A Gift from a Bird

My job is so stressful that I have been thinking about ways to decrease my stress, especially at work. Today I had lunch in my car. I parked it at the end of the parking lot facing a grassy lawn area with pine and oak trees. It was quiet and peaceful; nevermind that the grass was brown because it's dormant.

As I sat there eating my lunch, I remembered another time long ago, that my sister, my niece (who was a toddler then), and I had a picnic at a park. It was a beautiful Southern California summer day. We spread a blanket out on the grass, got down, and started to eat. We were soon joined by birds; maybe about 6 of them. They wanted some food of course.

I've never thought it was a good idea to give human food to wildlife, but on that day, I threw them some crumbs from the biscuit that I was eating. There was one bird in particular that seemed like it was looking at me a lot. I decided I would see how close the bird would get to me, so I put a crumb not too far from where I was sitting; maybe about 1 meter away. The bird hopped closer and took the crumb. I kept decreasing the distance between me and the food, and within 5 min that bird was eating out of my hand!

A few more crumbs and that sweet little bird had its fill. It looked at me and flew off. A few minutes later it came back, landed very close to me and dropped something on the grass right next to me. It looked at me again and then flew off for the last time. I looked down at what was laying on the grass. I picked it up. It was a piece of pink yarn; about 6 cm in length. It was in perfect condition; it wasn't frayed or anything. What a gift! And from a wild bird! Wow!

I kept that piece of yarn for a long time. I wonder what happened to it...

The Job Search Continues

My former co-worker got the job, so my search will continue, just not today or this week because I am too busy in my current job to even get much sleep.

The Resolution and The Interview

I am working my way towards accomplishing my New Year's Resolution. I knew that I would not be able to all of a sudden start going to bed at 11:30, so I have been gradually going to bed earlier and earlier. I think I will be successful with this resolution.

I still haven't heard anything about the job that I interviewed for, but I think I will not be selected for the position. This is not negative thinking; this is realistic thinking. I am basing my realistic thinking on several things, most of which involve the fact that I was not at my best or even close to my best on the day of the interview. It wasn't just an off day for me; it was a stressful day following many previous stressful days and weeks. Things that were causing me stress on the day of the interview are as follows:

1. I had just started a new job and it was/is a very stressful job. The PI is a self-acknowledged Drama Queen and so our lab is either always in crisis or recovering from a crisis.

2. There was a lab crisis on the morning of my job interview that I had to deal with before the interview. I dealt with it, but my blood pressure shot way up and I could not get it down.

3. The interviews for most of these positions are phone interviews and so I had a phone call to make. I had planned to make the call from the lab using the lab phone, but I knew that if I did, my phone interview would be interrupted by the recovery from the morning crisis. So just an hour before the interview was scheduled I had to find another place to make the call from. I didn't have enough minutes on my cell and I couldn't afford to get minutes, so using my cell was not an option. So, I did the only thing I could think of which was to go to the office that I used to work in when I was on my graduate assistantship. But I didn't have the car that day, so I ran there even though my blood pressure was sky high.

4. I had just had surgery a few days before the interview and unfortunately, I was having some complications and some pain. Running did not help.

5. I knew one of the other applicants was for the position. He was a co-worker in the same department at the job that I just left. There we were working together and didn't even know that we were both applying for the same job. His phone interview was scheduled the same morning just before mine. I found this out 4 days before the interview. And he has 30 years of experience in the field and I in comparison as a recent graduate had very little experience. I had considered canceling my interview, but decided to go through with it because I didn't want to give up.

So I was a mess during my phone interview and it affected my ability to do well. I did not feel confident during my conversation with the interviewers knowing that they had just interviewed someone that is an awesome person and is superbly skilled in the field.

So that's the way it was and that is why I believe I will not get that job.

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.

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.

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?

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?????