Leigh is moving up from being the data hunter-gatherer. This is not so easy. I've seen a ton of firsts in the last few months, enough to make my head spin. Certainly nothing my to-date training had prepared me for. And it leaves me exhausted.
So when I finally cleared the last hurdle today, last memo in hand, last signature collected, I kicked back in my desk chair and thought, "Ahhh! Now that's out of the way, I can get to the real work! The science!" (And then wished I could take a nap.)
But that is not really true. It's been pointed out to me, by people more wise and experienced than I, that I should be thinking of this differently.
It's all "real" work. For how many years, my job was to have someone else be administrator while I designed, ran, analyzed, and interpreted the experiments. With guidance, of course, because I was learning the job. Now my job description includes the facilitating science part. And it doesn't take long at this stage to see that without the work to facilitate the science, there would be no way to do the science. This all requires me taking a wider view of the process as a whole, and realizing that not all work in science involves running sample sets.
It's not an immediate change in thinking. I keep slipping back to "but where are the data?!!"
So I'm going to try this line of thought instead:
I've been working this strange and unfamiliar uphill battle for months, and learned a lot. Now I am glad that I can do some exciting stuff in the lab, because I made it happen. (And I needed a break from the administrative side.) Eventually, I'll publish it all too. With any luck, all this work will enable me to do more of the administrative shit, to do more of the benchmonkey shit, and more of the publication shit. It's all part of the science full-circle.
Now if only I can keep this in mind for next time. Because next time already looms over me.
I wanted a challenge- oh, I got it. I wanted to move up to the next step- and there are growing pains.
love the hunter-gatherer imagery. love it.
It’s all part of the science full-circle.
I am restraining myself from posting a "Circle of Life" video from Lion King but yes, this. And make no mistake, there are *many* times so far that I've had to remind myself of this or similar. One sees, and is responsible for, a larger chunk of the pathway from idea to published paper. Even when you *know* this, it is still more frustrating to deal with administrative trouble-shooting than to deal with experimental trouble-shooting. For me anyway.
ha- i first wrote "circle of science" and then the damn lion king song popped into my head. i see i didn't get far enough away from that. too tired, i suppose.
this huge adaptation in perception of what science as a process actually *is*- is a bit of a shock. no phd/typical postdoc training i have taken part in provided much preparation for any of it. the focus and the measure of productivity/success has been data until i came here, and that's some hard mental programming to break away from.
thanks for your feedback on the subject- maybe one of these days i'll figure out what i'm doing!
Nobody ever figures out what they are doing...
damn. well, at least i won't be the only one.
When I became department chair, I told my department that it is not the chair's job to do work, but rather to facilitate the work of the department. So I didn't bother to do stuff which I did not think would facilitate the work of the department, and dealt with other things from the facilitate the department's work view point.
so you've been entirely on the other side, Jim! i'm nowhere near department chair, but i am finding it... interesting, shall we say... to expand my repertoire beyond benchwork. i'm glad for people who facilitate the work from a higher-level position than where i am, also.
It's an interesting transition, no? In the last year, I have moved from being the only one at my bench to pretty much never at my bench, and onto a lot more administration/writing/etc. Yes, definitely a good idea to realize that this will be part of the new normal.
the acceptance is the hardest part... that's the step after denial, or something. right?