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a scientist s life skip to main skip to sidebar a scientist s life diary of an ex postdoctoral scientist who worked tirelessly for over half a decade in a lab somewhere call it a memoir of a grumpy old scientist saturday october 02 2010 the metamorphosis another answer i think i ll write a bit about the transition from academia to industry now before i go on about it a disclaimer i was a pretty frustrated postdoc not in terms of the science but of the people there i think i ve made it clear over and over again in the blog that it was mostly the people who were frustrating me and how they perceived me and my abilities also i liked doing experiments and doing science i like science i am not one of the people who hated the lab bench and so moved i also didn t have a financial motivation for moving apart from getting a paycheck i took a pay cut to be where i am i wasn t frustrated by the length of contract per se i was frustrated with the people the politics the institute the science also was futile but i liked that about academic science how it isn t supposed to be about immediate gratification of scientific goals i am kinda anti american style grant funded science in that way and i have absolutely no regrets righty now that s over let s get down to the nitty gritty the thing that hit me straight away apart from the fact that on the first day i was presented with my own desk which is 3 times larger than anything i ever had in my academic career btw my own pc my own stationary etc is that people are actually nice they actually want to make you feel at home in the company i think this is particularly so for the industry i am in because a lot of the work is done in teams a totally alien concept in most academic settings certainly was in mine but it s so refreshing and so alien to me so alien in fact that i still have to consciously be aware that people aren t out to get me and make a fool out of me i already was pretty defensive when i came to doing a postdoc but the last few years definitely didn t help with my defensiveness another thing that is nice is that people actually do a job they don t swan in at 11am gossip for an hour have lunch for an hour do paperwork a k a booking holidays using work pc and then leave at 4pm i and others are in at 9 am or earlier work the 8 hours and go home sometimes we have to work a little bit more when there are deadlines but that s the nature of the job any job this leads on to another peculiar thing with our industry time sheets we have to log and account for every hour we are in work and before you go ooooh i d hate to do that having to justify what i spend my time on i love the freedom i get in academia i can do whatever i want whenever i want having worked with someone who was a certified slacker see above who had no through evidence based scientific knowledge but got that far for ass kissing the pi and being the pi s best pal s other half i love the fact that i have to justify every single hour i am in at work it s called accountability and responsibility for your time the fact that you have to be accountable and responsible for what you do during your time in the office makes you more disciplined you think more about what you do who you do it for why you do it and of course you get time for tea breaks and coffee and a guaranteed lunch hour despite what academics think i really cannot think why a time sheet is such a bad thing personally i really like it i think they should introduce it in to academia no more of this oh but i work extra some days and i don t others nonsense no more of this uber flexitime going back to the first paragraph the great thing other great thing about where i am is that they help you to get your job done by they i mean people like the hr and it people who are supposed to support you actually support you they actually help you which in my experience certainly wasn t the case in academia sure you get those one or two who were capable of doing their job and doing it well but you had so many inept people around it was amazing that anything got done or maybe it was just where i was some of their job description might have read professional pass the buck er personally i still marvel that the it guys i work with are capable and knowledgable and so helpful which really is the way it should be i feel that there is less of a waste around me wasted money and time it might be the peculiarity of the industry as well as the office that i am in i truly think i am lucky that way having spoken to a couple of people in the industry i do think the nice normal people working fits what a colleague said was so true if we weren t normal we would ve stayed in academia posted by lou at 5 44 pm 2 comments friday september 24 2010 luck having the right skills and mindset is important but most of the time finding a new job is down to luck luck because the timing between you and your future employer has to be just right you have to be looking when they are hiring and conversely the employer will have to send out an ad at the right time for the candidate to be looking i thought about that a lot during my postdoc since my ex supervisor used to sagely say that whether you get a decent applicant or not is down to luck timing and my thoughts haven t changed i know a person working in my industry who tried to get a job in another firm but didn t she did half a year later when she sent in her cv again turns out that there was a little mix up during the first try in industry especially in a service industry i use that term loosely as in any industry that has to work with a client to provide a service for them business dictates the size and capacity if you happen to send in your cv during lean times they won t hire you even if you are good they might if you are brilliant however people come and go and positions that were not available or existed when you first contacted the firm may open up 6 months down the line so i guess the point is be nice to the hr person you are contacting you never know when you have to get back in touch with them posted by lou at 6 54 pm 1 comment friday september 17 2010 answer 4 whilst i construct a meaningful answer to andrew and labrat s questions i shall answer sophster s one because it is easier did you take a bit of a hit in salary changing career and was it worth it yes and yes i always knew that i would have to have a pay cut in changing there was absolutely no doubt about that to tell you the truth i really don t understand why some postdocs that i knew don t understand that changing careers means taking a pay cut you might be a phd and have years of experience but you re still a novice in another world and your so called transferable skills are untested in another industry i also knew that there was more of a scope for my salary to increase and there is more chance of lateral movement between companies within the same industry furthermore i wouldn t have to be worried about my pay being stagnant or become less after my contract has ended and when i start a new one either at the same institution or another one thing i hated about a postdoc position is that you already know how much you will get paid and also know how much it will rise by it s fixed and during my postdoc career i was cheated on 2 pay points then i took another pay cut i liked science and i enjoyed doing lab work but i really resented that especially when other people was on a higher wage with lesser experience i also resented that your pay depended on when you started during my postdoc career there was one major bump up of pay so whoever started their career 3 years after i did was on a much much better starting salary even considering inflation this is the problem with grant based funding every grant application goes for the minimum spine point to make it easier to fund there is no scope for someone with 5 6 years experience as a postdoc getting their worth unless they stay with one group and write their own postdoc grant which doesn t always happen like for me or they can cope with a slightly shorter contract which defeats the whole purpose of it surely so is it worth it yes because even if you get a pay cut now the future is more exciting and promising than being in academia delayed gratification to a certain extent but there is scope for much increase as well as decrease and at least that increase is not predetermined as in the spine point system you also have a better prospect of lateral movement within the industry to me near the end of my postdoc career there wasn t a worse position than being stuck in a frustrating job even if it paid slightly better taking a small pay cut for a few years was and still is not a problem for me having an interesting job where i enjoy working where people appreciate my work role is more important for me and the possibility for moving on to either another company or a slightly different industry in a couple of years should i choose to do so is enticing i might not be saying this in 5 years time but at the moment it will do i will also add that my current salary is 15 less than what it used to be it really is not that much of a cut if you think about it per month after tax the difference is less than 150 pounds posted by lou at 6 29 pm 2 comments older posts home subscribe to posts atom email lou louscientist at googlemail dot com blog feed everyday scientist visual sample size calculator 5 months ago now what was i doing a why and an eavesdropping and a brief update 4 years ago thus spake zuska how to live your life efficiently and maximize your potential to get things done 8 years ago a crown of thistles yang baik dan jelek dari teknologi pada tahun 2015 10 years ago femalescienceprofessor coaching academics 11 years ago youngfemalescientist special victims the she had an affair with him accusation 11 years ago tales of the genomic repairman dna repair 11 years ago blue lab coats continuing fallout 12 years ago dr jekyll mrs hyde 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