Fire Away!

A little while back I decided that I had the funds to recruit a postdoc and that I should do so. My first inclination was to talk to a few PhD students I knew who were finishing up soon and whose experience would translate well to the work we are doing, without being completely overlapping. After some discussion with a couple soon-to-be graduates things fell into place with one of them, who will be starting this summer.

In preparation for the new hire, I thought it would be a good idea to sniff around my institution to see what is required for hiring a postdoc and I wasn't surprised at what I found out.

The good news:

Postdocs are a recognized category of employee. Health care benefits (the same I get) are required when hiring a postdoc and there is vacation, sick and maternity* time for these employees. A 30 day warning of a layoff due to funds drying up is also required.

The bad news:

1) Despite there being a category of employment for postdocs, they have no advocate. Like most institutions, both grad students and faculty are unionized here, but postdocs get squeezed between the cracks. Their "advocate" is, by default, someone whose primary job it is to advocate for the grad students.

2) The only things required to hire a postdoc are a willing body and some state and federal tax forms. NO CONTRACT IS REQUIRED. That means I can just bring someone in, have them fill out a few forms and lock them in a lab with no indication of expectations or guidelines on which to fall back on in case of a grievance. That's the kicker, right? When things go well maybe it's easy to not have any sort of record of expectation and no one cares, but what if things go poorly? What if something in my personal life goes down the toilet and I start getting all crazy and start firing people? Everyone has heard that story, no? Without a contract of any kind there is nothing to which a postdoc can go back to and say "I have upheld my end of the bargain!" There is no recourse, which takes us to Bad News #3.

3) Postdocs come in on a 12 month "probationary period", which is code for "can be fired arbitrarily". I asked our head of HR directly what it would take for me to fire a postdoc and the answer was "call me and I will either come over and facilitate that conversation or do it for you." In the first year postdocs have no protection and after that "it just takes a little longer" if one wanted to fire someone without documenting cause. Now, there are certainly times when the termination of employment would be justified and with the appropriate documentation that is just how things go. But what I described above is for if I wanted to walk into the lab one day and tell someone to clean out their desk.

Having at several institutions during my career, this doesn't surprise me a bit. But as a postdoc there are ways to protect yourself to some degree. Almost any PI with some sense will write out a contract because it protects both of you, but in reality the PI isn't the one who needs the protection. For that reason, postdocs should ask to have a contract written up at the start of employment. It should outline not only the performance expectations of the PI, but also what the postdoc can expect from the PI. No one tells you how important a signed document like that can be when you start a new position fresh off your Thesis Experience. Whereas you hope to never need to use it, you need to request it if your PI does not bring one to the table on day one.

Admittedly, I never signed a contract as a postdoc. I had an offer letter, but nothing beyond that. I had no idea that I should request one and hindsight is 20/20. I was fortunate to never need that contract and my supervisor was really good about communication, but that doesn't mean things couldn't have gone differently.

More important than the contract, however, is something that postdocs can't do anything about on their own and that is getting a person or office in place to handle all things postdoc related from the postdoc's side of things. Some larger R1s have this type of thing, but the vast majority of institutions only pay lip service to it. It requires the demand from PIs to get the wheels turning, and one might guess that PIs might be less than motivated to put a structure in place that takes away some of their power to make personnel decisions.

As a PI, it's easy to say that a postdoc office isn't worth your effort because you treat all the postdocs in your lab well. However, I think it's critical that we recognize the fact that a big part of the disgruntle factor of postdocs is the very fact that they can be dropped like a sack of potatoes. If you do treat postdocs in your lab well, then there is nothing to lose from pushing for greater university recognition in the form of dedicated postdoc advocates and it may turn out that they can facilitate some things (visa issues, a sense of community, etc.) that either you currently have to, or can't, deal with. As with most things, there's a high cost up-front, but they pay-off will be worth it.

I'll let you know how it goes here.


* I don't know how well this policy works in conjunction with granting agencies yet, but I am trying to find out.

The joys of home ownership

We have really enjoyed owning our home, but you have to take care of somethings when you have a home that you previously did not. House renos aren't the only thing you can now be a part of!

We have a skunk under our shed. It's been there for at least a year and he's digging the bejesus out of our lawn looking for grubs. I want thins thing out from under our shed. Now. But trapping a skunk is not something I've done before. I can see trapping it pretty easily, but then what? I see the scene playing out like this (especially the end), with me in the part of Steven because my wife is too smart to be the one outside.



As exciting as that looks, I would like to get rid of this thing without spending my afternoon in a tomato bath in a kiddie pool in the yard. I've tried blocking the entrances to the shed, but the thing digs another. Short of getting night vision goggles and closing the shed up once the skunk goes out for the night, I don't think that will work. People have suggest moth balls, but I'm not spreading toxic chemicals under my shed and letting them bake in the hot sun. I know that special skunk traps exist, but there's got to be a solution for under $150.

Anyone dealt with this and have suggestions (what NOT to do is also welcome).

The admissions dance

My department doesn't have a rotation program where students are admitted strictly based on their application packets and then spend time working in different labs to figure out where they want to do their degree. There are pros and cons to that system, but it wouldn't work in my department for a variety of reasons. Instead, we do a mixture of our own recruiting and interviewing potential students who apply to the department, but we only accept students who are matched with a particular lab when they come into the program. Everywhere I have worked has been like this, and honestly, I like it that way.

One major drawback however, is the dance one has to do with the candidates. I typically interview 4 students and rank three. One of the factors that has to go into that ranking, however, is whether I think the student will come if accepted. This is critical because once you extend a letter of acceptance through the grad school, the ball is in the student's court. In an ideal case the student will accept and you can then quickly decline the others on the list. More often than not, however, the accepted student takes some time to decide. During that time I am left stringing the other students along, not wanting to tell them that they are not my first choice while hoping not to lose them right away to other labs. If my first choice declines I need to have a pool to go back to, which is why timing is critical and why the pool can quickly dry up if the accepted student delays too long.

I can try to impress upon the accepted student that a timely response is helpful, but I can't demand a response until the official university deadline. Of course, this deadline corresponds with the deadline of several other schools in the area and if the candidate waits until then to decline, I'm pretty much screwed. In this case I would probably be left with a decision between an applicant who did not get in anywhere else or not taking a student at all. Although it is possible to find students who turn out to be excellent in the lab after a mediocre undergraduate experience, the odds are stacked.

In the mean time, the music plays on...

Thesis committees

It's an innocent enough question - "Would you be willing to serve on my thesis committee?" - and an easy thing to say "Yes." to. At the time you commit yourself there is generally no work to be done in response to an affirmative answer and generally the students who ask this are those whose work you are interested in, on some level. Sure, it'll be great to help this student along and provide advice on their work as it is coming together!

On top of the desire to help the student, there is an unspoken understanding between PIs that service on one of their student's committees means that they will return this favor down the road. Depending on the project, finding committee members for some students can be a pain in the ass, so having this "debt" in your pocket is not a bad thing.

Before you know it, you've said yes to three or four people, without much thought for the consequences of this action. Then comes the end of the semester or summer and everyone thinks "OMG, I have to propose/qualify/graduate before the end/start of the semester! We need meetings! Here's 45 pages to read by next week, and can you have comments back to me?"

I have a busy travel schedule lining up for this summer where I will be gone for 4-24 day chunks, several times. It ain't pretty, but between conferences and collaborations, it is what it is. My colleagues have similar schedules, so getting three to five of us together at the same time is damn near impossible. This means that on the rare instances that several people on related thesis committees are around, those days are booked solid with committee-related activities.

The moral of the story is to remember that on the flip side of agreeing to be part of a thesis committee is a solid time commitment down the road, likely to be scheduled at a very inconvenient time. I am learning this the hard way.

Intra-office sub-desk napping

Yes or no? Discuss...

Actual conversation: neighborhood edition

Elderly Neighbor: Nice to see you home on the weekend, seems like it's been a while.

PLS: Well, yeah. I had a lot to do at work over the last little while.

EN: You know, my husband used to work extra hours on the weekend when we were younger. He always wanted to bring in the extra money.

PLS: Um, yeah.

EN: I don't know how much they pay you for those weekends, but it aint worth it.

PLS: I don't get paid extra for weekends...

EN: WHAT? You should tell them you're not working one more weekend unless they pay you for it.

PLS:

EN: What in the hell would you work for free for.

PLS: It's complicated.

EN: Doesn't sound like it to me.

PLS: sigh.

Tough decisions

Well, I think it's time to make the official announcement on the blog.

After all of the discussions how good postdoc life is and how teaching is sucking the life out of me I have decided to bail on this job and take a postdoc position in another country that I've always wanted to live in. My department and Dean are understandably upset and it took some time to make sure that all of my trainees can find PIs to work with so that they can finish their degrees, but sometimes you just have to do what's right for yourself.

I don't know where this will lead or how many postdoc positions I can string together over the next few years, but it'll be an interesting ride. I'll let you know how it goes...

How day care will be the death of me

Day care is a necessary evil if you have a two income family. Unless you have relatives close by who are willing to entertain your child while the two parents are at work, chances are you have to rely on day care. It can be expensive and a huge hassle, but there are not a lot of options.

There are good things about day care, such as your child getting to play with their peers for much of the day. This can lead to learning a lot of things they would otherwise not be confronted with at home. Children at day care also have to get used to being with non-parents for much of the day, which one could argue helps them when their parents need to leave them with someone to get something done or to go out for a night. A lot of day cares also go to great lengths to take what is understood about how children learn and incorporate that into daily activities. All of these are good things.

But daycare has another effect on your life. Before we sent the Wee One to daycare she almost never got sick.


The Wee One, before day care.

We had the normal run of one or two colds a winter as a household, but nothing major. But day care changed all that. Day care is apparently where every cold and flu goes to party. It's like the runny nose equivalent of Burning Man and we have our very own vector from that source. It's like living with the monkey from "Outbreak".


The Wee One in day care. This is actually the look we get every afternoon when we arrive to take her home.

This winter the family has been a revolving door for colds. Every time one sweeps through and leaves us for dead, there is another one at the door. I'm pretty sure I have been healthy for a grand total of 8 days since November and my wife has been hit harder by each cold than I have. Day care is probably taking a year off of our lives, and we're not even getting to play with play dough! The thing I am most excited about this spring is the chance that the time between colds will lengthen as the days do.

Brought to you by the number 8

We recently went to a Sesame Street musical with the Wee One, through which she sat about 50% terrified and 50% amazed. Every few minutes she would tear her eyes away from the stage long enough to say "Too loud!" to either my wife or I. Despite this, she hasn't stopped talking about it and we foolishly bought the soundtrack, which is now the soundtrack of every drive. That, or "My record please." for the whole drive. Where she picked up that a CD is a "record", I have no idea. But I digress.

For the last couple of weeks it seems like I always have one of the songs in my head. Diabolically, many of the songs are set to the tune of older recognizable songs so they lodge in the brain crevasses that much more easily. On more than one occasion I have found myself humming an Elmo or Big Bird vocal.

On this background, recently many of the random things in my life have been mentally framed in the context of Sesame Street. Yesterday I was looking at the syllabus for my class and realized that even though I had somehow calculated last week that I had 14 lectures left (In my defense, I was only about 20% "there" mentally at the start of last week), I really only have 8! How did that manifest in my brain? With a combination of a white 8 on a changing patterned background and "8! 8 lectures, ah, ah, ah".

Is there professional help to extricate furry monsters of this sort from one's head?

Caring about teh students

Last week, when I was embroiled in a too much work, too little sleep haze, Dr. Girlfriend left the following comment on my post about the students in my class not knowing their lab partner's name.

Wow! That is crazy. It is stories like this that make me question the whole teaching thing.

These are supposed to be adults who are taking classes out of choice.

Surely they need some sort of name to use cell-phones and emails? How can they expect to pass if they are not communicating with lab partner outside of class?

A professor is supposed to be a resource, not a nanny. If a student cannot be proactive in their own learning they do not belong at university.

You care too much. And I am never going to make it as an assistant professor if I am expected to pass a certain percentage, regardless of inadequate performance.

Honestly, I wanted to bring this back up because it is something that I have struggled with as a new teacher - the balance between investment in the student/class and my time and sanity. This comes in several flavors, one of which was touched on by the above comment. In this specific case the question is how much student apathy do you compensate for with you're own time and work and in reality, I don't know the answer. To this point I have done what I needed to do in order to ensure that the lectures and labs I teach can involve everyone, regardless of whether they do something right. I know that's cryptic, but when there is a project that builds from one week to the next, I feel like it is my responsibility to ensure that if students screw something up in Week 1, I have a back-up in Week 2 that allows them to continue on with the exercise. To me, that's inherent with planning the exercise in the first place because the likelihood of all students completing an exercise completely correctly the first time they do it is next to nil, no matter how straight-forward. Do you "punish" those who can't follow instructions by forcing them to watch from the sidelines in Week 2? I don't think that helps them learn the concepts, which is why I am there in the first place.

I think the same goes for class. It sucks when you spend hours building a lecture when you have a hundred other things that need to get done and 20 slides in you have two kids blatantly texting three rows back. Part of me wonders why I am bothering working as hard as I do to try and make the class interesting to them when I could just stand up there and talk straight through the figures from the book. I'm not trying to be Robin Williams in the Dead Poet's Society, but I do care about engaging the students in the material. Maybe it's stupid of me to want that at this early stage since no one gets a cookie for teaching at the expense of research, but I also don't know how to turn off that part of my brain that forces me to take pride in whatever product I put out. I have had teachers who just didn't care, for whatever reason, and I can't be that guy. But finding the balance that gets you to "good enough" is tough and it's a moving target.

Although I don't believe that the students need to be coddled, one of the hardest things I have found in the teaching game is finding the right investment balance. Too much and I can't get other essential functions done and stay up-right and married, to little and I can't live with the job I am doing in my role as "The Guy Responsible For Helping The Students Learn This Shit". Some days I get it right and some days I am way off, but it is part of the job. It may not be what we are trained to do or what we want to do, but I can't knowingly* teach poorly any more than I can knowingly leave out data that calls my conclusions into question. I don't know where that leaves me, but I guess I will find out.


*I might suck as a teacher and not know it, which is a different problem.

Up for air

I took yesterday off. Completely off. It was the first day (day, not weekday) this month that I've taken off and it was a beautiful thing. Of course it hasn't helped my day-of-the-week-vertigo that has me constantly looking at my schedule to remember whether it's a Tuesday or Friday, but it was really nice to relax and not do work. It led to the expenditure of way too much money at Lowes, but what can one do?

It is Spring Break in the land of Employment University and I'm finally able to catch up on all of the shit that has been piling up while I have been focused on feeding the ravenous Lecture Beast and coordinating grant submissions. It comes at a good time, with my desk threatening to buckle under the weight of paper. There is much to do during the break from undergraduentia, but the reduced pace means that I can spend a bit of time on research. This is a good week to take a deep breath and think "Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures.Only 14 more lectures."

We have some exciting data, I have a student writing up a MSc thesis and prepping their data for publication and we're staring down what will likely be a busy conference season. It seems like a long way off, but it'll be here by the time I can look up again.

You stay classy "conservatives"

Sometimes I wonder if the people who are adamantly against big changes like health care reform are just the same ignorant and scared morons who have been against social change for decades. It's nice when you get a resounding "yes!" to questions like these. I'm not saying that I am 100% in favor of what the health care reform bill has been turned into as it has worked its way through our broken political system, but it seems clear that the majority of people who are against it have no idea what they are opposing. With yesterday's behavior of the anti-health care demonstrators, one has to wonder how many of them even understand anything but fear of change.

The home stretch and collaboration win

For any number of reasons, this March has been the toughest month I've had in this job. It just seems as though everything of importance has been co-scheduled with some of the biggest time sucks known. It happens and I've just had to keep my head down, get shit done and let some things go for now. After early next week things will be much much better.

One thing that has been an incredible positive, however, has been an ongoing collaboration that was started back when I traveled to Europe late last year. A conversation started over coffee that has grown over time and has evolved into a multinational opportunity to combine the expertise of a few labs to delve into a question that none of the labs could have done on their own. It's been an exciting process and the grant proposal that has resulted from the collaboration is something to behold.

But, it's not just the combination of ideas that has me so excited. I've had my share of collaborations in the past and they are always a little risky because it's nearly impossible to figure out ahead of time whether or not you will work well with another person(s) when you're up against a deadline or when something goes wrong. People can do plenty of talking, but you have to know that they will send you some needed text when you are three days from a grant deadline or that they will do the analysis that they said they would so you can include new data.

With this collaboration (so far) everything has played out better than I could have hoped. The main foreign PI has done everything I asked and more, including sending data and text when I've needed it, coordinated and facilitated some work with other labs and consistently provided helpful feedback on things. It's been good. Now we'll see if we can secure the funds to formalize this relationship and keep the ball rolling.

Hello, my name is....

Last week I had the students in my class do some work in the lab that formed the basis for the next two labs. When I looked at the results they got I realized that I was going to have to re-do much of the final step so that the actually would have something to work with this week.

However, I needed some details from each group in order to help me create the right conditions for the re-do. I emailed the whole class to send me the information I needed and their partner's name so I wasn't doubling up on information unnecessarily. Only 20% of them got back to me, which is not entirely surprising, but what was shocking is that only half of those who responded knew their lab partner's name.

Last week was the ninth lab of the semester. NINTH. That means I have several students who have worked with a classmate for hours on end of this semester and have never learned their name. And I only had 20% respond to me! WTF? Maybe I'm just getting old enough where I like to the names of the people I work with, I don't know. Now get offa my lawn.

Drawn and quartered

March has not been the best month...

The importance of buying local

When I first started assembling my lab, the sales people from several big companies swooped in with their offers. One of my first blog posts was about that. It was an odd experience. But in the end I did the majority of my purchasing through a local distributor because he had a wider selection than any one company and he took the time to work with me rather than just throw fliers at me. And not only is he the sales and delivery guy, but he's sleeping with the company owner - his wife. I can also call him personally at any time to ask him a question about a product or have him send me a quote. I'm a personal attention whore like that.

But never has the customer service been more useful than this semester. On at least two occasions I have had to talk to him and ask for a product for me teaching lab, because I'm woefully under-prepared for yet another lab. On a day's notice he has sent me products critical for the lab with no PO, no payment and nothing other than my word that I will fill out the paperwork and get them paid. Now obviously I'm not going to run off with my $80 worth of supplies and disappear, but try calling Sigma and getting anything from them without some sort of documenting paperwork. Maybe large accounts can do that kind of shit, but I'm not in that position. It's nice to have that kind of resource if you need it.

Midterm Evaluation

I decided that I needed to get a feel for how my students think the class is going so I had them fill out a brief questionnaire and asked them to be as honest as possible. Here are the questions and general responses.

1. Please comment of the pace, presentation and amount of material covered in lectures.
For the most part the students thought things were good here. A few think I go a bit too fast, and that is probably true, but I need to find ways to slow down where I don't just stand there while they finish writing shit down from the slides (which do not contain a ton of text). The slides were generally well liked and the fact that I post them online has been appreciated.

2. Have you found that the lab has helped you to understand classroom concepts?
The lab was universally seen as a good extension of the class material and no one had anything bad to say about it. It helps that I have a kick ass TA.

3. What is one concept from the lecture you still find difficult to understand?
Students mostly complained about some of the nitty gritty details, but sorry folks, all of the fun stuff I tell you is to give you a break from the nitty gritty shit you have to learn. One student complained that some things were hard to understand in class until they went back and studied. What are your other profs doing where you find this unusual?

4. What about the lectures do you find most helpful or useful?
Again, they like the slides and diagrams and that they can access them after class.

5. What would you do to improve the class?
If there was anything here it had to do with being more explicit about WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW FOR THE EXAM. I love this complaint because I tell them in class the format of the test and what I expect them to know. Somehow, if I don't hand them the questions ahead of time I am trying to trick them.

Overall, I don't see anything that makes me concerned, which is good. The main message is to slow down a bit and hover over some of the concepts they find challenging, which I don't think will be a problem. Also some wanted more interaction, which made me laugh because I often toss out questions into the void and it appears that they consider them rhetorical.

My favorite comment was that one student appreciated me trying to make them laugh at the early hour of 9:30. Dude, I've been up for four fucking hours already, which I don't find funny. But, alas, I do remember that schedule.

Anyway, overall I am pleased with the response.

Dirty Oil Man

Dear Oil company Sales Rep,

I don't blame you for being a little curt on the phone when I called to cancel our contract because we bought a new natural gas furnace. I'm sure losing an account in this economy and when you are hawking oil kinda sucks. The fact that you tried to rush us another delivery even though our oil tank was scheduled for removal was kinda a dick move, but whatever. It's nothing personal, we just want something more efficient and you couldn't offer it. There's also the issue of the tax rebates, but I digress.

While I can forgive you for being grumpy, I can also ask you to please go fuck a light socket for sending my family an envelope full of random pamphlets, all strongly suggesting that the switch to natural gas will soon lead to our deaths from either carbon monoxide or from our house blowing up. Your dirty scare mongering of the worst degree only further sold me on our switch and convinced me that your company sucks ass. I hope you have to sleep at night smelling those shitty fumes that we had in our house before we upgraded.

Sincerely,
PLS

p.s. The new furnace is awesome.

Happy Birthday Wee One

Artist's rendition of 2 years ago


2 years goes by quickly.

15 Female Scientists Who Changed the World

Since I am slammed today, you should go check out someone who is actually putting up interesting posts, like 15 Female Scientists Who Changed the World at The Medical Small Business Blog.