Sunday, January 2, 2011
Happy New Year!
Do you make New Years Resolutions? I haven't made any in a long time because I never keep them. But I made one this year. Usually I stay up until 1:30 in the morning playing facebook games, but I really can't keep doing that because I have to get up at 6:30 am. So my New Year Resolution is to be in bed by 11:30 pm. That will be harder than it sounds because I am a night owl and I just get stuck playing games and it's hard to stop. So, we'll just see how well I do at keeping this resolution. I'll keep you posted.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Merry Christmas!
Presents around our Christmas tree (hey, don't laugh; it was free!).Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you have a great Christmas! And if you don't have much, I hope that you can make the best of what you have.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
My Temporary New Job
I have been at my new job for 3 weeks now and I really like it. Most of all, I like my new boss. She is a superb and brilliant scientist. Her CV is amazing; she has pages and pages of publications. She is very quick at finding errors in data analysis. At a recent lab meeting, one of the post-docs (not me) passed out copies of some graphs that he had made from his data sets and within seconds of looking at the graphs, she found something very wrong with them. It took me 2 minutes to figure out what she was talking about and only then could I see that there was something wrong. But, I might not have noticed it if she hadn’t said anything. She is also a very nice and fun person. In the short time that I have been in her lab, she has already hosted 2 parties at her home, with a lot of food and drinks. In short, I think she is an amazing scientist and a wonderful person. And I feel like I am going to disappoint or betray her.
Just to recap, when I accepted this position, I thought it would be a post-doc position with benefits. But it turned out that graduates with my degree cannot do post-docs at this university. So, the position was turned into a temporary OPS position with no benefits. Since, this position involves a lot of traveling and OPS employees have to be paid for time spent in travel, I thought that she would decide that I wasn’t going to be a good fit for the position after all. Well obviously, she did still want me (we worked something out regarding travel time) and I am now in the position.
If I had been able to do the position as a post-doc with benefits, I would have had to sign a contract, which in this particular case would have ended in August 2011. Instead I signed a letter stating that I accepted the OPS research associate position. She put in the letter that she considered this to be a post-doc position and that she would treat it as such. She also put the end date with a statement that she expected to renew the position with me after August 2011. Since then, she has said to me several times that she expects to renew the position and keep me for another year.
I haven’t applied for any positions since I started in this position, but I have several applications out there that I have been waiting on. This last Friday, I heard from the one position that I want the most. I have a phone interview with them this coming Friday. This is a position that I have trained for. It pays well and has benefits. The phone interview is the last step in the process. There will not be a face-to-face interview.
I have never let on to my new boss that I have other applications out there. I never told her that because of the change from post-doc with benefits to OPS with no benefits, that even though I was accepting this position for now, that I would continue to look for a career position with benefits. When she says to me that she expects to renew this position after August and keep me for another year, I just smile.
Now I am wondering about things and doubting whether I have made the right choices. I don’t want for her to feel that I have misled her, but I think I have. I think I should have let her know before signing the letter that I had other applications out there for positions that pay well and have benefits? But that time is passed and I can’t go back and re-do it. So what to do now? Should I tell her now that I have other applications in progress? Should I tell her that I have a phone interview on Friday? Or should I just not say anything until I receive an offer?
I could sure use some advice. What do you think I should do?
Just to recap, when I accepted this position, I thought it would be a post-doc position with benefits. But it turned out that graduates with my degree cannot do post-docs at this university. So, the position was turned into a temporary OPS position with no benefits. Since, this position involves a lot of traveling and OPS employees have to be paid for time spent in travel, I thought that she would decide that I wasn’t going to be a good fit for the position after all. Well obviously, she did still want me (we worked something out regarding travel time) and I am now in the position.
If I had been able to do the position as a post-doc with benefits, I would have had to sign a contract, which in this particular case would have ended in August 2011. Instead I signed a letter stating that I accepted the OPS research associate position. She put in the letter that she considered this to be a post-doc position and that she would treat it as such. She also put the end date with a statement that she expected to renew the position with me after August 2011. Since then, she has said to me several times that she expects to renew the position and keep me for another year.
I haven’t applied for any positions since I started in this position, but I have several applications out there that I have been waiting on. This last Friday, I heard from the one position that I want the most. I have a phone interview with them this coming Friday. This is a position that I have trained for. It pays well and has benefits. The phone interview is the last step in the process. There will not be a face-to-face interview.
I have never let on to my new boss that I have other applications out there. I never told her that because of the change from post-doc with benefits to OPS with no benefits, that even though I was accepting this position for now, that I would continue to look for a career position with benefits. When she says to me that she expects to renew this position after August and keep me for another year, I just smile.
Now I am wondering about things and doubting whether I have made the right choices. I don’t want for her to feel that I have misled her, but I think I have. I think I should have let her know before signing the letter that I had other applications out there for positions that pay well and have benefits? But that time is passed and I can’t go back and re-do it. So what to do now? Should I tell her now that I have other applications in progress? Should I tell her that I have a phone interview on Friday? Or should I just not say anything until I receive an offer?
I could sure use some advice. What do you think I should do?
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Another Obstacle In My Way
After months of searching for a position, on Friday I was offered a postdoc position at the same university where I got my doctorate. The professor that offered it to me is a world renowned researcher and our university is lucky to have her. I accepted the position. Yesterday, I found out that graduates with the particular degree that I have cannot do postdocs. Apparently we can only do OPS (temporary without any benefits). That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. The professor has offered to pay me more to compensate for the lack of benefits. This position will require a lot of traveling around this state, the eastern U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands.
According to university policy:
If an OPS "employee is required as a result of University"..."employment to attend a one-day meeting or conference, or otherwise work at an out-of-town location, such attendance or work, including travel time to out-of-town meetings, conferences, and work locations, whether or not such travel occurs during the employee's normal work schedule, is considered time worked. Time spent in travel may result in total hours for the week exceeding 40, in which case the employee is in overtime status and must be compensated according to standard overtime policies." "Overtime compensation is 1.5 times the primary rate."
If I understand this correctly, if I am flying to the Netherlands, from the moment I leave my home to the moment I arrive at a hotel in Amsterdam, I have to be paid. And most of that time could end up costing her 1.5 times my hourly rate.
Once she finds this out, do you think she will still want me? I doubt it. I'm so bummed.
And someone with my degree can't be a postdoc??? WTF?????
According to university policy:
If an OPS "employee is required as a result of University"..."employment to attend a one-day meeting or conference, or otherwise work at an out-of-town location, such attendance or work, including travel time to out-of-town meetings, conferences, and work locations, whether or not such travel occurs during the employee's normal work schedule, is considered time worked. Time spent in travel may result in total hours for the week exceeding 40, in which case the employee is in overtime status and must be compensated according to standard overtime policies." "Overtime compensation is 1.5 times the primary rate."
If I understand this correctly, if I am flying to the Netherlands, from the moment I leave my home to the moment I arrive at a hotel in Amsterdam, I have to be paid. And most of that time could end up costing her 1.5 times my hourly rate.
Once she finds this out, do you think she will still want me? I doubt it. I'm so bummed.
And someone with my degree can't be a postdoc??? WTF?????
Saturday, September 11, 2010
A Citrus Problem [Finally the Answer!]
A few weeks ago at work, an inspector brought in some citrus leaves from a nursery. He had gone there to survey citrus trees for pests and diseases and he found this:
Symptoms on the upper surface of the leaves
The inspector said that all of the citrus trees had this problem. Both he and the nursery owner were wondering what was causing these symptoms. It's my job to figure out stuff like this, so I took the samples and logged them in to our specimen tracking system.
So, what do you think is the cause of these symptoms?
Sorry I don't have a picture posted of the underside of the leaves. I tried, but blogger kept inverting the picture. The yellow spots on the upper surface of the leaves are also visible on the underside of the leaves.
Feel free to post your ideas in the comments. OnWednesday 9/15/10, sometime next week, I'll update this post with the diagnosis that I gave to the inspector and owner. Sorry about the delay, but I have a deadline that I have to meet.
Okay, I'll give you a hint. Ask yourself whether the cause is biotic or abiotic.
THE ANSWER
I appreciate your patience in waiting for the answer to the citrus problem. I have been buried under job applications, but decided to come up for air...
So, because I was the only one around when the inspector arrived with the citrus sample, it fell upon me to come up with the diagnosis for the symptoms on the leaves. I'm going to over the thought process that I went through to arrive at the correct answer.
I looked at the leaves and observed the yellow (chlorotic) spots. The first thing I asked myself was: is the cause biotic (a live organism) or abiotic (nutritional, injury, environmental, genetic, etc.)? If the cause was biotic, I would expect for there to be some necrosis (brown or black plant tissue) mixed in with the yellow spots. There was no necrosis on the leaves. The next thing that I looked at was the distribution of the spots. You'll notice that there are no yellow spots around the base of the leaf near the stem. Also notice in the picture above, that in the leaf on the right the spots are distributed mainly on one side left of the midrib). So the distribution of symptoms are not random. Rather, they are clustered along the top to middle and along one side of the leaves. If the cause were a live organism (plant pathogen), the chlorotic spots would be distributed on the leaves in a random pattern. So, because no necrosis was present and because the spots were not random, I determined that the cause was abiotic.
I asked myself what caused the spots on these leaves? If you'll notice, the spots look kind of like droplets; like maybe spray drops. So, was something sprayed on the citrus trees? Yes, I do believe something was sprayed on the citrus trees in the nursery. But, what? A chemical spray? The most likely chemical spray would be herbicide. But, why would a nursery manager or staff spray herbicide on their valuable and expensive citrus crop? I have seen herbicide damage on plants before and this looked like what I would expect, so I decided that the cause had to be herbicide. Sometimes unintentional application of herbicide can kill a crop depending on the amount applied, but clearly in this case, the amount applied did not kill the trees. The damage was enough to cause phytotoxicity injury to the citrus, but not kill them. So it was a mistake.
So, how could a mistake like this happen? Think it through. The purpose of using herbicides in the first place is to kill weeds. The trees were in a greenhouse nursery; enclosed in a building. We can safely assume that herbicide was not sprayed inside the greenhouse. So, it was sprayed outside of the greenhouse. But that doesn't explain how the herbicide got on the citrus trees. Think about the equipment used to spray chemicals. Ah, the sprayer. They used a sprayer to spray herbicide on the outside of the greenhouse. Then they used the same sprayer to spray something else inside the greenhouse.
What did they spray inside the greenhouse? Take another look at the yellow spots on the leaves. They look kind of big; and there are a lot of droplets that look clumped together. Usually herbicide spray produces a rather fine spray, with a small diameter drop size. These drops look big, with a large diameter droplet size. So the damage looks like herbicide injury, but the droplet size looks like something else. What? What else can be sprayed that has a larger droplet size than herbicide spray? Well, of course...fertilizer spray! Do you see now what happened?
My diagnosis: herbicide phytotoxicity.
My analysis (I had to be tactful about what I wrote): The most likely cause is herbicide injury due to herbicide residue on the sprayer used to apply fertilizer to the citrus trees.
I sent the final report to the inspector. A few days later, he came to see me. He said he got very curious about the whole thing when he received my report. So, he went back to the nursery to try to find out whether that was really what happened. He walked around the outside of the greenhouse and noticed that there were dead weeds all along the outside perimeter of the greenhouse. Then, he went to talk with the nursery manager. The manager admitted that they had used the same sprayer to fertilize inside the greenhouse that they had used to spray herbicides outside. He said the nursery staff forgot to wash out the sprayer before applying fertilizer to the citrus.
Symptoms on the upper surface of the leavesThe inspector said that all of the citrus trees had this problem. Both he and the nursery owner were wondering what was causing these symptoms. It's my job to figure out stuff like this, so I took the samples and logged them in to our specimen tracking system.
So, what do you think is the cause of these symptoms?
Sorry I don't have a picture posted of the underside of the leaves. I tried, but blogger kept inverting the picture. The yellow spots on the upper surface of the leaves are also visible on the underside of the leaves.
Feel free to post your ideas in the comments. On
Okay, I'll give you a hint. Ask yourself whether the cause is biotic or abiotic.
THE ANSWER
I appreciate your patience in waiting for the answer to the citrus problem. I have been buried under job applications, but decided to come up for air...
So, because I was the only one around when the inspector arrived with the citrus sample, it fell upon me to come up with the diagnosis for the symptoms on the leaves. I'm going to over the thought process that I went through to arrive at the correct answer.
I looked at the leaves and observed the yellow (chlorotic) spots. The first thing I asked myself was: is the cause biotic (a live organism) or abiotic (nutritional, injury, environmental, genetic, etc.)? If the cause was biotic, I would expect for there to be some necrosis (brown or black plant tissue) mixed in with the yellow spots. There was no necrosis on the leaves. The next thing that I looked at was the distribution of the spots. You'll notice that there are no yellow spots around the base of the leaf near the stem. Also notice in the picture above, that in the leaf on the right the spots are distributed mainly on one side left of the midrib). So the distribution of symptoms are not random. Rather, they are clustered along the top to middle and along one side of the leaves. If the cause were a live organism (plant pathogen), the chlorotic spots would be distributed on the leaves in a random pattern. So, because no necrosis was present and because the spots were not random, I determined that the cause was abiotic.
I asked myself what caused the spots on these leaves? If you'll notice, the spots look kind of like droplets; like maybe spray drops. So, was something sprayed on the citrus trees? Yes, I do believe something was sprayed on the citrus trees in the nursery. But, what? A chemical spray? The most likely chemical spray would be herbicide. But, why would a nursery manager or staff spray herbicide on their valuable and expensive citrus crop? I have seen herbicide damage on plants before and this looked like what I would expect, so I decided that the cause had to be herbicide. Sometimes unintentional application of herbicide can kill a crop depending on the amount applied, but clearly in this case, the amount applied did not kill the trees. The damage was enough to cause phytotoxicity injury to the citrus, but not kill them. So it was a mistake.
So, how could a mistake like this happen? Think it through. The purpose of using herbicides in the first place is to kill weeds. The trees were in a greenhouse nursery; enclosed in a building. We can safely assume that herbicide was not sprayed inside the greenhouse. So, it was sprayed outside of the greenhouse. But that doesn't explain how the herbicide got on the citrus trees. Think about the equipment used to spray chemicals. Ah, the sprayer. They used a sprayer to spray herbicide on the outside of the greenhouse. Then they used the same sprayer to spray something else inside the greenhouse.
What did they spray inside the greenhouse? Take another look at the yellow spots on the leaves. They look kind of big; and there are a lot of droplets that look clumped together. Usually herbicide spray produces a rather fine spray, with a small diameter drop size. These drops look big, with a large diameter droplet size. So the damage looks like herbicide injury, but the droplet size looks like something else. What? What else can be sprayed that has a larger droplet size than herbicide spray? Well, of course...fertilizer spray! Do you see now what happened?
My diagnosis: herbicide phytotoxicity.
My analysis (I had to be tactful about what I wrote): The most likely cause is herbicide injury due to herbicide residue on the sprayer used to apply fertilizer to the citrus trees.
I sent the final report to the inspector. A few days later, he came to see me. He said he got very curious about the whole thing when he received my report. So, he went back to the nursery to try to find out whether that was really what happened. He walked around the outside of the greenhouse and noticed that there were dead weeds all along the outside perimeter of the greenhouse. Then, he went to talk with the nursery manager. The manager admitted that they had used the same sprayer to fertilize inside the greenhouse that they had used to spray herbicides outside. He said the nursery staff forgot to wash out the sprayer before applying fertilizer to the citrus.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Lacking Motivation
Not much has changed since my last post. The only major thing that has occurred is that my husband and I moved. At the old place, our lease was up at the end of July and the owner wanted us to sign a one year lease. Because I don't know when and where I'm going to end up, I didn't want to commit to a one year lease. But it was a major challenge to find a place in this town that would rent to us on a month to month basis. Everywhere I looked, they wanted long-term (one year) leases. Finally, I found someone through a friend, who was willing to rent to us month to month. Thank goodness for friends! The new apartment has a larger kitchen and bathroom, and it has a fireplace. It costs $226 less a month than at the old place! There are a lot of pine trees around the place.
The view over the patio fence.
My job hunt isn't going very well. Since I graduated, I've applied for 5 positions. For 3 of them, I have never heard anything back, so my application probably went into the circular file. One of the positions got canceled because the interviewers didn't have time to look at the applications. For the fifth position, I made the cut and my application has been referred to the hiring official! It's a low level position, but the pay is okay and it's based in my home state.
There have been at least 7 other positions that I could have applied for but did not. Why? I have been asking myself that very question. I did spend a lot of time looking for an apartment. But if the truth must be told, it's that I really really like where I am working right now. So, I'm just not that motivated to go anywhere else. I believe that I'm at one of the best, if not the best plant diagnostic department in the country. The only problem is that my job is the same that I had when I was an intern. The job title is the same, the pay is the same, and there are no benefits. I want more. I cannot stay in the position indefinitely. So how do I motivate myself to apply to more positions? Keep my eyes focused on the more that I want...I guess.
The view over the patio fence. My job hunt isn't going very well. Since I graduated, I've applied for 5 positions. For 3 of them, I have never heard anything back, so my application probably went into the circular file. One of the positions got canceled because the interviewers didn't have time to look at the applications. For the fifth position, I made the cut and my application has been referred to the hiring official! It's a low level position, but the pay is okay and it's based in my home state.
There have been at least 7 other positions that I could have applied for but did not. Why? I have been asking myself that very question. I did spend a lot of time looking for an apartment. But if the truth must be told, it's that I really really like where I am working right now. So, I'm just not that motivated to go anywhere else. I believe that I'm at one of the best, if not the best plant diagnostic department in the country. The only problem is that my job is the same that I had when I was an intern. The job title is the same, the pay is the same, and there are no benefits. I want more. I cannot stay in the position indefinitely. So how do I motivate myself to apply to more positions? Keep my eyes focused on the more that I want...I guess.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Job Hunting
Thank you my friends for continuing to come to my blog even though I haven't posted anything in a while. I have been busy. I am still working full-time at the job that I've had for almost a year now. I really like my job, but I can't stay there. It started out as an internship and then turned into a regular job, but with no pay raise and no benefits. So I am job hunting.
There are basically two types of positions that I am looking for. One is as a crop consultant and it doesn't matter what crop or crops. The other is as a post-doc, preferably one that utilizes my molecular biology skills. Some of you may be wondering what happened to my plans to apply for the federal positions that involve plant protection. You know the ones I mean. The ones that have 45 questions to answer with about 9 questions requiring an essay answer of approximately 8000 words. Well, I've given up on those positions. According to my answers to some of the questions, I do not have the specialized experience that they are looking for and so there is no point in putting myself through countless 45 question applications all for nothing. I do not have the time for that. So either crop consultant or post-doc it will be, unless something else comes along. I'll keep you posted on my job hunt.
In the meantime, have you ever seen an artichoke in bloom? I haven't. My step-daughter has blooming artichokes in her yard. She took a picture and I'm posting it here.
There are basically two types of positions that I am looking for. One is as a crop consultant and it doesn't matter what crop or crops. The other is as a post-doc, preferably one that utilizes my molecular biology skills. Some of you may be wondering what happened to my plans to apply for the federal positions that involve plant protection. You know the ones I mean. The ones that have 45 questions to answer with about 9 questions requiring an essay answer of approximately 8000 words. Well, I've given up on those positions. According to my answers to some of the questions, I do not have the specialized experience that they are looking for and so there is no point in putting myself through countless 45 question applications all for nothing. I do not have the time for that. So either crop consultant or post-doc it will be, unless something else comes along. I'll keep you posted on my job hunt.
In the meantime, have you ever seen an artichoke in bloom? I haven't. My step-daughter has blooming artichokes in her yard. She took a picture and I'm posting it here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
