Category Archives: Work

Confucius say…

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Discuss this quote by Confucius: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

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This seems like a bit of a “Well, duh!” kind of quote. Of course you should do something you love. It definitely makes it a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning.

The problem is, and maybe it’s just because this is how our society works (and by that, I’m referring to my own experience of working in the United States), there is no way to have a job that doesn’t at some point include doing something you really don’t want to do.

For me, I love my job and the results of my labors, but I sure wish I didn’t feel obligated to put in eight full hours a day. And there are some days when I have to make a bunch of phone calls, or I have to fix an unruly instrument, when I really question how much I actually like my job. In the end, I’m happy. I know I could have a significantly crappier job, one that would make every day a misery, rather than just one out of fifteen.

So, yeah, it’s a good idea to seek a job that you love. Most days won’t be drudgery – you’ll be having fun. And those few miserable days, won’t seem so awful after they’re over.

 

For 12-18-12

It’s The Shining!!

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Agree or disagree: All work and no play makes you a dull girl.

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In the case of this prompt, it’s important to define what is meant by ‘work.’ Work could be defined as that which a person does to earn a paycheck, whether they enjoy the work or not. Alternatively, work could be defined as any task which requires mental and/or physical effort, again whether for pleasure or by requirement.

For me, I distinguish between work and not-work based upon the level of effort required (i.e. the second definition). Thus, watching “America’s Got Talent” is not work, writing a blog post about everything geologically incorrect about the movie “The Core” is work. Going for a two mile run is work. Power-shopping at the mall is not work. Writing this blog post while I’m in the office is work, even though it’s not what I’m actually getting paid for.

Play also needs to be defined better. For me, play is anything you derive pleasure from, whether paid or unpaid. Using these definitions, an activity can be simultaneously work and play – and I do a lot of that. I actually enjoy my job, so I often feel like I’m playing while I’m at work.

All this said, it is important to remember that play, by itself, is necessary for any person to maintain their sanity. If all I ever did was work, or work-play, I think I might lose my mind. That’s why I do watch TV and I do occasionally go power shopping. Without that mental and physical escape, I think I might explode!

 

For 12-17-12

I gotta be me!

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you think you’re yourself at work, or do you think your co-workers don’t know the “real” you?

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One thing that I do know for certain is that the person that I am in the office is the same person that I am at home. I’m fortunate to have a job where I’m not expected to conform to some particular behavior. I’m grateful to have a job where there is no specified dress code. I’m glad to be in academics where it’s more important what you do than what you look like.

In academics, even social skills are optional, which is one of the reasons why I’m glad I don’t have to go to faculty meetings.

All this isn’t to say that I don’t care at all about my appearance or what others think of me, I just don’t concern myself with these things any more than I would if I were going to the grocery store. I wear jeans to work most every day, but that’s for practical reasons: I’m regularly crawling on the floor of my laboratory. A skirt or nice slacks would be destroyed in no time. I do wear T-shirts some days, but I actually prefer to wear something a little nicer. Maybe something that buttons or has a collar, but still always something practical that will keep me warm in my 62-degree office and also not get caught on anything in the lab.

My co-workers know me well, at least my quirks. I’m notorious for meowing greetings to people. They know that I’m learning swordplay. They know that I like to sew medieval clothing. If I were trying to hide the ‘real’ me, I suspect no-one would know these things about me.

I’ve got nothing to hide. I like me. I think I’m interesting. And being ‘me’ in the office doesn’t hinder my ability to do my work, nor the abilities of others to do their work. The me of the office is the me of the world. I’m glad I don’t have to change personalities every morning as I drive into work!

For 12-14-12

All Work and No Play…

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Are you happier when you’re working or when you’re relaxing?

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Some days I have serious doubts that I can relax. I get nervous during idle time, with the constant nagging suspicion that there is something that I ought to be working on.

I think it’s a remnant of being a graduate student. We called it “grad student guilt” then. Basically, if you were conscious, you needed to be working if you had any illusions about graduating on time. I still feel this way.

Relaxing is stressful to me. I have a hard time just kicking back, enjoying a beer, and watching a movie. Lately, I’ve been watching lots of movies, but I’m only able to do that as I’m working on a blog series about bad geology movies. See? It’s work, so I’m doing a good thing.

When I’m working, even if it’s not related to my paying job, I feel like my energies are going to good use. I feel like my efforts will be beneficial in the long run. I (almost) never feel that way when I’m relaxing – though rationally, I know that there are important benefits to taking a break from time to time.

So, am I happier when I’m working or when I’m relaxing? Usually happiest when I’m doing a lot of work and being highly productive. Relaxing can wait until I am no longer capable of working…

For 12-13-12

The Hardest Job Ever

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – What do you think would be the hardest job for you to do?

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There are two ways I can approach this question. I know that the hardest job I have ever done is being a parent. Of course, like all parents, I am grossly underpaid. And there’s no vacation. No days off. I’m still a parent, even if I’m sick. It can kinda suck. On the other hand, once in a while the boy says “I love you, Mom,” which basically negates all the bad things. It’s a hard job. The hardest. I feel horribly underqualified. Yet I do it every day and both boy and mom seem to be doing all right.

 

Now, if I were thinking of career style jobs, the hardest job I could have is any in which I was required to make a ton of phone calls. I think I’d be sick everyday. You see, I have social anxiety (though most people who know me find that hard to believe). For all the years of therapy and medications the one thing I still can’t do without overwhelming terror is make a stupid flipping phone call.

I do make phone calls, of course, and sometimes with little to no anxiety. But if I have to cold-call someone, say for example a program director at the National Science Foundation, or a land owner who’s land I’d like to work on, I flip. This may be one of the reasons why my current job suits me. I don’t have to make those calls. I call vendors from time to time to ask for parts (which can still be difficult). Most everything else I need to do can be done with e-mail. I can handle e-mail – most of the time.

So retail jobs would be a nightmare for me. Secretarial jobs, panic city.

Sitting in an interior laboratory with no windows, just me and the mass spectrometer, just fine. I’ll stick with what I got.

For 12-12-12

My dream job?

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?

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Any job in the world, eh? Well, I like what I do, so I suspect that wouldn’t change much. I might adjust the hours I worked; five hours a day suits me better than eight. Then again, I pretty-much do that now. I mean, I’m usually in my office for at least five hours a day. After that, if I can, I might just book out of there. That isn’t to say that I don’t make up that ‘missed’ time elsewhere.

I would like to make writing a greater component of my actual job. By that, I mean non-technical writing. I wish working on my novel(s) didn’t have to come out of my sleep. I wish I actually got paid to do that. Or even got paid for the non-technical science blog posts I write. To have that count as ‘work’ toward my paycheck would be delightful.

Truth is though, I think I do have as close to my dream job as I can muster. I have visions of one day writing a block-buster screenplay or novel and becoming a billionaire. I think if that happened I would still do what I do. Less teaching, less lab management for sure, but more science, and waaay more writing.

For 12-11-12

I do, in fact, like my job (most days, anyway)

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you enjoy your current job (or your last job)?

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It should be clear from almost all of my blog posts that I do enjoy my job. Sure, there are days when I don’t want to go into the office. Certainly there are people there that I would rather not interact with. There is no doubt that I’d like to get paid more than I do. But also, there have been ample opportunities for me to move on if I wanted to.

Why don’t I leave? In the current economy, I realize I’m pretty darn lucky to be employed for one. For two, I have really great benefits! But what about the work? you ask. Do you like your job?

How can I go wrong with my job? I get to teach. I pass on my knowledge and inspire students to move forward in their lives and careers. I get to do research. And nobody tells me what kind of research to do! I just do it. Whatever feels interesting to me that day. So long as I manage to stay on top of my prescribed responsibilities: keeping the lab running and teaching classes, I am flexible as to how and when I accomplish these things. I don’t clock in or out. I work from home some days. But I also sometimes have to work on the weekends (not very often). I have the flexibility to engage in all manner of extracurricular activities like blogging and scientific outreach. Plus, because I’m not considered “faculty” (despite the fact that I teach), I don’t have to worry about tenure or going to faculty meetings. These are two huge perks that I’d give up if I went anywhere else!

So yeah, sometimes there are long days. But they’re almost always satisfying (at least after the fact). And I know that I am the only person where I work that is fully qualified to do what I do, so I have a bit of job security as well (which can be handy when I have a spell of laboratory problems).

Do I enjoy my current job? Why yes. Yes I do.

For 12-10-12

Aah, Relax

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – What is the best way to relax after a hard day?

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Relax? What is this “Relax”?

After a hard day, once the evening chores are done, I’ve worked out, and I’ve done everything else that’s pressing – well – then it’s usually close to 10pm and I’m ready to go to bed.

But I don’t always. In fact, I seldom head straight to bed.

I usually crack an adult beverage, grab the laptop, and get comfy somewhere. This is when I write.

Sometimes, it’s blog posts, if I have the mental capacity to write something that requires a little thought. Some of my blog posts, are fairly technical, so I have to have some manner of coherency to do the writing.

If my brain’s not all there (a more typical scenario), I will open a fiction file and start writing. I daydream, and record what I’m thinking about. Let little stories and plot bunnies hop around in my head.

I do that until I can’t keep my eyes open any more. Then the light goes off and I’m gone until the alarm goes off the next morning.

For 12-7-12

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – How hard do you think you work?

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My first reaction upon reading this prompt was, Ha-ha-ha-ha! I have far too much fun at work to really call it ‘work.’

They say that if you are doing something you love then you’ll never work a day in your life. Well, I do like what I do, so it doesn’t always feel like I’m working very hard at all.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t times that I’m just cursing my to-do list, overwhelmed with the things that I have to do in order to keep myself paid. On those days, I work ridiculously hard, going down the list item-by-item, continuing to work even after I get home in the evening, often into the wee hours of the morning.

Other times, though, I am able to keep hours that would make a banker envious. Once I get a set of analyses started in the morning, unless I have some specific reason to stay in the office, I often bug out, go home, workout. Engage in other projects. Write blog posts. This only works for a few weeks during the summer and during the regular academic breaks, alas.

I do find that whether I feel like I’m working hard (at work-related things) or not, I still am always very, very busy. I seem to like it that way. There is always something to do that is very much worth doing. Sometimes it’s the job I get paid to do that gets priority, and sometimes it’s unrelated things. It’s all about balance, right?

For 12-6-12

 

What have I taught someone to do?

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you enjoy teaching others? Talk about a time you taught someone how to do something.

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It should be obvious from some of my blog posts (here and here) that I truly adore teaching. I love any form of teaching, from the formal class room, to putting up a table at a career fair, to preparing talks for senior citizens at retirement communities. I love it all.

For all the teaching that I’ve done, it’s tough to narrow down this topic to just one time I taught someone how to do something. The specific phrase “how to do something” means that there was some actual step-by-step training involved. It’s not just teaching someone to distinguish between igneous and metamorphic rocks, for example, as you might in a traditional lecture-style class. The prompt is asking about something that was perhaps a bit more involved.

One of the things I get to teach (though I use the term ‘train’ in this case) regularly is how to run analyses on the mass spectrometer. Every graduate student who’s going to run more than a couple dozen samples in our lab goes through this training, so they can run their own samples (on evenings and weekends) and I can focus on contract work (to keep the lab running).

This is not without great trials and tribulations. It’s nice to have students run their own samples. It saves me a lot of time. But running a mass spectrometer is complex. A good student will be able to gain the skills they need to independently run the mass spectrometer in about four days (or four sets of analyses). The first day, they watch me and take copious notes. The second and third days, they do everything, with me observing directly. On the fourth day, I let them do everything when I’m not in the room, but I come in and check things in between steps. If they’ve gotten most of everything right (and haven’t done anything wrong that would compromise the mass spectrometer), then I give them permission to run analyses whenever they want.

This process can be insanely time consuming. I need about four hours to get a set of analyses going. When I have to train someone, there goes the whole day. And it’s terrifying too. One wrong push of a button and BAMMO! I’ve got to replace $1000 worth of parts. Usually, the training period goes through the “Day 4” step for several analysis days. “Day 1” is also often repeated.

Occasionally, I have students that really struggle with all of it. There really is a ton to remember. It’s a bit like patting your head and rubbing your belly. And hopping on one foot. Even more rarely, I have a student who just ‘gets’ it immediately. That’s always a little disconcerting, because it makes me wonder what I left out.

And it doesn’t matter whether the trainee is a undergraduate student, a graduate student, or a post-doctoral researcher. That has nothing to do with who’s going to have the most success. I do find that most undergraduates are general so afraid to break anything that they follow my instructions to a T (which is good). Postdocs also tend to follow my instructions carefully, I think that’s because they have enough experience with breaking things by then that they also take my word as law. Grad students tend to be a mixed bag. The mix of low (or no) experience and high confidence (having survived an undergraduate degree) can result in them ‘trying’ things that they shouldn’t do. Or hesitating when they don’t need to.

By now, I’ve gone through this process so many times, they’ve all blurred together. There is a certain satisfaction in knowing I’ve trained so many students. By providing them this skill, they have something to market as they’re moving forward with their lives. And though it’s highly unlikely that whatever future job they have will entail using the exact same instrument for the exact same purpose, just knowing what is involved with such analyses and that they can do it should give them some confidence and a step up above students that might not have been provided the same opportunity.

For 12-5-12