Science vs. Career

It seems natural to me that I would like to work in science. Science is cool. You might not think that because maybe in 5th grade you had Mr. Boringasallgetout for a science teacher and he took your love of the natural world out to the woodshed. But it's still cool, you're just wrong about it. In particular, the coolest part of the cool world of science is the human body. I don't want to go into too much detail, but I mean, my GOD, from enzymes to organs, from applied chemistry to consciousness, it all works out to a you and a me, to people reading this blog and so on and so forth. If you haven't considered it much, trust me, to comprehend 1% of the complexity of the working human body is to be blown away.

So, it sucks that I have found out that the Ph.D. track in biology/biochem/whatever is turning out to be an awful fit. I mentioned that track before, the sort of grad student to post doc to professor track. And the reason it's turning out to be an awful fit is the culture of the track. The defining feature of that culture is it's omnipresence, the expectation that being a scientist means that you are a scientist at work, and at home, and at religious times, and sleeping, etc. That message was repeated throughout graduate school - you are always "on", you are never "off" and when you are "off" you should be "on". This is the culture that says you should work 80 hours a week, the culture that says even after you are done with the day's work you should take some work home, the culture that says science is priority #1, let nothing come before it.

Turns out that culture and I don't get along. At all. I've known for a while that work was a pretty low priority. Work doesn't get listed on the same page as my family. Work doesn't, frankly, outrank my hobbies in priority to me. It's something I have to do, and it's something I try to excel at because I believe that's an appropriate work ethic. But I find that I expect there to be a boundary between my work and the rest of my life. That boundary didn't have to be a rigid 40 hour work week with 9 to 5 hours. I worked weekend hours regularly enough, especially in graduate school, to treat my work responsibilities seriously. However, I expected that boundary to hold on my off time. I didn't think I should have to feel concern that 5 hours on Saturday morning wasn't enough time. I didn't think I should have to feel guilty about leaving at 5:30 so that I could go down to Geneseo once a week to play games with friends.

I struggled with this in graduate school. In the end, I powered through it because a) I wasn't going to just quit because it was tough, and b) the other side of the boundary was, frankly, more selfish, it was more about my free time. Things changed, especially at the post doc in Atlanta, with Malcolm, and one car, and Teresa's internship. Again I didn't quit because quitting was just something you don't do, in that after school special mentality. But now the other side of my boundary wasn't my playstation time, or my D&D time, it was my quality interaction with my son time. It was my help my wife pursue her career time. It was my be a father and a husband time. In graduate school, I dealt with my resentment at the culture by putting the onus on my own shoulders to push the boundary to include as much work as I could. As a post doc, and as a father and husband in Atlanta, the conflict with this scientific career culture became untenable.

I had an interview for a post doc in Rochester last month. I call it an interview, but let's be honest, the thing was a 40 minute lecture. I was picturing snowballs and devils about the time the interviewer launched into his hours you work speech (and let's say that he expected 80 hours a week, because he did). It was then that I realized I would just stay unemployed before working for him, if that's what it came to. At the time, I just sort of cleared that interview emotionally from me, but eventually it came back into my brain. That was the science culture I was going to re-enter, in some other post doc. I would probably find a much better fit than this individual, but the culture is still there, even if not in the immediate direct manner of this particular lab. That was when this really crystallized for me, when I knew that wherever I was going to work, I wanted to be done with this culture. And so that's where we get to now. No more post doc. No more aiming at some tenured professorship. It's hard to describe the unburdening of spirit that has come with this decision, but if you find that to be too melodramatic let me simplify: I am much happier now.

Next then to the inevitable question of, what now. Well, I still love science. It turns out that loving science does not cure all, and that in this case, it did not overcome the very bad fit I have just described. I'm currently job searching for lab tech jobs, science industry jobs, and am keeping an eye out for science writing jobs (although on this last part I am really clueless about how to get my foot in the door). I'm also willing to work outside of science, but that's sort of a harder row to hoe. Suffice to say that after 7 years of graduate school, and 2 more as a postdoc, I am a little gunshy about embarking on a bunch of education to jump into something new without some experience. I realize there's a catch there, you need the experience and education to do the work, and I am aiming for the reverse order a bit. However having made the break form my previous career track, I am aware that nothing particularly compels me to limit my job search to science jobs. There are a few sort of possibilities that always hooked in my brain when I thought of them before, like working with a non profit organization like the red cross/amnesty intl/planned parenthood, something forensic related, or even woodworking and furniture making, but those are all just ideas now. To make anything come of them would require a lot more consideration and research.

I guess I want to close off by saying that I have pretty seriously indicted the scientific culture. I think it's a really unhealthy balance between work and the rest of life, and I think the fact that some people match well with the culture is lousy evidence in its support. However, I have worked with really great people in science. I'm not going to list them out here, especially since I am sure I would accidentally omit many. Despite how I feel about the Ph.D. culture, I am very grateful for the relationships I made during that time. How I feel about science culture is very distinct from how I feel about the people I worked with. Scientists are often (but not always) really awesome people and I am privileged to have been their colleague.