer cranking out data and grants but there is also a ~~little~~ lot of hiking to cram in around all of that boring stuff.

[insert happy dance]

Summer! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. With chocolate. And Doritos. Of course!

Sigh. Happy days.

Mistaken graduation identity

2010-05-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Attended our school’s graduation recently and was thrilled to see my students skip across the stage to receive their undergraduate degrees ... well, empty folders that symbolized the granting of their degrees anyway.

While leaving the venue, I was TWICE congratulated on my graduation by two completely different families ... who I didn't know ... and who then asked why my hat/regalia were different from all of the other students ... and what I planned to do now that I have my degree.

Sigh.

Sometimes looking like a student can be frustrating.

On the other hand, I’m still laughing about their complete and utter inability to comprehend that I was FACULTY and that I was there because my students were graduating.

Lessons learned at Experimental Biology 2010

2010-04-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

1. Professor BigWig can get outrageously drunk just as easily as Poor Student.

2. Drunken antics by Professor BigWig are just as lame as those undertaken by Poor Student.

3. Lying by the pool is a perfectly acceptable scientific endeavor if you’re in Anaheim.

4. A boring and unenthused speaker can make amazing data look like shit.

5. A boring and unenthused speaker who fails to notice that none of their figures are visible on the big screen deserves a mass exodus of the audience 10 minutes into their seminar.

6. Scientific meetings are all about catching up with friends at restaurants that serve tasty food.

7. Catching up with former postdoc colleagues can cause a promising new PI to giggle uncontrollably and somewhat inappropriately during a seminar given by Professor BigWig.

8. The amount and quality of free stuff given out by vendors is proportional to the health of the economy.

9. Watching undergraduate students experience their first big scientific meeting makes one feel both rejuvenated and old at the same time.

10. Hearing Professor BlueHair rave about how talented your undergraduate research assistant is makes it all worthwhile.

Rules for presenting at Experimental Biology

2010-04-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

1. Do not use comic sans on your slides. It sucks. And it makes you look stupid.

2. If you’re chairing a session, start it on time. Audience members have important meetings to attend at the bar and don’t want to be late because you can’t tell time.

3. Don’t yell into the microphone. We can hear you perfectly well.

4. We can’t hear you if you’re nowhere near the microphone.

5. If you’re in the audience and sitting behind me, shut the fuck up.

6. Sitting at the end of the row and refusing to move your fat feet so that people can get past you is just asking to have your fat feet stomped on.

7. If you’re giving a 30 min symposium, don’t spend 20 min giving a general introduction to an area that everyone already knows and then blast through 5 h of data in the last 10 min.

8. Showing entire panels of figures ripped straight from your latest publication in Shitty Journal merely means that the audience can’t distinguish the small grey bar from the small black bar.

9. 24 panels of microscopic images on one slide looks like a kaleidoscope. Nobody has a clue what you’re pointing to.

10. Put the goddamned laser pointer down unless it’s absolutely necessary for you to use it. This ain’t karaoke, dude.

Hell

2010-04-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

This week has been horrible. Really, really horrible.

I’ve been unwell. Really, really unwell.

And busy. Really, really busy.

And overstretched. Really, really overstretched.

And I’m sick of the bullshit. Really, really sick of the bullshit.

But now my bags are packed and I’m off to Experimental Biology tomorrow.

And then I come back to one final week of the busy, overstretchedness and bullshit hell.

And then the semester will be over.

And I can go on vacation.

And then come back and work in the lab all summer.

Sigh.

I’m planning to sit by the pool in Anaheim in between meetings and catching up with friends ... and eating my body weight in Doritos.

Upcoming mayhem

2010-04-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

I’ve just had a look at my calendar and it’s packed solid for the next three weeks ... writing manuscripts, writing and delivering the last week of lectures and labs, writing, giving and grading lab and written exams, a weekend expedition, the Experimental Biology meeting, a long-overdue medical procedure, house renovations, and the usual gazillion faculty and committee meetings.

Sigh.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

You may not see much happening in this space for a while.

Musical tastes

2010-04-07T21:26:00.001-07:00

Music in the lab is a good thing but country music is not permitted.

Discuss.

If I could turn back time ...

2010-04-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Brings back memories of post-high school eighties stuff ... high hair, big shirts ... ugh.

Where was I?

Thinkerbell posed an interesting question last week:

What would you do different if you had to go back to being a postdoc knowing what you know now as a PI? Would it change your work, your attitude towards your PI, your understanding of all the crap that annoyed you while you were a postdoc?

The short answer? I don’t know.

The long answer? I’d probably do several things differently.

My postdoc was split between two labs and this was a good and a bad thing. In my fourth and final year as a postdoc, I moved to Postdoc Mentor’s lab full time and I think the one big thing that I would change is that I would have done this much sooner. I was/am very, very fortunate in that Postdoc Mentor is a great guy and a fantastic mentor who always treated me as a junior partner, even when I was working across two different labs. We met frequently, argued about my work, argued about his work, discussed future directions and collaborations, etc. He continues to be a great mentor and friend who has always been honest about my work and progress, both as a postdoc and now that I am a PI.

Despite Postdoc Mentor’s insistence that he was very happy with my postdoc training, I don’t think I was as productive as I could have been. Somehow I managed to be busy each and every day but I didn’t pump out as much data as I could/should have. After four years, I left my postdoc with two publications, two unfinished studies and a ton of preliminary data and pilot samples for new studies. I’m still trying to wrap up the manuscripts for the unfinished studies but, looking back, I really don’t see how/why I didn’t get them done while I was still in my postdoc lab.

Also, while I picked up several new skills during my postdoc, there were a few other techniques that I wanted to learn but didn’t push myself to do. Knowing how to do them would have come in handy now as my postdoc doesn’t have those skills and he’s going to have to find someone who can teach him. If I knew how to do them we would already be pumping out supercool data.

I was/am very fortunate in that Postdoc Mentor knew that I wanted a TT career and he involved me in a lot of the grantwriting, administration, reviewing, etc that a PI does and introduced me to a bunch of people who have become friends, colleagues and potential collaborators. Thanks to those experiences, I think I was as prepared as I could have been when I became a PI myself but the burden of the combined responsibilities really didn’t hit until I experienced them firsthand.

I do wish that I’d been able to secure some funding of my own during my postdoc, either in the form of a fellowship or small grant. In retrospect though, I had applied for every single funding opportunity for which I was eligible. I’m not exaggerating here ... as a foreign national without a green card, there were only a handful of things I could apply for. Just didn’t manage to snag any of them.

Not sure if this has been illuminating or not. I'm guessing not.

Decisions decisions

2010-04-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll be aware that my transition to junior faculty and newbie PI has been somewhat rough; therefore, this news should come as no surprise.

After talking to my postdoc mentor last week, I’ve decided to resign from my position as assistant professor at Really Big U. Postdoc Mentor convinced me that I was a much better postdoc than I am PI and has generously offered me a place in his lab. He can’t afford to pay me as much as I was earning in his lab a couple of years ago and I won’t have my own computer or desk but I’m sure it’ll all work out for the best.

My current department chair has generously offered to promote my postdoc to assistant professor as soon as I leave so there won’t be too many disruptions to my students or colleagues at Really Big U.

I’ll be renaming my blog to Professor Detraining in the next few days but the url will stay the same.

Thank you for all of your support during this very difficult time.

The wacky world of academia

2010-03-31T23:41:00.001-07:00

You don’t have to be the smartest kid in your class to succeed in academia.

You don’t even have to be the sane.

At all.

It’s who you know

2010-03-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

The past couple of weeks have been crazy - like seriously totally bat shit crazy - which has left me with little time and/or energy to read other blogs let alone write anything on my own*. But after having some Very Good Things happen during that time, I thought it was only fair to reflect on how having a good network of trusted colleagues and mentors can have a substantial positive impact on one’s career.

Let’s be honest, we all know that the best and brightest aren’t necessarily the ones that succeed in academic science. Persistence, tenacity, curiosity and good communication skills can help you go a long way in this business.

But let’s be brutally honest, having good contacts can also get you far.

I’ve blogged before about how I worked my ass off to get to where I am now and that some of my current success was due to being in the right place at the right time. You can call that luck if you want to - I don’t think of it that way but I know that some people do. Whatever.

Despite the efforts of myself and my lab peeps, I’m still struggling to secure even the tiniest bit of external funding although each new rejection brings more positive comments about the direction and quality of my work.

And then great opportunities drop into my lap thanks to the people that I know.

Do these opportunities come about because I’m lucky? Maybe. I’m certainly very fortunate that I have a couple of mentors whom I initially met by chance, who were apparently impressed enough by me over the years to be willing to invest the time and effort in mentoring me, and who are in positions to nominate me for things and to have words with the right people in order to make things happen. I’m just not sure that it’s entirely down to luck per se as if my CV wasn’t strong none of these opportunities would be coming my way.

Sigh.

I now have to make sure I don’t let these people down. Or myself.

The only problem is that these great opportunities require more work and I’m already wondering if it’s time to look into having myself cloned.

Heavy sigh.

Is it ok to have chocolate for breakfast?

* I have been reading your blogs, by the way. Just haven’t had time to comment on very many of them.

Spring Not-Break

2010-03-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

It’s Spring Break and I’m working all week. I’m tired and grumpy. But the lab peeps are excelling in their training on New Fancy Equipment and are bursting with excitement. Sigh. I can catch up on sleep sometime next week.

Don’t you hate it when ...

2010-03-10T23:44:00.000-08:00

You borrow a juicy novel from the local library and it’s so meaty you aren’t able to finish it within the three week borrowing period. You still have 300 pages to go and really want to find out who dies in the end so you go to renew the loan but it is rejected because someone else has requested it. Being the civil-minded, responsible person that your parents raised you to be, you return the book on the due date, immediately submit another request for the book and wait patiently for 8 days because that’s when the next copy is due back and you’ll be able to get back into finishing that sucker. But, wouldn’t you know it, not everyone is as civil-minded or responsible as you. The bastard who currently has the copy that you’re waiting for has obviously decided to hold onto it so that they can find out who dies in the end. And you’re left hanging and wondering.

Grrrr.

People who don't return library books by the due date should be arrested.

And the meaty novel removed from their possession and given to me so that I can find out who dies in the end.

Overload

2010-03-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

My relief at having completed my to-do list was short lived. I’ve just agreed to take on two more time-consuming tasks.

Sigh.

I’m an idiot.

But an idiot who needs to remain on the TT. And both of these tasks will help with that.

As much as I love what I do, I don’t live to work. I’m one of those people who needs downtime, needs sleep, needs exercise, and needs weekends to recharge.

I’m not sure how much more work I can squeeze in during the week and still remain sane.

I guess I’m about to find out.

It would be great if I could clone myself but I’m not sure the world is ready for two of me.

Heavy sigh.

I’m hoping my old friend, the mighty Doritos, can help. And a truckload of chocolate.

Multi-tasking to the max

2010-03-04T19:48:00.000-08:00

It’s been a tough semester already although, thankfully, it hasn’t been as stressful as the Spring semester was last year. I submitted another grant this week, knocked out a manuscript review and finished some teaching prep, then looked at my to-do list and realized that it was almost bare. Shocker. So I took an early day today which meant that, for the first time in months, I wasn’t the last one to leave work.

For those of you who are wondering what kind of to-do list a new-ish assistant professor has, this is an example of what I’ve had going on in a typical week this semester ...

Timesuck stuff
Faculty meeting, one or two committee meetings, drop by Dept Chair’s office to ask about something, have several faculty drop by my office to ask about something, have several faculty drop by my office to chat at length about stuff not related to work, meet with student club, meet again with student club to clarify issues not clarified at previous meeting, meet with student advisor regarding students’ issues, steal chocolate from student advisor’s secret stash.

Teaching stuff
Several hours revamping last year’s lectures and labs, several hours delivering newly polished lectures and labs, a couple of meetings with students about their coursework, write upcoming written exam, write upcoming lab exam, negotiate timing of lab exam with other faculty who use teaching labs, discuss content and timing of lab exam with teaching assistant, discuss content and timing of lab exam with students.

Grant/research stuff
Write grants, work on the budgets, phone calls and emails back and forth with accounts manager regarding budgets, write IACUC submissions, write sponsor information for postdoc’s fellowship application, edit postdoc’s research proposal for fellowship application, help undergrad prepare first research poster, review manuscript for journal, read and edit manuscript from doctoral student, read and edit manuscript from postdoc lab, scratch head about when time can be found to finish own postdoc studies, lab meeting, an impromptu meeting or two with the lab peeps, meet briefly with postdoc and congratulate him on stellar new data, meet with lab rotation students.

Other stuff
Organize itinerary, flights and hotel for visiting speaker, organize seminar for visiting speaker, go back and forth on some details via phone and email with visiting speaker, organize bribes to get students to attend seminar.

Sigh. This is what I’ve done in the past week alone. And this was a quiet week. And I only listed the work stuff.

Fixing the postdoc experience

2010-02-27T08:14:00.000-08:00

The discussions about postdocs in the blogosphere of late seem to have polarized into those that absolutely loathed their postdoc time and those that found it to be fantastic.

I agree that unless you have found yourself in a lab from hell working for a PI who is a tyrannical asshole, you are unlikely to truly understand how postdocs can be exploited and burned. My own postdoc was not without problems and dramas but I wouldn’t say that it was hellish in any way.

But here’s the question ... what are we/you/I going to do to fix the situation? How can we make sure that others don’t suffer at the hands of fucknut PIs? How can we ensure that postdoctoral training is a rewarding learning experience?

A change at the institutional level is key but this isn’t likely to happen overnight. Nevertheless, here are a couple of ideas that would be relatively easily implemented:

1. Annual reviews performed by more people than just the PI
Maybe it's me being naive but hopefully this would force the PI to be more accountable for mentoring and training the postdoc. Part of the annual review could include identifying and setting project and career goals.

2. Setting a time limit on postdoc positions
Hopefully this would force both the postdoc and the PI to view it as a finite training period rather than an ongoing situation that often turns into exploitation of cheap labour.

3. A strong institutional commitment
A dedicated postdoc office that acts as an advocate for the postdoc and mediates conflicts and problems between postdocs and PIs. The office could also run regular seminars on career options, preparing CVs, interviewing, trainee symposia, etc.

4. Institutional recognition of postdocs
This includes treating postdocs as a valued part of the research team within their school. Leaving postdocs in the bizarro world in which they are neither student, staff nor faculty is complete bullshit.

Changes can also happen at the individual level, too.

For me as a new PI, the first step is to make sure that my own postdocs don’t experience the same problems that I did.

I’ve previously discussed the financial constraints associated with running a lab and that I simply can’t afford to pay my postdoc a huge salary but I do pay him more than the NRSA and he receives full benefits (exactly the same benefits as me).

I can’t make the science any easier but I can do whatever is within my power to give him all the tools he needs to be successful, including access to research assistants and students. He has his own project that he is developing within the broad framework of where I want my lab to go and we meet regularly to discuss his progress and plans.

For me, the bottom line is that there ARE good mentors out there and there ARE good postdoc training opportunities. If you’ve had a shitty postdoc experience yourself, you can make sure that your own postdocs don’t suffer as you did. Be a better mentor to your trainees than your PI was to you.

In overdrive

2010-02-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

Too busy to blog much of late. Been pushing grants and papers out, dealing with IACUC, writing new lectures and labs, grading papers, dealing with sobbing students, dealing with sobbing faculty, dealing with overwrought lab peeps, waiting with bated breath to find out if Large Grant will be funded, finalizing upcoming seminar series, making plans for summer lab stuff, making plans for stuff that will take me a long way away from the lab to a place where I won’t have to think about anything even remotely related to work, etc.

My biggest problem right now is time suckitude. My to-do list is manageable if I have full days of uninterrupted time. Which never happens. Everyone in my dept is busy but I just don’t have time to listen to how busy everyone else is. Sigh. My open door policy has recently become a policy of If The Door’s Closed That Means I Don’t Want To Talk To Anyone - Yes, This Means You. I don’t like this but I’ve had to do it in order to get shit done. Hopefully I can go back to the open door thingy in a few weeks once a bunch of stuff gets submitted to whichever agency or journal these things are going to.

Must. Survive. Until. Spring. Break.

What is “a scientist”

2010-02-17T21:18:00.000-08:00

A recent comment over at PLS’s place got me thinking about what qualifications or skills one needs to be considered a scientist.

According to the commenter, a PhD seems to suffice; however, I would argue that it is highly dependent on the context.

When I worked in a hospital lab, technically I had several undergrad science degrees but none of them were specifically in medical lab science so I was considered a lab assistant, and accordingly paid a pittance, while the 20yo new grads were called scientists and were paid substantially more.

My father didn’t finish high school and worked his whole life in a government lab and his job title was that of technician; his coworkers that had finished high school but didn’t have university degrees were considered scientists.

In grad school, those of us working in physiology tended to think of ourselves as scientists and our favorite pastime was to whinge about the psychology students and their questionnaires and about how they were just pretend scientists.*

Grad students in the biosciences do a large amount of lab work and would consider themselves to be scientists but I’ve heard a lot of talk here and there about grad school being where you learn about the science and that the postdoc is where one learns how to become a scientist.

And then there are the hoity toity TT peeps who, according to some, look down upon postdocs and students and who, again according to some, consider that the science that they do makes them uber scientists.

What do I think?

I don’t give a flying fuck, to be honest.

Seriously, did you think I would have an opinion?

The official definition from the Oxford English Dictionary** is that a scientist is “a person who has expert knowledge of one or more of the natural or physical sciences.”

Well, that doesn’t really help, does it? “Expert knowledge” is also very context dependent. And highly dependent on who is judging the level of expertise.

Others have bandied about the term “scientific method” as being essential to scientists but that is also open to debate and interpretation.

Do I think that a PhD necessarily gives one the right to call oneself a scientist? Not really.

And do you really need to have that title bestowed on you? I don’t really care, personally. I consider myself a scientist but I don’t think the PhD necessarily did it for me. I think it is the combination of my scientific knowledge and experience, my ability to formulate scientific questions and hypotheses, my ability to analyze and to think critically, etc.

Do I need a shirt telling all and sundry that I am a scientist? Not really. Although I do have one of these.

* I never said I wasn’t immature or ignorant as a grad student.
** The only way to fly and at least the spelling is correct.

When to cut your losses

2010-02-14T07:38:00.000-08:00

What do you do as a student or postdoc when your new technique just isn’t working? Or when your experiments just don’t work? Or when your hypothesis is consistently disproven?

Ultimately, decisions like these are up to the mentor/PI but students and postdocs need to learn how to recognize when enough is enough and go to their PI with recommendations and suggestions for Plan B.

But what if the student or postdoc’s entire situation just isn’t working? What do you do if you’re not getting the training, guidance and/or resources you need from your program, mentor or PI? What if communication with your PI is a one way street? What if you’re languishing in a situation that isn’t benefiting your career and the longer you spend there the smaller your chances become at being competitive for a better position or situation?

As a student, you have your committee and various advisors you can turn to but as a postdoc, you are often on your own.

So as a postdoc in an increasingly untenable position, what do you do? How long do you stay in the hope that things will get better? Until one more assay is completed? Until another experiment is finished? Another month? Another year? Another two years? At what point does it become past the point of no return? And at what point is it materially hurting your career to stay? And how do you explain the lack of publications and/or recommendation letter to future employers?

Being in these types of situations suck, particularly as a postdoc, and there’s often little you can do to extricate yourself from this type of black hole. But how you handle it could potentially be perceived as an indication of your ability to function as a PI yourself.

As a PI, one needs to be able to recognize when a student just doesn’t have the chops to make it as a scientist, when a postdoc can’t function independently in the lab or when a trainee needs more intense guidance or mentoring. Or when the trainee would be more suited to work in a different lab or in a completely different area. Or when a project has come to a dead end. Or when a grant proposal just isn’t coming together and has no chance of being funded.

Granted, some PIs are fucking clueless and are happy to exploit trainees in order to serve their own selfish interests. However, I would argue that recognizing when there’s a problem and figuring how to either fix it or terminate the situation is a critical element of being (or learning to be) a non-fucknut PI.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Ongoing bureaucratic bullshit

2010-02-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

I’ve been living in the US for FIVE YEARS, have a mortgage, a relatively well-paying job, pay taxes, own my car outright, have a credit card that I pay off every month, no felony charges or convictions, my work permit is in order ... and after 5 years with the same cell phone carrier, I need to switch to another carrier due to a lack of signal where I live ... AND I CAN’T APPLY FOR A CELL PHONE PLAN ONLINE.

What the fucking fuck? I had to go through this shit when I first arrived in the US but FIVE FUCKING YEARS LATER??

I guess I should have known after having to present myself and my passport at the bank to open a savings account when moving to New City. And then had to show my passport, work permit, work contract and US entry visa to apply for a mortgage.

It’s a fucking cell phone. What’s the fucking problem? I didn’t even have to do anything special to get a drivers license in New State. But I can’t get a new cell phone plan without speaking to the fucknuts in person. And I’m guessing there’s a special “application fee” I’ll have to pay ... that’s what happened last time.

Stupidity.

The tenure track and the economic downturn

2010-02-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

Had an interesting conversation earlier this week regarding where the bar for tenure should be set for those young ‘uns like me who are starting out on the tenure track at a time when costs are rising and paylines are plummeting. (For the record, the conversation was with a full Professor who brought up the topic and who is adamant that the bar needs to be lowered when the current crop of junior faculty go up for tenure.)

As with a lot of TT peeps doing basic science research at R1 schools, a large part of my being granted tenure will be determined by my ability to secure significant extramural funding ... even though I’m in a very small, non-research-intensive program and none of my tenured colleagues received substantial funding at any point in their careers. The expectation is essentially that I will need an R01 and publications but a very senior and experienced colleague seemed confident that in the current economic climate one or two smaller awards (not necessarily continuing) would probably be sufficient by the time I apply for tenure. I still have a few more years before crunch time but my mind is always mulling over how I’m going to make things work with dwindling funds and paylines. I like to be prepared.

The topics that were touched on during the discussion included whether the bar should be set a tad lower for my peers and I than it was for recently-tenured or soon-to-be tenured colleagues. And the very real prospect of myself and most of my newbie peers being denied tenure due to frighteningly low paylines and essentially wiping out a whole generation of promising faculty members.

I know there are going to be some Prof Greybeards and Bluehairs out there who still insist that things were harder back in the day when they had to prepare manuscripts on slates and walk 20 miles to work in 10 foot high snowdrifts with no shoes. But where was the bar set at that point? And where was it 10 years ago? Five years ago? Where should it be now relative to those? Is it fair to judge success based on a goal that gets more and more difficult to reach as the economy slides into oblivion? Is it fair to ask for leniency when predecessors may not have had that opportunity? Are these questions merely the whining of a newbie PI who is wringing her hands in despair after the week from hell?

Thoughts?

Why Fridays suck ass

2010-02-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

Fuck me. I love Fridays. I look forward to Fridays. Fridays are the best day of the work week. But not today. Today totally sucked ass. How is it possible for a day to go from a fabulous morning to an absolutely shitty, miserable, execrable afternoon?

Things started ok. Got a bunch of lectures and labs prepared for the coming weeks, had a great meeting with some of my undergrads, caught up with a supercool colleague I hadn’t seen all week, got some positive feedback from Dept Chair on some stuff I’m organizing, saw some awesome new data from the lab ... and then the shit hit the fan ... and then splattered far and wide.

The first indication that things were going badly was the news that someone from Big Money Program had ordered MY lab’s phone to be disconnected and that the lab peeps had only discovered it when they went to make a call. What the fucking fuck? Don’t know why the fuck Big Money Program thinks our phone is any of their goddamned business as the university pays for the costs associated with the line and the number we use has NEVER EVER been associated with Big Money Program.

Grrrr.

And then I was informed that Big Money Program wants me to teach for them in the fall semester as per a deal they had arranged with our previous Dean. Not sure how that’s going to work out because I’m already overcommitted in the fall with my own department. Dept Chair plans to kick some heads next week and get it sorted out.

Grrrr.

Oh, but then things got worse. Much, much worse.

The 6 month old computer in the lab that runs Big Essential Machine died. Just when Postdoc went to use it. And when Research Assistant was waiting to use it.

Fuck.

Our IT Guru drove down from the other campus, spent several hours shaking his head in amazement at the computer which he had in pieces by this time and after much tinkering finally pronounced that the hard drive was deader than dead.

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

Oh, but it gets even better than that. The hard drive is so fucking dead that it doesn’t look like any data can be recovered. The lab peeps had backed up a small amount of stuff on their desktop computers and we were only days away from having our new fancy schmancy backup server hooked up. Of all the motherfucking luck.

And then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, my iPhone died. I only charged the fucker last night and now it won’t hold a charge any longer than an hour. Shit.

And the only saving grace after all of that misery? I just had a fortune cookie message that says “you will soon have the opportunity to improve your finances.”

Hmmm ... hopefully that means my NIH grant will be funded.

I’m glad this goddamned day is over. I’m going to my happy place and plan to pretend that today never happened. And when I wake up, the data will all be on the computer, Big Money Program will have gone and fucked themselves, my iPhone will be working perfectly and my grant will be funded. And pigs will be flying past my bedroom window.

Going for broke

2010-02-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

Ordered the components for Sweet But Complicated And Expensive Equipment today. Sigh. This is the last major bit of equipment I can afford to buy with my startup funds. If my trainees don’t crank out supercool data with this stuff asap, I’m screwed.

That is all.

Data overload

2010-01-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

In between being stricken with a very nasty stomach bug and gingerly trying to nurse my body back to health, having a workload that just seems to get bigger by the day and recently having to pull an almost-all-nighter at work to help some colleagues out of a massive and potentially catastrophic jam, I just haven’t had time to finish the rest of the posts I’d started on the stuff that new TT peeps need to know. I’ll get around to it when things settle down.

Part of the problem is that I’m finding myself overloaded by technology that seems to be burying me. I blog; read other blogs; keep in touch with friends and family via email, Facebook, Skype and texts; communicate with students and colleagues using email, phone and Skype; spend all day tapping away on my work computer writing grants, papers, IACUC submissions, lectures and labs; listen to music online; and so on.

I eat breakfast while reading and responding to overnight emails from family, friends, colleagues, collaborators and students in the land far, far away and catching up on blog reading. By the time I get to work, my inbox is full again. I eat lunch catching up various internet news sites and eat dinner while managing my finances online and reading and responding to emails that I didn’t get to during the day. When I’ve finished eating, I’ve scarcely enough energy to lie on the couch before it’s time to go to bed.

I’ve been trying to restrict my online access at home but it’s so ingrained in my everyday life that it’s almost impossible to do so. The cell phone reception in my house is so bad that I’ve had to route my calls through Skype until my cell phone contract expires in a couple of months which ties me to the internet just that little bit more. The only thing to which I have not yet surrendered is a data plan on my iPhone. I think that would push me over the edge. It’s only a matter of time.

Sigh.

My synapses just aren't getting enough downtime.

I’m going outside to get some fresh air.

Stuff new/prospective TT faculty need to know. Part 2: Negotiating

2010-01-20T18:46:00.000-08:00

Weeeeeeeeeee ... you survived the interview and sucked up to the search committee sufficiently to have been asked to submit a wish list of demands for the position. Congrats! The thing that you need to remember is that the search committee chose you for a reason. They want you to bring your particular area(s) of expertise to their department so that they can all bask in your glory. And if you’re in the sciences, they want you to get fucktons of grant funding so that the indirect costs you bring in can pay for better food at the annual faculty retreat. This is important to remember when negotiating your package. Remember that they want you and it is in their best interests to give you what you need (within reason) in order for you to succeed. They are looking to make a long-term investment in you so you should be thinking about what you’ll need to succeed over the next 3-5 years and beyond, not what it would take to get your first bit of data.

At some point in the process, hopefully the Chair (or someone) would have given you some indication as to how much they are prepared to invest for your startup, salary, etc. It’s good to know what they’re thinking as you don’t want to lowball your first offer but you also don’t want to ask for squillions of dollars if they’re only thinking in terms of hundreds or thousands.

Take your time to put together a concise itemized list of demands that, at the very least, should include the items listed below. Run the list by a trusted mentor before you send it to make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything and that you’re not asking for stupid things (they won’t give you the 100” flat screen tv and surround sound unit for your office, regardless of how well you phrase the request).

The Chair and the Dean (and whoever else might be involved) will then chat about your request, decide on what they will/won’t agree to and will come back with a counteroffer that may or may not be in writing. Again, take your time to think about their offer, talk it over with someone you trust who can guide you through and then either make a counteroffer of your own or accept the terms if you’re happy with all of them. If they are completely clueless and are offering far below anything that you consider to be reasonable for you to be able to do your work, reconsider whether this is a place that will support you as a new faculty member.

If you have another offer already in writing, don’t be afraid to use it as a bargaining tool. You can be as magnanimous as you like about your science but you also need to look after your best interests. After all, this isn’t a carebear’s fucking tea party.

Once everyone has settled on things, a formal letter of offer (ala contract) will be sent to you. Make sure you read it thoroughly, note if anything is incorrect (double check the decimal points and the zeros) and only sign it if you’re happy with everything. The most important thing is to get everything in writing. Don’t take the Chair’s or the Dean’s word for it that you’ll get a summer salary or that you won’t have to teach for the first two years. GET IT IN WRITING. Was that clear enough? No? I’ll say it again just to make sure. GET IT IN WRITING. Everything.

Ok, now to the nitty gritty stuff. These are the things that I had to negotiate and that were in my contract. They may differ between schools, fields and individuals so I’m sure that others will chip in with stuff I’ve missed.

1. Salary
Do you know the difference between hard money and soft money positions? [Edit: clearly I didn't write it very clearly so the delightful PP clarified this distinction for me:]

Hard-money versus soft-money only refers to whether the institution has an obligation to pay your salary regardless of whether you are successful at supporting your salary with grants. Some hard-money faculty are in Schools of Arts & Sciences where 9 months of their salary is paid by the university, ostensibly for their teaching. Other hard-money faculty are in medical schools, where they are paid a twelve-month salary, but where they may still be expected to support anywhere between 60% and 85% of their salary from their grants. However, if these hard-money medical school faculty fail to support the expected percentage of their salary, the institution is still obligated to pay their salary.

Now how much do you think you’re worth? If your chromosomes are all of the X variety, which is clearly the more superior option, there’s a fair chance that you will underestimate how much a school is willing to pay you for your awesomeness. Not sure about the ballpark? Did the Chair give you an indication of the salary range when you were interviewing? If so, start at the top. If not, there are a few places you can look as the salary range for an assistant professor will vary between fields, institutions, location, etc; the AAUP website is a place to start but remember that the assistant professor category includes everyone from 1st year to about-to-be-tenured faculty. If the school is a public institution, the salaries will most likely be available either in hard copy in the library or online. Look at what the current assistant professors in the dept are making but, more importantly, look at what the most recently hired assistant prof is getting and what the associate profs earn. Why? It’s called salary compression. Schools will typically offer more money to prospective hires than existing assistant profs and tenured associate profs in order to get the best and the brightest new faculty. It will totally suck when you’re a 4th year assistant prof or tenured associate prof to know that new hires will earn more than you but that’s what happens.

Any future salary raises will be determined by your starting salary so you want that to be as high as possible. And if, after a couple of years, you decide to pursue a position elsewhere, they’ll usually want to know how much you’ve been earning so that they can lowball you.

Ask your postdoc mentor for advice. Ask any current faculty member for advice. Don’t shortchange yourself because you will only screw yourself over. You can always ask for a raise later on but it probably won’t happen. Above all else, when you’ve come to a mutual agreement about salary, make sure you GET IT IN WRITING.

2. Summer salary
If you’re negotiating for a 9 month hard money position and research is expected, ~~demand~~ respectfully request a summer salary for at least the first few years. Be firm and don’t back down on this unless absolutely necessary. If it comes down to a choice between a summer salary for you or hiring a postdoc, then you’ll have to make a decision. If a summer salary is agreed upon, make sure you GET IT IN WRITING.

3. Teaching duties
Ask to postpone your teaching for at least a year or two or, at the very least, insist that you need a reduced teaching load for the first couple of years. If you’re expected to establish an independent research program, loading you up with a buttload of teaching from day one is counterproductive. Whatever you negotiate, GET IT IN WRITING, including the maximum number of credits you are expected to teach per semester and when that is to begin.

Another thing to consider is in which program you will be teaching. Where is your startup money coming from? I found out well into my first year that another program had contributed to my startup funds and they were demanding that I begin teaching for them asap. My response? It’s not in my contract. That seems to have averted the argument for the time being.

4. Salaries for lab peeps
If you’re a basic scientist, you should definitely ask for money to pay for technicians and/or postdocs in your lab. Look at the department and see how many labs currently employ full time people. If there are none, there’s a very good chance Dept Chair and Dean are going to chortle when they see your request for salaries for 10 full time personnel for 5 years. What is the grad program situation in the department? Maybe one or two postdocs in addition to stipends for a few grad students would be more appropriate.

Make sure you include benefits for the lab peeps in your list of demands. The school’s HR or grants and contracts office should have an online list somewhere of the percent you need to factor in for benefits. Also look on their website for a list of salary ranges for research assistants, technicians, postdocs, etc. If in doubt with the postdoc salaries, use the NRSA guidelines as this will often be higher than what a school recommends.

Whatever you agree to, make sure you GET IT IN WRITING. All of it. Including the benefits.

5. Lab and office space
Are you getting your own lab or will you be forced to share with someone else? What is the norm in the department? What is the research space like? Do all of the PIs share one big common lab? Do each have their own lab with doors that can be locked to keep everyone else out? How big are the labs? How much space do you need? Ask for as much as possible. Again, as the new shining star, they are looking to give you as much as possible in order to get you to sign on the dotted line but it’s also in the school’s best interest to ensure that you have the tools you need to rocket into the sciencey stratosphere.

Do you plan to purchase Big Fancy Machine that needs its own room? Ask for an extra room. Do you need cell culture hoods in your lab but none of the labs have them? Put it on your list of demands and ask that they be installed prior to your start date. These will be essential to your work and without them you won’t succeed. Are there vacuum and gas lines where you need them? They are always on the opposite side of the room when you go to use them. How much desk space is in the lab? If there is none, request a separate office for your tech and postdoc. If the lab peeps don’t have a non-bench space in which to do their non-benchy duties, then that will impact on their ability to make you look like a rock star.

Do all the faculty get their own office? They typically do but GET IT IN WRITING. You don’t want to find yourself sharing the grad students’ office or the closet where the adjuncts are ~~hidden~~ housed. It’s not conducive to either your short- or long-term success.

GET IT IN WRITING. All of it. If space has been identified, make sure the room number and square footage appears on your contract. Seem like a trivial issue? Sure it does now, but wait until you arrive only to find that a senior prof decided to take your allocated lab and generously left you the one with no natural light, no space and no existing infrastructure. This shit happens. Trust nobody. GET IT IN WRITING.

6. Equipment
What will you absolutely need to do your work? Now what would you really, really like but don’t think you could possibly afford? Is there a core facility or common-use equipment that would suffice? Where is it? How much does it cost to use? How old is it? As a regular user, will you expected to contribute to ongoing service contract costs? List all of your needs in detail on your list of demands. Be specific about what you need, why you need it, how much it will cost and the benefit it will bring to the department. Hint at future collaborations with existing faculty to maximize your chances of success. If you purchase equipment from your startup funds, will you automatically have to make it available to everyone? I’ve heard of new PIs buying stuff only to have it monopolized by senior faculty. If it will fit in your lab, plan to put it in there and lock the door. Make it clear that YOU need this stuff for YOUR work.

Is there any equipment already in the lab? Will it stay? You’d be surprised at how quickly things disappear once you’ve signed on the dotted line. GET IT IN WRITING.

What about standard things like fridges, freezers, -80 freezers, water purifiers? Don’t assume that they will be in the lab. Ask for them and insist that their costs are included in your startup funds or that the contract specifically states that they will be provided at no additional cost. Why would I suggest this? Yes, that’s right ... someone tried to screw me over this very issue. But, AHAAA!! My contract very clearly stated that my lab was to include a fridge/freezer and a -80 freezer. Lo and behold, these items appeared a couple of days after I waved my contract in the air and stamped my foot. My advice? GET IT IN WRITING.

7. Start date
Make sure everyone is in agreement about the date you will start work and GET IT IN WRITING. If you’re from another country and are on a work visa, this is absolutely essential as you typically can’t change the dates once the paperwork has been started. If they want you to start the week before the Fall semester begins (this is typical for 9 month appointments) but you would prefer to delay your start for whatever reason, be very specific about when you want to start and why. If they want you and only you for this position, they’ll bend to your request.

8. Reviews, tenure clock, and timeline for use of startup funds
Make sure the schedule for your official reviews is on your contract IN WRITING. The semester and year in which you will be considered for tenure should also be outlined in addition to when you can expect to be granted tenure. If you’re not already aware, regular reviews are fairly standard - for example, annual reviews, a big review at the end of the 3rd year and application for tenure at the end of the 5th or 6th year. This can vary between institutions though and also whether you are already in a TT position at another school.

The one thing that will probably not appear on your contract is the explicit list of expectations for tenure. Good luck trying to find it. You’ll probably see a generic statement saying that tenure is contingent upon establishment of an independent research program. I’m not sure there’s much you can do about this in terms of negotiating the terms of the position because the line in the sand always seems to be moving and what’s considered necessary for tenure today might be different to what you are measured against 6 years down the track.

Also make sure that any deadlines for expiry of unused startup funds is IN WRITING. If you have 3 years to use up the money, make sure it’s spelled out clearly. If this is a school policy, ask what happens if you haven’t used all the cash by that time. They probably won’t put it in writing, but unofficially they’ll probably say it’s ok ... at least that’s the case for me.

9. Moving expenses
Unless the school is in the same town/city in which you currently reside, it is reasonable to expect that they will pay to move you, your family and your worldly possessions. I was given a choice between moving myself ala U-Haul and being reimbursed, or having a full service move in which I did nothing myself. Being the lazy person that I am and the fact that I didn't have anybody to help me unload at the other end, I chose the latter and didn’t pay a single cent. I was moving from one corner of the US to the diagonally opposite one and chose to drive my car myself so I was reimbursed for mileage but not hotels; this actually worked out well because the tiny car I had at the time ran on air, I usually stay at fleabag hotels anyway and I got to have a fantastic road trip. Also ask them to pay for a short trip to the area to organize accommodation prior to moving. Asking for ten round trip flights in first class will get you nowhere but it’s reasonable to request at least one round trip journey plus hotels, rental car and per diems in order to find somewhere to live. If you have a significant other, ask to have their trip covered too. The school will usually have a standard policy about moving so be sure to ask what it is and make sure you GET IT IN WRITING.

That’s about all I can think of right now and I’m sure I missed something important. Make sure you consult with someone who can mentor you through this process - someone who isn’t connected to the school that wants you (eg postdoc advisor, grad advisor, etc). You need to make sure that you don’t get screwed but that you also get what you need in order to succeed. Ask for more than you think they’re willing to give but have a line below which you absolutely cannot go. Don’t be afraid to stand your ground but remember to be reasonable. Asking for a salary that is higher than the Dean’s won’t get you anywhere.

If you have a competing offer from another school, USE IT. This is probably your biggest ace in negotiating. Just don’t overplay your hand. Again, remember to be firm and reasonable.

It’s tempting to take the first offer but remember that this is a long-term commitment for both you and the school. If they’re not even coming close to providing a decent salary and/or a reasonable startup package based on your particular needs, think long and hard about whether you will be able to succeed in such an environment and whether they are really interested in investing in you. In this rough economic climate, you may not have a choice but if you do be sure to make the most of it.

The take home messages for negotiating:
1. If you don’t ask for what you need/want, you won’t get it.
2. Get everything in writing. EVERYTHING.

Stuff new/prospective TT faculty need to know. Part 1: Money

2010-01-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

I know that several bloggers and regular commenters have applied for or are planning to apply for TT positions so I figured that this was a good time for a series of posts outlining things that you need to be aware of before you take the leap into academia. Things that you are expected to know. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. I don’t know who “they” are exactly but they are right. I knew about some of this stuff but didn’t really fathom just how much I didn’t know and just how much stuff really costs.

There are two main financial issues that TT faculty need to know about: startup funds and salary. Pfffft, I hear you whisper. I know all about that stuff. Aaaaah, but do you really understand how it works? You may have a gazillion years of sciencey training under your belt but do you really understand budgets and how far they can/cannot stretch? Some recent emails and other discussions with some of my pre-TT bloggy buds suggests maybe not.

1. Startup funds
Newbie TT faculty startup funds are highly dependent on the field, institution and person. My work is split across two fields and my primary appointment is in a field that often doesn’t do a lot of basic science so startup funds are typically very low. For example, several of my friends’ startup funds were only 20% of what I was given. Yes, that’s right: 20%. They can’t afford to hire a postdoc and can’t afford to buy major equipment. They are essentially operating with an empty lab or within someone else’s lab until they can get their own external funding. The other field in which I work is pretty heavy on the basic sciences and the startup packages are typically much, much higher than what I received which means that TT faculty who are employed directly in that area are able to get going very quickly. I’m very fortunate that I had a Dean and Chair that are/were basic scientists and recognized that awesome science often comes with a hefty price tag. I received a package that was great from some perspectives but not so great if you look at it from others.

So what comes out of your startup funds?

Well, that largely depends on what you negotiate. Do you have to pay for salaries and/or benefits of anyone you employ? Student stipends and/or tuition? Do you get an additional allowance for equipment purchases? While $100K can seem like an astronomical number to some, that will really only be enough to employ one postdoc for one year and maybe buy one moderately-large-ish piece of equipment along with a few animals. $200K might double all of this but if you want/need bigger lab toys, transgenic animals, per diems, etc, it might still only get you one postdoc for one year.

And if you inherit a completely empty lab like I did, you’ll need to spend a ton of cash on basic stuff like beakers, flasks, bottles, weigh boats, pipettes, mini-centrifuges, electrophoresis rigs, etc. Each of these items are relatively inexpensive but the costs of buying all of them in one hit starts to add up very, very quickly. Throw in delivery charges for everything. $50 here. $30 there. New primary antibodies? $350 each plus $50 delivery. How many antibodies do you need? One? Ten? Watch the dollars fly out the door. And don’t forget you need secondary antibodies. And reagents. And tubes. And slides. What about basic chemicals? Any EDTA on your shelves? NaCl? PBS? You may have to buy everything.

Does your lab have any existing computers? Yes? Excellent. How old are they? When they take 30 minutes to boot up and are still running off Win95, you might need to update them. How many computers will your lab need for everyday work? One? Two? Three? What about computers to run the equipment in the lab? Can you just buy a bottom of the line Mac or PC for those or will you need to shell out more dollars to increase the processing power? What software does your department and/or school have an institutional license for? I don’t have to pay for MS Office but have had to buy software for stats, referencing, etc, as they aren’t covered under the institutional or departmental umbrellas.

Ok, what about services such as disposal of biohazardous waste, laundering of lab coats, removal of hazardous chemicals, leasing of gas cylinders? Who will have to pay for those?

Need to use a core facility on campus? How much does it cost per hour? How many hours will you need to use it? Who’s paying for that? My guess is that it’s coming out of your startup funds.

Do you have access to common-use equipment? You do? Excellent. How old is it? How many people use it? Is there a service contract on it and, if so, are you expected to contribute to the cost? Is it located in a common lab or will you have to ask for permission to use it if it’s located in someone else’s lab?

And how many meetings do you plan to attend each year? How many people from your lab will go? Who’s paying for airfares, hotels, registration and per diems? My department gives faculty a moderate annual allowance that will essentially cover one out of town meeting that requires flights. Anything above that has to come out of my research budget or my own pocket. The cost of sending the lab peeps will either come out of my research monies, my pocket or theirs. Students can get a tiny bit of funding for travel but I’ll have to pay for most of it.

Getting freaked out yet? But wait, there’s more.

2. Salaries
The majority of TT faculty are on 9 month appointments and your actual monthly salary will depend on what your school does about doling that money out. Some will average it out over 12 months so that you get paid over the summer. Others, like mine, will pay you from mid-August to mid-May and then you’re on your own for 3 months. I still pay 12 months of health insurance though with the cost of covering the summer months taken out of the last pay of the academic year in May. Other stuff like mortgages, utility bills, etc, will have to come out of money that I save during the 9 months.

If I want to be paid over the summer, I have to find a way to get the money out of my research budget. As part of my contract negotiations for my position, I receive a full summer salary for the first two years. That means that I have one more summer on full pay after which time my annual salary will decrease by 25% back to the base 9 month salary. As I’m on a work visa that is tied to my faculty position, I can’t go and work at a summer camp for 3 months or teach at a community college. The only way I can legally earn the extra pay is by getting a shitload of funding and paying myself out of those. Or going without.

I also have to find a way to pay the salaries of the lab peeps. Luckily my startup deal means that I don’t pay the benefits for my postdoc if I pay her salary from my startup funds but the school will only pay up to a certain amount (equivalent to about one year of benefits) then I’ll have to pay for that too. Each school pays a different amount of the salary in benefits but you can bet that it’s far more than you realize.

I pay the hourly wage of my research assistant as well as her benefits. When she transitions to the graduate program, I’ll have to pay for her summer stipend otherwise she may be forced to find full time work so that she can pay for the roof over her head and feed her family. And those undergrads that will be rotating through my lab over the summer? Yep, I have to pay them too. And any other grad students? Yep, summer salary for them as well.

So how much do I pay my lab peeps?

I pay my postdoc more than the NRSA guidelines. Not much more, but a couple of thousand above. The minimum salary set at my school is below the NRSA. Why don’t I pay her well-above the NRSA? I can’t afford to. Well, that's not strictly true. I can pay her more but if I increase her salary by as little as 10%, then instead of guaranteeing her employment for 2 years, I would only be able to do so for just over 18 months.

I pay my research assistant the going hourly rate which, while more than the minimum wage, is still less than she could make waiting tables when you factor in tips. I would like to pay her more but her wage also adds up over the course of a year. If I pay her 10% more, I would probably only be able to take on one undergrad student over the summer.

Is it just junior faculty on limited startup funds that have to make these kinds of decisions? Ummm, no. We recently had a debate about this conundrum and this came from my good buddy and relatively well-funded, PhysioProf, in response to a fellow blogger asking if her PI would go broke by paying her an extra $10K per year:

NIH has played the game for over a decade of inexorably raising the NRSA salary scale--which is what the majority of post-docs are paid as a matter of institutional policy even when not on NRSA fellowships--while inexorably cutting overall R01 budgets via administrative reductions in both competing and non-competing grant awards (which have been *compounded* reductions for the last four or five years in the case of the latter) and by not increasing the maximum modular budget. So no, there absolutely is no money available to "throw an extra $10,000" to every post-doc in a laboratory. If I "throw an extra $10,000" to each of my post-docs, two of them are going to have to be terminated to pay for the salary increases of the rest.

So, let’s look at the worst case scenario - what will happen if I don’t get significant funding in the next year and/or if my postdoc isn’t able to get a fellowship to cover her own salary?

Well, we’ll be in big trouble. I might be able to grovel to the Dean and ask for assistance but given that Really Big U was on the receiving end of several major budget cuts last year and is looking to close programs, the chances of them investing more money in me are slim. To keep her on, I would have to cut costs somewhere else which means firing the research assistant, not taking undergrads into paid summer internships and not paying the grad students a summer stipend.

And what happens if I can get some funding in the next year but not a shitload?

My first priority is to pay the lab peeps’ salaries/stipends because without them the lab will grind to a halt. Then we’ll need to pay for animals, consumables, reagents, etc. The last priority will be to pay for my own summer salary.

Yes, that’s right. It’s highly likely that I’ll be working 3 months for free next year while my lab peeps get paid. Why don’t I just take those 3 months and head off on an extended vacation? If I did that, who would keep an eye on the lab? Who’s going to write grants? Who’s going to keep the wolves at bay? This isn’t me being magnanimous and taking one for the team. I will be very, very cranky if I don’t have a summer salary. If we get to this point though, I won’t have a choice.

I can hear the grad students and postdocs whispering again. But don’t assistant professors earn a shitload of money on their 9 month salaries anyway? Surely they should just stop whinging about working for free over the summer.

I’ll be honest - yes, I earn more than I did as a postdoc. If I get a full 12 month pay, I earn about double what I did during my postdoc. With the 9 month salary, it’s only about 50% more that my postdoc wage. I can live on that pretty easily but it’s not really much compensation for completing 13 years of higher education and a 4 year postdoc as well as having the added responsibility of ensuring the well-being of lap peeps, making sure the research is ticking along, teaching, doing all of the servicey-type stuff, etc.

A little more complicated than just doling money out for reagents, huh?

Award speeches for scientists

2010-01-17T18:53:00.000-08:00

The awards season for the entertainment industry is well underway and Sunday night television is awash with glitzy events, feigned looks of surprise and long gushing speeches.

I know that we’re in hard economic times and that budgets are tight, but imagine what it would be like if your department had an awards ceremony.

What awards would be given out?

Who would win?

What sort of incoherent and teary acceptance speeches would be given?

Who would/wouldn’t be thanked in the speeches?

Who would get the drunkest before the end of the ceremony?

Who would get the inevitable but totally obligatory standing ovation?

Oh, boy! The list of things I would/wouldn’t want to see could go on forever.

I would kill to see someone accept an award at the annual faculty retreat after kissing half the room en route to the podium and start by thanking God, crying a bit, thanking her parents, failing to remember to acknowledge the trainees in her lab or the funding agency that pays for her work, but remembering to thank her high school science teacher for always believing in her.

Priceless.

I think my own acceptance speech for Most Awesome Junior Faculty Member Of All Time would be fairly simple ...

"It would be totally remiss of me if I didn't start by thanking Dept Chair, Dean and University President for hiring, and not firing, me. My wonderful students for not flaming me during class. And last, but by no means least, my trainees for doing all of the scut work so that I don't have to. I thoroughly deserve this award and look forward to winning many more."

Us versus Them

2010-01-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

One of my pet peeves in life is the insistence by some doctorate-possessing individuals that they are more knowledgeable and deserve more respect and a higher remuneration than colleagues who don’t have the obviously-very-great-distinction of holding a doctorate.

I’ve worked with several technicians and research assistants who hold bachelor’s or master’s degrees and who are unbelievably amazing at what they do. In several cases, they were the ones that kept the PI’s lab running, trained the students and postdocs, helped them write their papers, etc, often with little professional recognition. I’ve also worked with several clinical teaching faculty who are so brilliant at what they do that it blows my mind and the standard of their instruction and the quality of students they produce is simply outstanding.

In every single one of these cases, I can remember at least one occasion in which a “more qualified” individual thought it was ok to treat their non-doctorate-holding colleague like shit.

For the record, this is never ok.

I have even witnessed a PhD colleague tell his non-PhD colleague that it was grossly unfair that they received the same salary because the PhD was more qualified,* more intelligent** and did a lot more work.***

This whole Us vs Them thing is completely and utterly unacceptable. Respect has to be earned, it doesn't come with the fancy bit of paper, the stupid hat and the title.

* Depends on your definition of “more qualified” as a PhD degree with little/no relevant experience doesn’t necessarily trump a bachelor’s or master’s degree with a shitload of experience.
** Totally untrue in this instance.
*** Also totally untrue in this instance.

Dealing with time suckitude

2010-01-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

This week I’m teaching, meeting with my new teaching assistant, revamping a couple of lectures, meeting with lab peeps, doing a couple manuscript reviews, writing two grants, preparing two IACUC submissions, meeting with prospective grad students, meeting with undergrads who want to rotate through my lab, designing my lab’s webpage, attending two committee meetings, getting the specs finalized for the next big equipment purchase, talking to my former postdoc mentor about collaborating on an upcoming grant, analyzing some recently acquired data to complete a long-overdue study from my postdoc ... ummm ... that’s all I can think of right now but I’m sure that there’s more.

For the first time in forever I’ve had my office door closed so that people won’t be tempted to just drop in and chat.

Sigh.

There’s simply not enough time in each day. What to do ...

I need to sleep, eat, exercise and bathe in addition to fitting in all the work on my to-do list. Something’s got to give. I can’t do without sleep, food or exercise and I already work while eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. There's no other option. I’m going to have to stop bathing.

It’s time to stink it up, people. Be thankful that you don’t work anywhere in my general vicinity.

Hardcopies of grants in the computer age

2010-01-11T09:44:00.000-08:00

Aaaaaaaargh. What sort of backward funding agency requires hardcopies of grants anymore?

Obviously the one I'm applying to otherwise this rant wouldn't exist.

This agency wants all possible (and impossible) permutations of this application*:

- 5 copies of the entire application
- 3 copies of the front page
- 6 copies of the 1st, 2nd and 10th page
- 2 copies of the letters of support
- eleventyfucktillion copies of the biosketch, specific aims, bibliography and a thumbprint of the applicant
- a letter from the applicant's mother stating that she approves of the content within the grant and that neither she nor the applicant's cat wrote any part of it

Furthermore, they require that the entire application is bound using paperclips** but that the letters of support can be stapled together***.

Sigh.

Would it be that bad if all of the reviewers received electronic copies of the entire application?

Does it really matter?

Really?

* Note: some of these aren't actually required and have been totally fabricated by the author of this blog.
** They don't state what size of paperclip is acceptable. I'm hoping that the standard size is ok.
*** I'm not sure if they should they be diagonally, horizontally or vertically aligned as it isn't specified in the instructions.

Graduate education and the economic crisis

2010-01-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

Saw this article in the NYT this morning about the fact that applications to law and graduate programs has jumped this year.

Why is this occurring?

The people interviewed in the article seem to be of the opinion that individuals that are more highly qualified have an increased chance of gaining employment over those with undergrad degrees:

I’ve realized that it will make me more marketable and open more doors

With every job going to someone who has more experience and who is willing to take a pay cut to have a job, I’m left with what amounts to slim pickings.

Is this really the case, though?

My first thought in response to the NYT article was that the job market is so poor that people are looking to hide in grad school until the economic crisis blows over.

With no income, I’ve turned to the idea of higher education.

But my second thought was that there may be a perception that those professions that require graduate education may be immune from economic hardships. And those of us in science and/or academia know that that certainly isn’t the case.

I also find it interesting that this increase in applications is occurring despite increased tuition charges.

It’s an interesting phenomenon whichever way you look at it.

Faculty websites

2010-01-06T08:24:00.000-08:00

Our department has a dismal excuse for a website which is almost impossible to navigate, the information is outdated and the links to/from the main gateway pages are all broken. But nobody seems to think this is an issue. Except me.

Also, none of the faculty have individual pages which I think is a Very Bad Thing in terms of visibility, recruitment, etc. But nobody seems to think this is an issue. Except me.

Anyway, I’m in the process of designing my own page and also a separate set of pages for my lab. I know the type of stuff I want in both of these but I was looking for feedback from both current and prospective students and postdocs as well as other faculty as to what you look for if/when you go searching for faculty/lab pages.

Students
When you’re hunting for prospective mentors, what type of stuff do you want to see on their sites? Do you just want a list of degrees, publications and a couple of keywords that describe the PI’s research or do you want a little bit more?

If/when you join a lab, do you want your project/information/photo included in the lab page?

Faculty
When you google other faculty, what types of things do you hope to find on their site?

Do you look through faculty websites when reviewing grants? If so, why?

Any/all suggestions and/or comments are very welcome. If you have a page that you really like that you don’t want to link to here, particularly if it’s your own, feel free to email me and point out why you think it’s stellar.

A feverish start to the spring

2010-01-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the first day back at work after spending the holiday break sleeping and eating an obscene amount of chocolate. When I dragged my sorry ass into the office yesterday after struggling to get out of bed before lunchtime, my calendar for the Spring semester was bare except for a few holidays and a couple of grant deadlines. Tonight, a mere 36 hours later, the calendar is suddenly chocked full of meetings, classes, meetings, meetings, stupid meetings, office hours, really stupid meetings.

Grrrr.

I did stumble across another small grant opportunity for which I have a proposal that can be recycled with only mild tweaking. Sigh. That makes two grants due in the next few weeks. And the teaching semester starts next week.

Heavy sigh.

After feeling more than a little overwhelmed at the sudden calendar chaos, I was on my way out the door this evening when I was inadvertently dragged into a discussion that quickly turned into a two hour argument about why a committee on which I am a (fairly silent and not-very-valued) member made Decision X and Choice Y.

Grrrr.

The only saving grace today was discovering that someone had left a large tin of Belgian chocolates in the lunch room. I assumed that they were for everyone. It’s a bit late now as the secretary and I didn’t leave much for anyone else. Very tasty.

Realities

2009-12-31T21:39:00.000-08:00

It’s interesting reading some blogs written by current grad students and postdocs in which they disagree with their PI’s way of managing his/her lab and swear they would do things differently if/when they have their own lab.

I, too, had these same thoughts as a grad student and then as a postdoc and had high hopes of being able to concentrate more on the people in my lab but the reality of being a junior TT faculty member brought those hopes crashing down to earth with a thud.

With annual reviews and tenure/promotion looming on the distant horizon, the pressure is on from Day One to fill the lab with productive people and to work them to death cranking out data, publishing and getting grant funding. There’s also teaching, tons of useless committee responsibilities, grant writing, manuscript reviewing, blah, blah, blah, sucking time that could be spent with the lab peeps and helping to develop their own ideas for fanfuckingtastic projects.

The pressure on junior faculty (particularly in the sciences) to publish and get funded is immense and, as much as we want to nurture our lab peeps and look after their interests, our immediate priority is to watch our own backs and make sure we stay on track ... otherwise EVERYONE is out of a job.

Sure, you could try to buck the system as an assistant professor. Take on a couple of promising peeps in the lab, pay them what they are really worth and let them mature as scientists at their own pace. It’s what we would ALL like to do. It just isn’t practical or possible in the current system and at the assistant professor level, you have neither the time nor the money to do this.

Does this make me part of the problem? Undoubtedly, yes.

Is there anything I can do in my current position to remedy this situation? No. Not really. Not if I want to keep my job. And if I’m out of a job, everyone in my lab will be on the street.

Is there anything I could do if/when I am able to become an established PI and gain tenure? Maybe. But probably not.

The anti-stereotype

2009-12-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

It never ceases to amaze or amuse me when people are shocked and stunned to discover that I have a PhD. I guess I don’t look like I’m smart enough to be a PhD or maybe I don’t look old enough. Perhaps it’s because I don’t look or act like a scientist or academic, whatever the hell that is. I don’t wear a lab coat at the gym, don’t wear my academic robes and stupid hat when I go to the supermarket and I don’t use big sciencey words when conversing with strangers at ski resorts. The public perception of a PhD or professor is definitely not that of a chocoholic, asskicking, more-than-slightly-accident-prone outdoor junkie who would much rather be hiking, snowshoeing or climbing than stuck in a lab or teaching a class.

My new neighbors dropped by to introduce themselves a few weeks ago and were surprised to find that I was a professor at Really Big U ... the fact that I was lying on the couch wearing red flannel pyjamas at 4pm on a Friday afternoon probably didn't help.

Sleepy

2009-12-29T14:39:00.000-08:00

It’s been a pretty bumpy year for me. Teaching, setting up my lab, dealing with colleagues and grad students, traveling a gazillion miles over several different countries, a couple of surgeries, endless visits to various medical personnel, buying a house, moving, visiting family in the land far, far away, etc.

And as the year comes to a close, I am completely and utterly exhausted. I routinely require a solid 8 hours of sleep each night and that usually suffices regardless of what I’ve been doing. For the past week, I’ve been sleeping 10-12 hours each night. Age is also starting to play havoc with the normal workings of my body and I’m sure I’ve transitioned from chronic anemia to being on the verge of needing a transfusion.

A part of me is wondering why I signed up for this lifestyle. Another part of me likes the challenge and the variety. But I'm now committed to doing everything I can to make it work.

Things need to calm down next year, particularly at work, as I’m not sure my body or my sanity can take another round. Oh, who the hell am I kidding? As if anything’s going to get easier on the TT. If I could just reduce the number of medical emergencies, maybe that would suffice.

Sigh.

Tired again. Must sleep.

Tracking Santa

2009-12-24T10:33:00.001-08:00

If you (or your kids) are interested, you can track Santa’s progress here. Very amusing.

Merry Christmas, all.

Christmas plans

2009-12-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

Ok, so Christmas Day really isn’t a big thing for me. I’m an atheist so the religious significance doesn’t apply. My family were never big on Big Christmassy Celebrations and the day was usually spent being nice to each other for a couple of hours while presents were unwrapped and then going back to our regular routines. None of my family are in the US and my friends are all on the other side of the country. And this isn’t the first Christmas I will spend alone - it is probably the tenth or twelfth or something like that. For me, it’s just another day, albeit a day where eating a lot of fatty foods is accepted.

I’ve had a multitude of invitations for Christmas lunch and/or dinner at friends’ and colleagues’ houses all over the country. While I appreciate the kind gestures I really don’t want to crash anyone else’s family thing and then there’s the whole frosty introvert thing to deal with. And to be brutally honest, I’d much rather spend the day snowshoeing. And then return home to lie on the couch and eat my body weight in Doritos and/or chocolate.

However, I was informed by one of my colleagues today that I need to get used to the family-oriented lifestyle of New City and accept the fact that I should spend the day at someone’s house. Even if I really don’t want to.

I just nodded and told her I’d let her know if I decided to join her family for dinner.

I hope she isn’t holding her breath. That could end in tragedy.

The generous gift

2009-12-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

My lab is working in a field that is relatively new-ish and a couple of the key reagents we need aren't yet commercially available. So it’s time to ask the bigwigs in my field for generous gifts.

I feel like such a toadying kissass asking for this stuff.

Dear Professor Magnificent,

I am a lowly assistant professor with a limited budget and I've heard through the grapevine that you have an amazing Reagent X. I would be extremely grateful if you would be so kind and so very beneficent to even deign to consider whether you could part with the uber-precious Reagent X and send me a small portion as a generous gift. If you could do this one very small thing for me, I will forever kiss the ground on which you walk. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, PLEEEEEEEEEASE.

Thank you for not deleting this email before reading this far.

Yours most humbly and apologetically,

PiT.

The replies from the bigwigs were pretty much as expected.

No problem. My tech will send it today.

M.

Yay.

Bah humbug

2009-12-16T20:56:00.000-08:00

I just handed over more than $60 to send two small boxes of toys to the land far, far away. It’s a good thing I adore the kids that these things are going to. The rest of my family will have to be satisfied with talking to me on Christmas Day.

Blah

2009-12-14T17:42:00.000-08:00

No, I didn’t fall off the edge of the blogosphere. Been feeling kinda blah lately. I think I’m just plain worn out. Haven’t wanted to work, exercise, blog, etc. Blah.

Went crazy over Thanksgiving and overdid it with work, painting and moving, the combination of which is probably to blame for the subsequent sore throat and lethargy. Have been sleeping ok but my nocturnal jaw clenching has gotten much worse of late which has meant poor quality sleep and constant headaches. Finally saw the dentist today to get the grinding sorted out and hopefully that will help with my sleep.

Since the last grant went out last week, I’ve found myself pottering around my office not wanting to get started on anything else. Did have a somewhat exciting end to last week though as my trainees had produced the first bit of supercool data from our new study. But tonight I’m tired all over again and it’s only Monday.

Oh, and I had a birthday, too. Knowing that I’m now less than a year away from my 40th birthday probably hasn’t helped the blah.

Think I need some time off. Just have to make it through until Christmas and then I can let it all go for a week.

Blah.

Incoherent rambling

2009-12-07T15:10:00.000-08:00

I’ve submitted my last grant for the year and decided to celebrate by leaving work early in order to lie around at home and eat chocolate all afternoon.*

I can handle spending a ridiculous amount of time writing grants but what really pisses me off is having to get a multitude of letters from colleagues, advisors and mentors testifying to the fact that I am wonderful, my research is independent and I’m worthy of the money I’m asking for.

At what point does this bullshit stop? Manuscripts (theoretically) get judged based on the document submitted so why can't grants be done the same way?

Why can’t agencies and reviewers simply judge my application on its merits? Why not simply look at the science and decide if it is groundbreaking, answers an important question and addresses the funding priorities? If you have to, I guess you could sneak a peak at my biographical sketch and see if my qualifications, experience and publications are worthy of being funded by this particular mechanism. Search for me on PubMed or even Google to verify this shit if you need to. For fuck’s sake, Homeland Security has my fingerprints and a scan of my face ... why don’t you just doublecheck everything with them? They’ll tell you that I have not violated any immigration laws ... surely that’ll be almost as helpful as letters of support.

If my proposal is awesome, my biosketch is appropriate and Dept Chair has explicitly stated that I have my own space and that I am not dependent on any other faculty member, then compare my science to the other candidates on its merits, not on stupid letters from mentors and colleagues that were clearly written by me anyway.

Grrrrr.

Damn ... this chocolate is good.

* It's Monday, it's cold and I've lost a ton of weight in recent weeks.

Letters of support

2009-12-04T13:25:00.000-08:00

Writing letters of recommendation for students and trainees is usually a doddle. Writing them about yourself so that someone else can sign their name is tough.

While I know that I'm amazing and very deserving of the paltry grant I'm preparing to submit, telling the funding agency how wonderful someone else thinks I am is not easy.

This is what I'm trying to say but am struggling to put it into more grammatically appropriate terms ...

To whom it may concern,

PiT rocks the scientific world and her research is the fucking best. You should totes give her the fucking money coz she damned well deserves it and is more qualified and infinitely smarter than any of the other fuckers that are applying for this cash.

Professor Big Name.

Update

2009-12-01T20:43:00.000-08:00

Phew. The holiday season is a killer. I’ve been here and there doing all sorts of things and just haven’t had time to blog or to even read other blogs. Sigh. Where to even start?

Well, I guess I should start with the news that I bought a house. My realtor was uber-excellent as she found me the house I wanted at the price I was prepared to pay, worked with my mortgage guy to get everything done relatively quickly and certainly earned her commission. My house is small, cute and old but in great condition and just needs to be spruced up.

And then comes the fun associated with moving. Grrrrr. I’m never moving again. Ever. Where the fucking fuck did all of this shit come from? And why did I buy and/or keep 99% of it? Aaaaaargh. I managed to move all of my stuff on my own with the exception of the large bits of furniture ... I convinced a colleague's well-muscled boyfriend to “help” me with that. In reality, he did most of the work while I seemed to do little but get my fingers jammed and knees banged up. Regardless, after cleaning the house, moving everything and then cleaning my newly-vacated apartment, my body was/is aching all over, I seem to have miraculously lost the 5 extra pounds I’d gained in recent weeks and my muscles are ripped from all of the lifting and stair climbing. Makes me feel a little less guilty for not going to the gym for the past couple of weeks.

And finally, the joys of home ownership. I started on the interior painting only to discover that in the cold light of day you can see all of the bits I missed thus necessitating a second or even third coat. I successfully figured out how to hook up the washer and dryer after several trips to the hardware store to buy new hoses, electrical cords, connectors, etc; it’s good to know that troubleshooting skills can come in handy when solving mysterious leaks in the laundry. And now there’s a leak in the fucking bathroom. Sigh. I’ve given up on that one and called in a plumber to look at it tomorrow.

Goodbye money.

Tired. So very tired. And broke. So very, very broke. But at least now I don’t have to worry about losing my security deposit if I scratch a wall or back my car into the garage door.*

I have other amusing tidbits of the past few weeks but they’ll have to wait until the bruises and scratches on my hands and fingers subside as typing is rather uncomfortable at the moment.

* I haven’t done the latter yet.

Happy Turkey Day

2009-11-25T08:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve taken this week off work to attempt to decompress and plan on spending most of the time on the couch with an armful of Doritos. And I’ve decided to pass on celebrating Thanksgiving with the families of well-meaning colleagues this year in favor of some winter recreational fun.

Will have news and updates about recent events next week as I’m trying to wean myself away from my laptop over the holidays. In the meantime, for those of you in the US, have a great Turkey Day and safe travels if you’re planning to be in the air or on the roads.

The Pied Piper of Academia

2009-11-20T20:23:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure what it is about my magnetic and vibrant personality, but several of my friends’ kids think I’m amazing - this includes those here in the US as well as in the land far, far away. I don’t know if it’s because I treat them as people or if it’s because I’m the most supercool person they know ... or both. Regardless of the reasons underlying my immense popularity, these kids insist on making me a part of their lives - I am now friends with one of them on Facebook, am the emergency school contact for another, and have drawings up on my wall that a few of the others did for me.

My major hope is that my friends do not expect me to be a role model for these kids as I don’t think my penchant for contact sports, Doritos and cursing is something that one should aspire to emulate.

Sigh.

It’s difficult to be so amazing.

Eeeeew

2009-11-19T22:59:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I’d heard all of the woo and crackpot alternative remedies out there, along comes this one.

Basically, an Arsenal footballer (soccer player) busted his ankle and instead of spending 6 weeks on the sidelines healing, he has chosen to go to Serbia so that some wacko healer can massage his ankle with placenta fluid. Yes, you read that correctly - placenta fluid. Apparently this might reduce his recovery time by 2 weeks.

Hmmm ... given the choice between seeing Hot Doc or having afterbirth massaged into my injured joint, I think I know which option I’d choose.

Hooray for modern medicine and hot surgeons.

Idiot

2009-11-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

I have a PhD, my own research lab, a bunch of students that rely on me to impart my wealth of knowledge to them, I can navigate my way to and from work without getting lost and I can remember trivial conversations from many, many years ago. I know my phone number, my parents phone number, my office number, the phone number for both of the labs I had as a postdoc as well as my grad student office. I can recite my birthday as well as those of my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew, my late grandfather, several of my now-dead uncles and most of my closest friends. I can even remember the grades I got in high school for every subject back as far as the 10th grade.

But I’ve forgotten the pin number for my debit card.

Shit.

New federal breast screening guidelines

2009-11-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

Just found out about the new federal breast screening guidelines. Wow. Here is the take-home message:

the absolute risk reduction from screening ... is greater for women aged 50 to 59 years than for those aged 40 to 49 years.

Oh, boy. I’ll come back to this in a second.

Here are the rest of the nuggets from the new guidelines:

False-positive results are common with mammography and can cause anxiety and lead to additional imaging studies and invasive procedures (such as biopsy or fine-needle aspiration). ... Anxiety, distress, and other psychosocial effects can exist with abnormal mammography results but fortunately are usually transient, and some research suggests that these effects are not a barrier to screening. [emphasis added by me]

The potential harms of [Clinical Breast Examination] are thought to be small but include false-positive test results, which lead to anxiety and breast cancer worry, as well as repeated visits and unwarranted imaging and biopsies. [emphasis added by me]

Now, I completely understand that these guidelines and recommendations are the result of careful meta analyses, etc by a well-qualified bunch of people, blah, blah, blah.

However, as someone with a family history of breast cancer who, at aged 38, was told by her primary care physician that he had found two lumps during the clinical exam that he was concerned about, let me tell you this - I don’t give a FLYING FUCK about the effects that a clinical exam will have on my “anxiety and breast cancer worry.” I don’t want to find out that I have advanced cancer but that I had been spared some anxiety and worry by not having a clinical exam earlier. In fact, I was very, VERY grateful that, upon discovering the lumps, my physician quickly turned to his assistant and said “call the imaging center and schedule PiT for an immediate scan.” The mammogram and ultrasound came out to be negative but the experience has caused me to be extra vigilant when it comes to my own breast cancer screenings.

I am officially in the high risk category and have been strongly advised to have a mammogram and clinical breast exam every year.

But guess what?

As I’m not yet 40, my health insurance coverage plainly states that it “does not cover screening or preventive mammograms for women under age 40.” They will pay 90% of any diagnostic screenings though which means that my annual mammogram is covered only if my physician finds something on the clinical exam. Fanfuckingtastic.

I’ll be turning 40 next year. Gulp. Just in time for the new federal guidelines to kick in and increase the recommended screening age to 50. Brilliant. It’s a no-brainer that the health insurance companies will be clapping their hands together with glee and will increase the minimum age for which they’ll pay for screening mammograms to 50 to match the guidelines. Fuckers.

The scariest thing was this statement made by a woman who was interviewed by the NYT about raising the age to 50 ...

Personally, I’m just ecstatic to hear this ... As it happens, I’ve just taken a year off the mandatory mammograms. I absolutely hate them.

Let’s be honest: mammograms aren’t fun. Nobody likes getting up close and personal with a scanning machine and then having their breasts squashed to the thickness of a piece of paper. Breast ultrasounds aren’t fun either. I don’t particularly care to lie on a table with my breasts exposed while some strange woman moves a gel-covered probe all over them. For that matter, pap smears aren’t exactly a delightful experience. And I hate going to the dentist, too.

But I digress.

If undergoing an annual clinical breast exam and mammogram is what I have to do to ensure that any existing cancer is caught early, then that’s what needs to be done. Even if I have to pay for it myself. I've broken a couple of bones and torn several of my joints out of their sockets and then had some outrageously painful surgeries to fix them. I think I can endure the anxiety, worry and transient discomfort that comes with clinical breast exams and mammograms. I'm just grateful that I have a job that pays well enough to allow me to cover the costs of these procedures.

Critical thinking

2009-11-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

At what point does one become or develop into a critical thinker?

This question follows on from a couple of recent conversations with colleagues regarding the (apparent) need to look for critical thinking abilities in graduate students.

I think it's difficult to evaluate this in most undergrad students because there often isn't much call for critical thinking in the curriculum (or at least, not in the content/skills-driven professional degree programs). But how does one judge if a student has the capacity for critical, independent thought? Is this something that comes from experience and exposure to different ideas? Is this something that can be taught? Can it be learned? Do you either have critical thinking skills or you don't? If a student appears to be bright but potentially lacking in the ability to think critically, should that preclude this student's acceptance into a grad program where these skills could be developed?

Thoughts?

The importance of peers in grad school

2009-11-16T08:05:00.000-08:00

As I slowly build my research program and choose students to work in my lab, I’ve been cognizant of how important peers can be for grad students and postdocs. Abel Pharmboy commented that he wished he’d had more camaraderie in his grad student lab which made me remember how my peers were an integral part of my own grad school lab and office and just how important the interactions with my fellow students turned out to be.

I shared a grad office with nine people and even though students come and go, the same nine people were there for the majority of my time in grad school. We had all come from similar undergrad degree programs. Several of us had the same advisor and were all working in the same general field. We were all working on different projects: some qualitative, some quantitative; some clinical, some basic. We all had different skills and abilities in the lab. We all had different career plans and were in grad school for different reasons. The diverse arrange of personalities, knowledge, work ethics, ages and idiosyncrasies in our office was hilarious, frustrating, annoying and wonderful and we became one big, ugly family.

The importance of these individuals in my life both during and since grad school cannot be overestimated.

If I didn’t know something or had a question about whether an idea was crap or not, throwing it out to the room usually elicited several opinions - albeit brutally honest opinions at times - and often sparked discussions and/or arguments that lasted for days. My officemates read and critically evaluated my manuscripts and thesis before they went to my advisor. They were my first brutally critical audience when I was practicing for my proposal and when I was gearing up for my first oral conference presentation before I inflicted my talks on my advisor. They were the first ones to give me a hug the day I found out my mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They helped me continue with my animal studies and lab work after I had my first major shoulder surgery so that I didn’t lose momentum with my studies. They talked me out of murdering my/our advisor after he insisted that my proposal document needed a major rewrite five minutes before it was printed.

To this day, I still consider several of these people to be family.

I think it’s easy to underestimate the value of having peers at both the grad and postdoc levels. While two students will undoubtedly be more work for me, I think it’s worth the gamble as it could be very, very beneficial for the students which will, in turn, be good for me, too.

Cage fighting and equality in science

2009-11-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

While pondering a question posted by PLS about whether he should accept a tech or a teacher as a grad student into his lab with all things being equal with their CVs, I came to the realization that cage fighting would be the only fair way to decide between the two applicants.

And I think that the introduction of cage fighting into science and academia would be a Very Good Thing. Why?

1. Prof Greybeard and Emeritus Prof Bluehair would be dead in the water due to their atrophied physical capabilities.

2. I wouldn't have to worry too much about grants not being funded because I could sure as hell take every one of my colleagues and could probably take most, if not all, of the reviewers on the study section that reviewed my R01.

3. The time I spent in the gym this morning working on my 6 pack abs would have a direct impact on my progress towards tenure.

4. For that matter, I wouldn't have to worry about annual reviews as I know I could pulverize my Dept Chair and the Dean without breaking a sweat.

5. The established PIs out there who whine and complain about the unfair system that rewards undeserving new/early career PIs would have to put up or shut the fuck up. I wouldn't need a higher payline against these namby pamby wimps in the cagefighting arena, I can assure you.

Yep. I think I have found the only fair solution.

Self-analysis of my postdoc experience

2009-11-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

Had an email from a reader called AB today asking for advice on successfully navigating the postdoc experience. I’m not sure on which planet anyone would think that I was competent enough to give advice on anything other than which flavor of Doritos is the best* but I’ll sure as hell give it a try.

Here’s a snippet of AB's email ...

I just finished my degree this Spring and have started my first postdoc.

Through the last two years of grad sch, one of my major points of focus (and concern) has been to make sure that I "hit the ground running" for my postdoc. As such, I had been "saving up" several pieces of work that I had not disclosed to my grad advisor that I started submitting once I had defended. Things have not altogether been disappointing, since I had two acceptances in well known journals (outside Top 5 though) between March and now.

However, digging out my "buried treasures" and readying them for submission one by one has turned out to be a more onerous task than I had imagined and it has been impeding me from single-mindedly pursuing further work. The worst part is that I feel I am losing steam at a time when I perhaps need it most.

I have always tried to rush through things; I rushed through my undergrad in 3 and then my grad sch in 4 yrs and now I am trying to rush through my postdoc almost by force of habit. However, I find myself wavering from day to day and I now have this sickening, sinking feeling about me.

As such, I solicit your advice on how to get through a postdoc successfully. Let me enumerate:

1. What would you say set you apart from the other postdocs who were not as successful?

2. How did you stay motivated from day to day?

3. I know this is not a sound measure of hard work and probably an inappropriate (immature?) question as well, but how many hours did you put in per week? I am trying to understand how hard one has to work to make it to the next level and I can't think of a better question to ask.

4. How did you deal with paper rejection?

First of all, congrats on finishing grad school and on getting your postdoc!

Secondly, I’m not sure what you mean when you say that you were "saving up" work unbeknownst to your advisor. Are you referring to research ideas you had formulated based on your grad experience or were you hoarding data? As you don’t mention which field you are in, I’m a little unsure about the nature of your "buried treasures" so I’m going to skip over that part of your email.

UPDATED 11/11/09: AB has since commented and clarified his/her field and the nature of the saved work:

It seems that my statement about "saving up" work during the last 2 yrs of grad sch has generated some undue interest. I am a simple mathematician (100% theoretical) and so "saving up" refers to research ideas I had been working on on my laptop in the darkness of night :)

My advisor probably would not have liked the idea that I was getting "distracted" from my thesis project. As such, I never disclosed these ideas or sought advice on them.

As to your questions ...

1. What would you say set you apart from the other postdocs who were not as successful?
If you look at my postdoc productivity purely from the standpoint of the number of papers published/accepted, I don’t think my postdoc was that successful but this is for a couple of reasons: (1) the complete and utter failure of the experimental model I was using at the beginning that turned out to be shit and a massive time suck and (2) dealing with a Dumb Fuck Forever (D.F.F.) colleague who fucked up the tissue analysis of what is/was supposed to be my Big Ass Postdoc Paper and was subsequently fired, leaving my samples waiting forlornly until someone else in Postdoc Lab has the time and the expertise to do them.

Where my postdoc was successful though was in allowing me to become proficient in complex technical skills, to become immersed in an entirely new but complementary field, to develop leadership and networking skills, to work on my writing and grantsmanship abilities, etc. As a new PI, I’m still working on all of these with the exception of the technical skills although I’m now able to teach them to my own trainees.

I went into my postdoc with my eyes open and knowing where I wanted to go when I was finished so I made sure that I got the most out of every single opportunity that came my way. I did what I needed to do to position myself for a successful job search and to be able to transition into a faculty position with a good solid network of mentors, colleagues and friends behind me so from that perspective it was very successful indeed.

2. How did you stay motivated from day to day?
That was really, really difficult and I would be lying if I said that I was very motivated, especially when it came to lab work. When you’re working on a big project that doesn’t appear to have an endpoint, the only way to keep your sanity is to write a list of goals that can be accomplished in the next day or the next week and just keep chipping away at it.

Also, I was in the uncomfortable position of being in two different labs with two very different mentors who had very, very different personalities and approaches to their trainees. I found that the intellectual environment in one of the labs was far superior to the other and made every effort to interact with that lab as that helped maintain my interest and motivation in the longer term.

3. ... how many hours did you put in per week?
This is where I probably differ from a lot of postdocs because even though I typically worked 12 hour days during the week, I only worked one weekend in the four years I was a postdoc. This was primarily because I was completely and utterly burned out after I finished grad school and had made a conscious decision not to let that happen again, even if it turned out to be to the detriment of my productivity and career. As a result, I found that restricting myself to only working during the week meant that I was more productive and efficient than a lot of my peers who worked significantly longer hours AND I was able to make the most of every recreational pursuit available both in and around Postdoc State. My postdoc mentors were both aware of my aversion to working nights and weekends but were ok with that decision because I was productive and a valuable member of their labs.

4. How did you deal with paper rejection?
Same as everybody else I guess ... I called the editor all the motherfucking names under the sun for his/her complete lack of understanding of just how goddamned brilliant my manuscript was, yelled and stamped my feet in frustration about how the reviewers didn’t know their scientific asses from their elbows, insisted to everyone within hearing distance that Big Name Journal was so fucking awful that nobody in their right mind should ever consider submitting a manuscript to them ever again, etc. And then I took a couple of days to calm down, read the letter and reviews again, shook my head at how clueless the editor and reviewers were before I eventually admitted that they might have a couple of valid points, took another couple of days to stop wanting to kill the them and then re-read each of their comments and criticisms and began to think about what needed to be done to revise the paper and which journal would be the next target for my innovative, groundbreaking, Nobel Prize winning masterpiece. Having papers rejected doesn’t really get any easier, you just get better at dealing with it.

From my somewhat idealistic perspective, the postdoc is a chance for you to mature as a researcher and scientist and it’s not all about having your nose to the grindstone 24/7 and belting out data for your PI. You should also take every opportunity to meet people in your field and to have them know who you are, to learn new things, to participate in critical scientific discussions, to go to scientific meetings, to (learn to) write grants, to write papers, to develop your own research ideas, to find out which career path is right for you and to work towards positioning yourself to take the next step towards that goal, and so on. I say all of this with a caveat though - if you don’t do anything and aren’t productive, you’re fucked. A good postdoc mentor will help you to do all of these things but you need to have the interest, the drive and the initiative to seek these out.

As far as trying to rush through your postdoc, AB, I would suggest that you slow down and maximize your current opportunities. I picked up a lot of valuable information, skills and ideas simply by talking to my mentor, technicians and fellow postdocs. If I hadn’t taken the time to listen, synthesize, question and argue, I think I would have been woefully underprepared for what awaited me on the tenure track.

I don’t know if any of this actually helped. The commentariat usually have more informed and infinitely more coherent opinions than I do.

* If in doubt, just go with Nacho Cheese.

Undergraduate GPA as a predictor for grad school success

2009-11-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve been approached by a student who is interested in joining my lab next year for a masters degree. He is enthusiastic, hardworking and has great communication skills, but his undergrad GPA is hovering around the 3.0 range which is our minimum entry requirement. My colleagues have cautioned against taking students who aren’t at the top of their class but I’m not entirely convinced that a student’s undergrad GPA tells the whole story.

Why?

I graduated from my first undergrad degree with a GPA that was the equivalent of about 2.3.

Granted, I was lazy, hated the courses I was doing and didn’t go to class very often but I didn’t fail anything and just did what I needed to do to scrape by. I subsequently went on to do a second undergrad degree from which I graduated at the top of my class with a ~3.9 GPA and then entered grad school. I found that while I didn’t know everything, I had a head for critical thinking and analysis as well as the ability to find the information that filled in the gaps - skills that aren't easily assessed in most undergrad programs.

Anyway, my point is that I’m not certain that the undergrad GPA is a good measure of success in research.

If the student is willing to work hard in order to satisfy the coursework requirements of the grad program and is committed and able to apply himself in the lab, I think he deserves a chance. He has requested a short trial period of voluntary work in my lab and if he turns out to be crap, then he’ll be out on his ass with very little lost on our end. But if he proves to have the potential to succeed in research then it will have been worth the time and effort.

With a little help from my friends

2009-11-08T11:22:00.000-08:00

Cow 1: Ok, PiT wants to take out a hit on a few people and it needs to look like an accident. How much money do we have?

Duck: About 8 cents. Do you think that will be enough to buy a machete?

Cow 2: I’m hungry. Where the hell are those burgers we ordered?

Sheep: Baaa.

Stabbed in the back

2009-11-05T15:40:00.000-08:00

How are you supposed to react when someone with whom you thought you had a good relationship sends a group email in which they slap you in the face, stamp on your foot and then stab you in the back for no reason other than a difference in opinion?

I’m stunned, shocked, disappointed, hurt and motherfucking pissed off.

Incoherent ramblings

2009-11-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

Spent all day at a seminar thingy that was not in New City. I’m finally back at home and somewhat delirious, hence the following ...

To the event planners: fantastic speakers, great venue, great food, great wifi connection. But seriously ... you knew that there were going to be a lot of people in attendance and that approximately half of them were women so why were we in a place with a ladies' room that contained only 3 toilets?

To the woman that sat next to me all day: I don’t know whether you were hoping for some loving or desperately needed to get away from the guy seated on the other side of you but continuing to move your chair over until you were almost sitting on my lap was just plain fucking creepy.

To Full Prof: thank you for seeking me out during each break amidst the sea of intense strangers, giving me a hug and helping me to remember why I signed up for the TT in the first place.

To the caterers: totally fucking awesome job on the cookies but removing all of the caffeine sources before the afternoon break and substituting them with sugar-free, decaffeinated alternatives did not make for an attentive PiT in the day’s final session and certainly did not help with the 2 hour drive home in the dark on a winding country road.

To the fucknut that drove 3 feet behind me with his high beams on for 60 miles: dude, we were on an empty fucking country road. Next time, simply overtake and fuck off.

To my car: I love you to the nth degree largely due to your luscious heated seats, furnace-worthy heater and ear-shattering stereo system.

To the evil Halloween candy sitting on the kitchen cabinet: STOP CALLING MY FUCKING NAME.

Shit, I need sleep.

Monday ... blink ... gone

2009-11-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

Ever have those days where you spend 12 hours in your office but still get nothing accomplished?

I’m just not sure what happened today but I seemed to have spent the whole time putting out fires.

Was on the phone/Skype for a couple of hours with colleagues both in the US and elsewhere to try to sort out some problems with manuscripts and studies.

Had to deal with an emerging crisis in the lab.

On the phone to take care of some personal stuff.

Emailed back and forth with colleagues on another campus to try to sort out some logistical issues we’re both facing.

Emailed former labmate asking for help with troubleshooting on a technique.

Sat down with accounts manager to get the low-down on how much is left of my startup funds.

Chatted with colleague about a teaching issue.

On the phone with colleague in land far, far away to attempt to fix major ongoing problem.

And then suddenly ... blink ... it was dark outside and my stomach was growling.

A tale of surviving the first year on the tenure track

2009-10-30T20:59:00.000-07:00

It’s now almost one year since I started my torturous journey down the tenure track and I’ve finally been able to catch my breath in the past day or so and reflect on the interesting, enlightening, frustrating, painful and hilarious last 12 months.

I relocated from one side of the US to the other, from an area where I had a lot of close friends and a surrogate family to a city where I knew nobody, and subsequently retreated into my frosty introverted shell from which I am yet to emerge. I survived my first ever winter of living in a snowy wilderness not to mention the trials and tribulations of my first semester of team teaching, several big grant submissions, two orthopedic surgeries and the consumption of more family-sized bags of Doritos than anyone thought was humanly possible. But I also enjoyed some new winter sports, weekend getaways to a gazillion national parks, a hilarious road trip with close friends, several short trips to catch up with former teammates and being able to further cement both my friendship and mentor/mentee relationship with my postdoc mentor, Dr J.

I have the occasional freakout moment, though, where I think about what will happen if I don’t get substantial grant funding, if my lab’s preliminary work doesn’t yield supercool results, if I don’t get tenure, etc, and I blame myself for not getting my lab in order as soon as I arrived. And then I remember how my progress was slowed by the surgeries, other medical issues and the initially oppressive teaching responsibilities, get even more depressed, eat more chocolate and wait for the sugar high to kick in.

But then it hit me. It took about 6 months for me to get settled, start to develop the supercool research ideas I’d been wanting to do, get a tiny bit of institutional funding to supplement my startup funds, train a student and hire a postdoc. And while this means I’m probably about 6-10 months behind where I’d like to be, my hypotheses are now pretty solid, the lab is fully stocked, our animal facilities are finally operational, my trainees have started collecting the preliminary data and I’ve been able to work on my grantsmanship on two other projects that were leftover from my postdoc days.

Sigh.

Ok, enough with the reflections. It’s time to hit the couch with a celebratory family-sized bag of Doritos. I’ll go to the gym tomorrow and work it off. Or maybe Sunday. Then it’ll be a double session to make up for the Doritos AND the Halloween candy I bought for the neighborhood kids in the hope that it will too cold for them to venture out leaving me with no other choice but to eat the whole lot myself.

Manuscript stuff

2009-10-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

You have a paper you’ve been working on for an eternity and you submit it to Top Notch Journal. The reviewers like the hypothesis but identify several fatal flaws and reject the paper.

Choose one answer that you feel best represents what you would do.

1. Based on the reviewers’ comments you conclude that:

a. They don’t know they asses from their elbows.

b. They must all be unfamiliar with this particular area of your field.

c. They have identified the flaws you were hoping they wouldn’t see.

2. Your next step is to:

a. Submit the paper to Another Top Notch Journal without changing a single word.

b. Add a few sentences to pay lip service to the issues the previous reviewers raised and submit the paper to Another Top Notch Journal.

c. Revise the entire manuscript so that the novelty of the hypothesis is highlighted and include a discussion of the study’s limitations before submitting the paper to Another Top Notch Journal.

Busy bee

2009-10-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

Phew! All I can say is that right now I’m very glad that I negotiated a reduced teaching load for the first 2 years on the TT.

My teaching load this semester is 10% ... or is it 12%? Either way, it isn’t substantial and I finished my Fall teaching commitments a few weeks ago.

But I am not able to spend the rest of semester in my office with my feet up on the desk.

Well, ok, I do often sit with my feet on the desk but it’s so that I can balance my laptop on my legs, talk on my office phone, drink tea and text on my cell phone all at the same time ... all work-related stuff, of course.

First there’s the grants and the associated head banging.

And now that the latest grant is out the door, there’s the slew of committee assignments that I had been putting off in the hopes that one of my colleagues would recognize how hard I had been working and offer to take them off my hands. Clearly that didn’t happen.

And then there are the manuscripts I agreed to review because (1) Professor Massive Name asked me to and I didn’t want the only email he ever received from me to be a rejection of his personal invitation to review and (2) I think I was delirious when I accepted the other one as the abstract looks like shit and it’s in Bottom O’ The Barrel Journal.

Oh, and there’s the syllabus for the Spring course I’ll be teaching that needs to be completely revamped.

What else?

Well, there’s a bunch of stuff going on that’s not work-related but I don’t want to talk about that because it’s still early days.

And there are the difficulties I'm having with certain people that I can't/won't discuss on my blog but am happy to complain about ad nauseum via email.

How could I forget the new study that has just started in my lab and the teething problems my postdoc is experiencing with the new setup? I’m confident that will work itself out with time.

And then there are the shit-ton of faculty positions that have miraculously opened in the land far, far away* which have led friends to send multiples emails pleading for me to consider applying.**

And shit ... the holidays are almost upon us. How the hell did that happen so quickly?

Which reminds me - one of my high school friends will be in Large City over Thanksgiving and if the stars align correctly - ie if the weather doesn’t prevent me from driving and if my schedule doesn’t suddenly blow out of all control - I might actually be able to see her for the first time in years ... or is it decades. Actually, I haven’t seen her since 1985. Fuck, I’m old.

Yay for reduced teaching loads for new junior faculty!

* Not sure who died but there must have been several of them because that's the only way most of these positions become available.
** I’m not going to.

For the record - UPDATED

2009-10-24T18:08:00.000-07:00

I was offered and accepted the chance to have the H1N1 nasal spray vaccine earlier today. The vaccine was being administered by a health professional program on campus and it was free, didn’t hurt and took about 5 minutes (most of which was spent filling in paperwork). I hadn’t really thought about the H1N1 virus too much as I’m not in a high risk group and I don’t have much student contact this semester but then I found out that one of my colleagues, who had been off sick a few weeks ago, had actually tested positive for H1N1.

Better to be safe than sorry.

For those of you who might be wavering on the vaccine, I’ll let you know if I come down with any of the potential side effects (runny nose, headache, sore throat, and cough) ... or if I develop signs of autism.

UPDATE 10/24/09
Woke to find that I have a sore throat. Not feeling lethargic or achy. Think that this could be the perfect excuse to spend the day on the couch. Not certain that Doritos would be a good remedy for a sore throat. Several signs of autism apparent but suspect they were part of a pre-existing condition.

Checklist

2009-10-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

Grant submission ... done.

Editing of students’ manuscripts ... done.

Long overdue committee tasks ... almost done.

Chocolate ... eaten.

New IACUC submission ... on to-do list.

Next grant submission ... soon.

Get off fat ass and go to work ... sigh ... do I have to?

Rants from a frustrated newbie

2009-10-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

I wrote this post earlier today when I was extremely cranky ... ie before breaking into the emergency chocolate stash in my desk. I’ve since calmed down but am still disappointed and a tad cranky.

I had a recent comment on one of my posts which I can no longer find but it was something to the effect that stories about my struggles as a new faculty member weren't very inspiring to grad students. While I can see where the commenter was coming from, I'm not about to sugar-coat what I'm going through because that would be total fiction.

I will say this though - to survive in this business, you need to have a very thick skin, be resilient, persistent and prepared to accept harsh criticism of your work, your ideas, your writing, everything.

As a grad student, this is a tough thing to learn and you get bogged down in the misguided notion that you can't please your advisor, your committee or reviewers. Don't worry - it will continue into your postdoc. And believe me when I say that as a new assistant professor, I am being hit with criticism from every angle and it's survival of the fittest (ie those who don’t have a nervous breakdown).

I'm struggling under the weight of criticisms right now that have threatened to derail all of my energies. It's exhausting and demoralizing to spend weeks and months working on something only to be told that it lacks direction, that your ideas need to be substantiated by more work, that your research design doesn't make sense and/or isn't logically thought out, etc.

I know that this is all part of the process of peer review and will help me to better develop and focus my ideas but it's difficult to hear nonetheless.

It's even more difficult when you receive grant reviewers' comments saying that the PI (ie you) is obviously naive and inexperienced, particularly after you've had to go it alone because you’ve repeatedly approached senior people in your field for help only to have them say that they're too busy.

At the moment, I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall because that's the only thing that seems as though it might be productive. Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, all it’s doing is giving me an even greater headache.*

I'm very fortunate in that I have my postdoc mentor, Dr J, who has been actively reading my grants and writing incredibly wonderful letters of support but I can't continue to rely on him forever. I've also had some amazing friends who have been reading and providing feedback on grants but I need help from other quarters that I'm just not getting.

I'm doing a grant writing workshop next month and am hoping to be selected to participate in a grant development program - it's super-expensive but my Dean has agreed to let one person from our department apply (there's no guarantee he'll let me go but it's been very strongly suggested by people in the know that I put my hand up). In the meantime, I'm actively contacting people in my field and have recently developed a symbiotic working relationship with another young assistant prof that could be good for both of us.

Ok, that’s pretty much it for today’s rant. The grant is almost finished, I have several letters of support in hand and the paperwork is done. Time to get this bastard off my desk so that I can start attacking the piles of semi-urgent stuff I’ve been putting off for the past few weeks.

* Duh.

College professors have one of the best jobs (apparently)

2009-10-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

New flash: College professors have been ranked at #3 on the top 50 list of best jobs.

Now while I love my job/career, whoever wrote the blurb about being a prof is absolutely clueless.

What they do: Teach and grade papers, of course. But profs also spend about half their time doing research and writing articles and books about their field. [emphasis added by me]

Really? Half their time? Doing research and writing articles? What about grant writing? Putting out fires? Dealing with trivial shit?

Why it's great: For starters, major scheduling freedom. "Besides teaching and office hours, I get to decide where, when, and how I get my work done," says Daniel Beckman, a biology professor at Missouri State University. And that doesn't even take into account ample time off for holidays and a reduced workload in the summer. [emphasis added by me]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

Drawbacks: Low starting pay and a big 50% salary gap between faculty at universities and community colleges. If the position is at a four-year university, you'll probably have to relocate, and you'll be under pressure to constantly publish new work to sustain career momentum. [emphasis added by me]

Relocate? Really? Pressure? No kidding?

Ok, moving on to the stats ...

Pay
Median salary (experienced): $70,400
Top pay: $115,000

Hmmm ... ok, how about listing the median salary for the newer, less experienced professors or [gasp] adjuncts? I guess that wouldn’t look as attractive.

Opportunity
10-year job growth (2006-2016): 23%
Total jobs (current): 278,000
Online want ad growth (April 2009-August 2009): 16%

The job advertisements went up between April and August, huh? Maybe that’s because the end of the summer/early fall is when recruiting season kicks off. How about comparing August 2009 with August 2007?

Quality of life ratings
Personal satisfaction: A
Job security: B
Future growth: B
Benefit to society: A
Low stress: B

Where to even start? Spot on with the personal satisfaction (most of the time) but a B for low stress? Ummm ... ok.

Excuse me while I go to the gym to work out some of my low stress.

My life as a mushroom

2009-10-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

Wake up while it’s still dark outside.

Eat breakfast while watching shitty early morning tv and catching up on blog reading.

Drive to work in the dark.

Bash head on computer screen all day.

Try not to scream profanity at a high volume with each new email that brings yet another roadblock in grant preparations.

Take breaks only for short trips to the bathroom and to heat up lunch in break room microwave; eat lunch at desk.

Drive home in the dark.

Sit on couch staring into space because brain has turned to mush.

Forget to eat dinner.

Go to bed and pass out.

Overstretched

2009-10-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

I’m tired. Bone tired. And pissed off. And frustrated. And cranky. And cold.

Came back from my gigglefest weekend with friends only to find that the grant I plan to submit next week needs to be overhauled.

Fuck.

I’ve been trying to contact a core facility at Really Big U only to find that the website links don’t work, the director is no longer at my institution and that nobody can tell me if the core has a new director or even if it is still in existence.

Fuck.

I’ve also been getting conflicting advice about what to include in the grant and what to leave out.

Fuck.

Got the summary statements back from my R01 and while they were, on the whole, very positive, there were a couple of comments that really pissed me off.*

Fuck.

I have a bunch of stuff that I was supposed to do for one of the committees I’m on that I haven’t even touched yet and it’s now more than a week overdue.

Fuck.

Both of my doctoral students have suddenly become productive and want me to review their new manuscripts asap. They’re not happy that I told them they would have to take a number and get in line. I’m just happy that they actually sent me the manuscripts before submitting them this time.

Fuck.

I suddenly have a couple of undergrads knocking on my door wanting to chat about their career options and to see if they can visit my lab. We are just starting a new set of experiments so this is a perfect time except that myself and my postdoc are too busy to look after them.

Fuck.

I’m currently fighting with Big Money Program about space issues in the common use area. It’s like David against Motherfucking Goliath.

Fuck.

Everyone wants a piece of me right now but I’ve lost so much weight in recent months I’m scared I’ll blow away if I try to give any more of myself to others.

Fuck.

I’m only human.

Sigh.

I need to lie down before I pass out.

* Thank you to those who let me rant and vent about this via email.

The increasing cost of healthcare

2009-10-12T16:32:00.000-07:00

Just received the notice about what my health insurance costs and premiums will be next year. I am very fortunate in that I work at a state institution and have extremely affordable health coverage but, even so, the rate hikes for 2010 are ridiculously out of sync with inflation.

This are the increases for 2010 over the 2009 numbers ...

Annual medical deductible: 25% higher
Annual out-of-pocket limit: 33% higher
Co-payment for network services: 50% higher
Monthly premium: 58% higher
My salary: 0%

Anyone notice the discrepancy?

Like I said, I’m very, very fortunate in that I have affordable health insurance, earn a nice salary and don’t have any dependents, major health concerns (took care of all of them in 2009) or overwhelming debt as these increases won’t hit me hard and I don’t have to worry about whether to pay for health insurance or food. Spare a thought for those who aren’t in such a steady financial situation.

Awesome faculty position available

2009-10-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

Looking for a faculty position in Molecular Pharmacology? Want to work at an institution that values women and minority scientists? Want to interact with supercool and uber-smart faculty? Check out the position description here.

Oh, and I have it on good authority from a little bird in the know that the work environment is rather stellar ...

As monocultural as my department looks on paper, everyone here is really cool people, we have a great atmosphere and a very friendly, down-to-earth departmental community. People here TRULY COLLABORATE without fearing for their independence. I have been welcomed without hesitation into the group of 40-50-something dudes and feel very at home here, and our department head is really fantastic. In general people here are just straight-up folks. We have a formalized junior faculty mentorship program as well as an informal weekly lunch together that I have found totally invaluable to getting on my feet. Our tenure requirements are very rigorous, but everyone seems to be doing their best to help each other make it through (rather than trying to turf each other out). All in all, I think this is an excellent place to start a career and I couldn't be happier with my choice to join this department last year.

Go forth and apply, peeps.

TGIF

2009-10-09T19:20:00.000-07:00

It’s been a long week. A really long week. I’ve been working too hard and pulling too many long hours. I’ve pissed some people off. My R01 got discussed at study section but didn't get scored anywhere near high enough to get funded. My new grant is almost finished. I got stellar positive feedback about my hypothesis from a guru in my field whom I’ve never met. My students still think I’m awesome. Next week’s schedule is pretty empty except for the gazillion things on the to-do list. I don’t want to do anything that’s on next week’s to-do list. Found out that one of my postdoc colleagues was fired for destroying data. I wasn't surprised. I’ve spent so much time working on my grant this week that the fingertips on my right hand are shiny and sore from using the trackpad on the laptop.

Sigh.

I’m spending the weekend with friends a long, long way away from New City. A very long way away. It’s gonna be great. I’m going to giggle until my head explodes. And then I’m going to put it back on and eat my body weight in bad food. And then giggle some more.

The great education debate

2009-10-08T07:08:00.000-07:00

Colleague: we should do everything we can to ensure our students pass the assessment tools used in our courses.

Me: we should do everything we can to provide our students with the tools to learn and understand the material covered in our courses.

Colleague: we have a duty to make sure that our students pass our courses and we should provide alternate exams and quizzes for struggling students.

Me: we have a duty to provide our students with the tools to learn and understand the material covered in our courses but ultimately the onus is on the students to ensure that they put in the effort to learn and understand the material.

Colleague: this is a state university and our students are paying to be here so they all deserve to graduate.

Me: our students need to meet certain objective standards in each course to ensure they deserve the honor of graduating.

And around and around and around it went.

State university, private college, land-grant institution, Ivy League school, whatthefuckever - it doesn't matter. Students need to demonstrate they have attained a certain level of knowledge, understanding or competency in order to pass a course and/or graduate. Dumbing down material or providing additional means for under-achieving students to make it seem as though they passed a course doesn’t do justice to anyone.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

2009-10-07T07:11:00.000-07:00

Are you a basic scientist in the US?

If so, are you funded by or seeking funding from the NIH?

Are you someone who has or might benefit from medical advances that originated with NIH-funded basic science research?*

Have you seen this article in the NYT that contains an interview with the new NIH director, Francis Collins? Here’s just a snippet of the interview (I’m hoping Dr Collins’s comments have been taken way, way, WAY out of context) ...

While acknowledging the importance of basic sciences like biochemistry and genetics, he said he wanted scientists to consider clinical or therapeutic implications in their work. “We’re not the National Institutes of Basic Sciences,” he said. “We’re the National Institutes of Health.”

I don't even know where to begin. I could rant for days about how important clinical and therapeutic breakthroughs often originate in the basic sciences and that nothing can make it to the clinical phase before extensive investigation in the lab, but I think it would fall on deaf ears.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

h/t: whimple commenting over at writedit’s place

* This means everyone.

Dumber than usual

2009-10-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought I was becoming better at containing the feeling that I obtained my faculty position as a fluke, I just had an entire day when I felt like every single person I came in contact with could have done my job better than me.

** My postdoc asked a simple question to which I didn’t know the answer.

** My research assistant asked me an even simpler question and I simply forgot the answer.

** Another faculty member asked for my advice on a curriculum issue and I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

Days like this are best spent on the couch watching trashy tv. I’m going to blame it on the damned hormones as they always make me far dumber than usual.

Support DonorsChoose.org and science education

2009-10-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

How did you end up pursuing a career in science? Was it because you had a great teacher in school? Or maybe it was because you did a cool experiment in the second grade. Or perhaps you were inspired by dissecting an earthworm.

Think back to what first sparked your interest and then think about those kids that might not have the same experience as you because they live in a school district that can’t afford even to supply the bare essentials required to conduct a basic science class. Or those that live in remote regions that have been hit hard by natural disasters and whose schools can’t afford the costs of shipping the materials to their remote area.

These kids are not as far away as you might think - they are all in the US and don’t have access to basic science education experiences due to a lack of finances.

What are the chances that these kids will even consider a science career? For that matter, what are the chances that they will even want to support scientific endeavors when they’re all grown up and in a position to do so?

Go support the fund-raising efforts of the DrugMonkey Blog's Science-Up the Schools Challenge. I know science and academia don’t pay much but if everyone gives at least a small donation, these worthy projects can be funded and kids all over the country will be able to see science up close.

Tissue issue

2009-10-04T10:02:00.000-07:00

Dear University Administrator,

I know that times are tough and that you’re under a lot of pressure to find ways to save money but is it really necessary to begin stocking the bathroom stalls with what can only be described as wax paper? To be perfectly frank, I take great issue with your choice of tissue.

I implore you to take pity on my sensitive nether regions and return to supplying the cheap and nasty 1-ply standard government-issued tissue with which we were quite happily suffering in the past. Furthermore, and in order to annoy one of my bloggy pals, I will throw the phrase “actions have consequences” at you in order to emphasize why this is necessary; for example, injury to my nether regions (action) will render me unable to sit in my office and crank out the grants that will eventually bring squillions of dollars into the university’s coffers (dire consequence).

Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I look forward to a swift return to 1-ply heaven.

Yours most uncomfortably,

PiT.

House hunting

2009-10-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my life, I have a job that pays a decent salary, it looks like I actually might have a career on my hands and there’s finally some substantial savings in the bank which means it’s time. Time to think about growing up. Time to think about putting down roots. Time to think about [gulp] buying a house.

[profuse sweating begins]

I met with a realtor earlier this week and my ears are still bleeding. My grandmother would have said that this woman could talk the leg off a cast iron pot. And loud. Wow, I didn’t think there were too many people who could talk at such a high volume without the use of a megaphone.

Despite the irreparable damage to my hearing, our first meeting went well. She knows the area I want, understands my price range, blah, blah, blah. And she comes very highly recommended by Dept Chair so she is under strict instructions to look after me.

And then she administered The Questionnaire.

1. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
[apparently there’s no right or wrong answer to this question as I said I wanted to live on top of a mountain in Colorado and she didn’t blink]

2. What emotions are you most looking to satisfy when you purchase a home?
[I think I passed on this question as I thought it was kinda stupid]

3. What is your favorite room of your house?
[obviously my answer was the living room because that’s where the couch is]

Oh boy. This is going to be interesting.

Control freak

2009-09-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

I freely admit that I'm a control freak. As a student and then as a postdoc, I was loathe to let anyone else near my experimental animals, cells, assays, etc in case they screwed something up. I guess it was partly to my detriment at times because I never wanted to farm work out to others who could do something faster, or potentially better, because that would mean placing my trust in someone else.

And now I'm a newly minted PI with a postdoc and a part time research assistant and have to relinquish control of the day-to-day benchy stuff ... and I'm not sorry to admit that I am completely sick of doing bench work myself and hope to avoid it like the plague from here on.

That being said though, I'm finding it hard to place my trust in my staff and to let them make decisions (or even mistakes for that matter), even though I chose these people because they are capable, eager and willing to learn. The fact that they both admit to being anally retentive, control freaks themselves should have helped convince me that they have the same quality control tendencies as I do. And I have to continually remind myself that just because I prefer to do something a particular way or to arrange my bench in a certain manner, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone has the same preference.*

Sigh. I've already told my worker bees to let me know if I'm being overbearing or ridiculously nitpicky. Whether they have the balls to do so remains to be seen ... after all, who likes telling their boss to shut the fuck up!?

* Even though my way is clearly betterer than anyone else's.

National Postdoc Day

2009-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Yep. Postdocs now have their very own day ... and that day is TODAY.

Celebrate the substantial impact that postdocs make in the research world despite low pay, (often) poor/no benefits, poor future job prospects and (often) little respect and/or recognition.