Hm. What next? Part VI

In my resolutions post I mentioned some changes underfoot, and one of those changes is my job!  In September a took a job with the same instrument company that I post-doc-ed with.

[Side bar.  I verbally use "post-doc" as a verb all the time, and I know I'm not alone.  My problem is the past tense of post-doc.  Post-doc-ed?  Post-doced?  Post-docked?  Should it even have a hyphen between post and doc?  Everything I come up with looks dumb.]

So as a post-doc I worked for an instrument company in Delaware, but I was primarily based in a lab at BFU (Big Fancy University).  It was definitely a non-traditional post doc, even by industry standards.  This lab is a joint project of sorts between my company and BFU.  While there are faculty chairs technically associated with the lab, I was pretty much the only staff person making things happen on a day to day basis.  Everything from prepping and running samples, caring for the instruments, data analysis, training users on various software programs, tracking down supplies, coming up with content for a lab handbook and website, to communicating guidelines and results with lab users.  I did my best to stay out of BFU administrative and political nonsense.  It was an insane job to say the least.

Since I got hired for real my responsibilities have gradually been transitioning away from this lab at BFU.  Supposedly there's a replacement for me... he's real and I've met him...but I'll believe it all when I see it.  (Let's say BFU has known since August that I was going to step down my time but not a whole lot has happened administratively to hire a replacement.)  In November I dropped to 50% time in Baltimore, with most of the other 50% of my time spent in California at another company location.  Since then I've been working a couple weeks in Baltimore then a couple weeks in California.  After February I'll do a couple months at 25% time in Baltimore, until finally dropping down to just a day or two every now and then.

In California I've been training and working on a new instrument that we've just put out.  I had experience on another instrument with similar technology in grad school, making me a good candidate ti work on this project.  I'll continue to spend lots of time in California for a few more months (hello frequent flyer miles and Marriott points!) before being based primarily in Delaware.  I'm sure I'll still travel quite a bit, though not as often, far, or for so long at once.

I'm pretty excited about the changing job.  There are a lot of less than polite things I could say to explain this, but in this venue it's going to have to rest with this: I'm ready to be done with Baltimore (both in terms of living and working there) and the work in California is pretty fun.  I think in the long term this will be have a lot more of what I want in a job than this post doc has had.  The post doc was in a lot of ways closer to the facility job I thought I wanted than this job will be, but there were a few things that made this not the best match for me that wouldn't necessarily be true everywhere.  If I ever did take a facility type of job (funnily enough I've been hearing rumors that there may be exactly such a job available quite soon), it would definitely have to be in a very different type of academic setting that BFU, where I'm preferably not starting from scratch and not the only person working in the lab.

P.S.  My other/older What Next posts are here, here, and here.

New Year, New Post

So it's been ages since I've blogged, but in the spirit of New Year's and motivated by one of my favorite women-making-it-work-in-science-with-a-family bloggers (seriously adorable little family and frankness that makes me laugh out loud and adore her all the more) I decided to post.

I'll warn you right now that this is a stereotypical post on resolutions and goals for this year.  Let's check up on last year's goals as we go...considering the one I bombed in 2013 is going to make a reappearance in this year's list...

Student loans!  They're paid off!!  I made steady progress on them for the first half of the year until summer when I started saving money for a trip to France.  In September I got promoted/hired as a "real person" with the same company I post-doc-ed (what on earth is the past tense of the verb "to post-doc"???).  Getting a real PhD job came with a substantial promotion, and as soon as I saw my first pay check I promptly paid off the remainder of my student loans.

My other financial goal was to build up a safety cushion of savings.  I actually got pretty darn close to accomplishing this, but then Boyfriend and I decided to buy a house... So there goes that money.  While this wasn't exactly a fail, savings are important to me so it's going on the list for 2014.  I'm aiming again for 6 months of living expenses, as well as some money for a certain pricey occasion.

Along with saving, I want to figure out how to improve my retirement savings plan.  I only acquired retirement benefits when I got hired in September, so all I've done so far is contribute the maximum that my company will match.  But this year it's time to study up on 401ks and Roth IRAs and HSAs and who knows what else to understand what all this stuff is and figure out how to do the most I can for our little family (Boyfriend is in on this goal, too.).

Now here's where I bombed big last year.  The self-loathing weight loss goal that 99% of way too many women (myself included) make every year.  I'll use Academomia's terminology here - last year I was about N+7 at this time last year, with N being my goal weight.  Frankly, right now I'm not brave enough to step on the scale to see how far I am from N.  I'd guess I'm at least N+7, and it's entirely probable that I'm as much as N+10.  Let's not think about the possibly of  >N+10.  I think after a week or so of normal eating rather than holiday and travel eating I'll be brave enough to see where I am.

One corollary that I had to that was to complain less about my weight.  I think I've been pretty terrible about this one the last month or two.  And in all fairness, I've been travelling at least 50% of the time since the beginning of November, and then you throw in the holidays and it's just incredibly difficult to eat anything besides junk.  I asked Boyfriend, and maybe he's trying not to get himself into trouble, but he thinks I've been pretty good about not complaining.  I'm going to declare a verdict of decent success except for the last couple of months.  Since I still want to lose weight I'm keeping this corollary on the list so I don't tick off all my friends and Boyfriend.

The hobby goals I made last year were to make another photo-a-day album and to go on at least one hike every month.  The album has been made, with a handful of cell phone photo cheaters in place of photos taken with my big girl camera.  I think I may shelve this project until I have kids.  Or at the very least a bigger social circle.  Between living alone, having a much smaller social circle in Baltimore than in Tucson, and living in a city where it frequently feels like a really bad idea to walk around with my camera this project wasn't nearly as fun as it was in 2011.  I did get some fun pictures out of it that I'm happy to have, but it felt like a chore a lot more than it should have.  As for hiking, we did great through at least July.  Maybe we went on a hike in August.  Sadly I can't remember.  Maybe we didn't go for a hike in August after how miserably humid and nausea-filled July's hike was.  In September we biked at least 20 miles in the Camargue and walked all over several other cities.  Once we got back from France we spent almost every weekend looking at houses...so hiking fell by the wayside.

The only other specific goal I'm going to make this year is to keep in better touch with friends.  There are a handful of friends who have the same gchat habits I do, so I talk to them pretty regularly, but there are a handful of other still very dear friends who don't leave gchat open all the time.  My goal this year is to call those people more than twice per year!

I've got a lot of big changes on my plate for this year - buying a house, moving in with Boyfriend, a transitioning job with lots of travel - so I think that's plenty for official resolutions.  I don't know that I'll begin posting any more frequently, but I'm not ready to close the door on this blog, so I guess I'll just have to leave you in suspense on that front.

Happy New Year! It's going to be a big one!

That wouldn't happen in grad school.

Best part about having a "real" job (even if it is a post doc)?  When your boss says, "It's 4:30 on a Friday.  I should stop taking up your time and let you go."  Amazing.

Wait, you mean ME?!

I've got a pretty big meeting tomorrow at Big Fancy University with a bunch of people I haven't met before.  It's going to take a concerted effort not to giggle when somebody refers to me as Dr. [My Last Name].  I'm pretty sure the only people who have called me Dr. [My Last Name] are friends or family who are mostly joking.  It doesn't help that Dr. [My Last Name] could also refer to my mother, father, or grandfather.  Which is ridiculous, I know, but you can probably understand now how I grew up thinking it was totally normal to go to graduate school.  Anyways, giggling when somebody addresses me as Dr. (as they should damnit!) probably doesn't do much for my credibility...

Purging

I'm a month away from moving (and just over 3 weeks from defending!), so I've started gradually packing up stuff I won't need (mostly books so far) and getting rid of stuff I won't keep.  I'm using a U-box (U-Haul's version of PODS) to move, so I'm only keeping what fits in one 8'x5'x7' box.  Which means I'm getting rid of most of my furniture (Thank goodness. The vast majority of it is second hand/goodwill/hand me down junk.) as well as a lot of my stuff.

I'm hoping that doing some work early will make the week between my defense and leaving less stressful, especially because I'm sure I'll want to spend that time hanging out with people rather than frantically packing and cleaning.  I've already pared down my wardrobe to only the clothes that fit and are in good shape, which means I've donated or sold nearly half my clothes.  Lots of books and movies have made their way to Bookman's, and fortunately I've managed not to buy more than I've traded in so far.  (The dinosaur cookie cutters were an awesome find.  I couldn't pass them up!)  

Last night I was going through some less obvious stuff.  Stuff that seems stupid to move, but not really sell-able or donate-able, and a shame to just throw out.  Like the basket of  yarn.  I'm keeping my knitting needles and such, but I don't really want to move a couple cubic feet of yarn.  Or the stack of gift bags, tissue paper, and wrapping papers.  All perfectly good, but foolish to waste limited space moving.

Other than the stuff I just mentioned, purging is So. Much. Fun.  Seriously, it's wonderful.  And not only because I'm looking forward to getting some decent furniture and clothes that actually fit me.

I'm in full on clean-out-the-pantry mode, too.  I don't think I've ever bought so few groceries in my life.  I have a few more weeks of my produce share, so I still have to eat around that, but rather than making whatever I want from my produce, I'm specifically pairing it with stuff already in my pantry.  The eggplant and zucchini salad that called for pearl barley?  I used the rest of my bulghur and some of my wheat berries.  E and I baked for another classmate's final seminar the other day, and we specifically decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and nutmeg maple cookies to use up my E's pumpkin, my chocolate chips, and my maple syrup.  It's almost embarrassing how excited I was to use up my almond flour, almond extract, amaretto, extra chocolate frosting I'd stashed in the freezer, and maraschino cherries making cupcakes for some friends' birthday last weekend.  Angie and I had a blast playing empty-the-pantry in college, though I seem to remember the resulting meals being a whole lot weirder then than they've been so far... (Sadly I still have lots of curry and whole wheat flour.)

(If you know someone in Tucson who wants some yarn, gift wrap materials, or school supplies, let me know!)

Interview Saga

Just four days after returning from Vancouver, two days after the bachelorette party, and just four days before E & J's wedding, I flew into Philadelphia for a job interview, with the company that wanted "tactful assertive interpersonal skills."

I was supposed to fly from here to Phoenix, have a reasonable hour and a half layover, and arrive in Philadelphia a little before 5.  Plenty of time to drive the 30-40 minutes down to my hotel, have dinner with boyfriend, make him listen to me practice my talk one more time, and get to bed nice and early before having to be at the interview at 8.  Clearly that didn't happen.

When I got off the (20 minute) flight to Phoenix, my flight had an unspecified "ATC delay" but the earlier flight to Philadelphia was just boarding, so I asked if they had any open seats.  No.  (So they said.)  An ATC delay is when the FAA steps in and imposes limitations on the flights in and out of any given city (Philadelphia and a number of other east coast cities in this case), usually for weather related reasons.  The annoying thing is it's much less specific than another delay.  There is no updated departure time.  The air traffic control tower guesses when they think you might get to leave.  

They initially guessed we might be allowed to leave around 9:30 - not bad, less than an hour's delay, so we boarded the entire massive jet for the cross country flight, and then we sat there.  We sat at the gate, and eventually they said it was going to be at least three hours before we could leave, so they couldn't legally pull away from the gate (thank God).  We sat there a while longer before they encouraged us to get off and get food, because there was no way they had enough food for everybody for the 3+ hours sitting at the gate and the 5+ hour flight.  So I got off, got myself about 2 days worth of food, since I figured I might be getting into Philadelphia after most food options had closed, and sat there at the gate.  Of course the airline's website, FAA's website, terminal monitors, and gate info all have different information.  When the flight was cancelled that info was online at least 15 minutes before it was ever announced or posted in the terminal.  That's right, the connecting flight to my first grown up job interview was cancelled.  I figured that since it was already noon, Phoenix is 3 hours behind the east coast, and there was weather that I was probably screwed.  I called the recruiter to let her know the situation, and sat there debating whether I should wait around the Phoenix airport or go find the shuttle back to Tucson.  Yay for having a travel agent, because I am 100% sure that I never would have been rebooked and rerouted that quickly or even for that day on my own.

My reroute sent me from Phoenix to Charlotte, and then finally to Philadelphia, where I landed around midnight.  So no dinner with Boyfriend (and no carefully saved and packed leftover cookies for Boyfriend), but at least I made it there.  It had already been difficult to squeeze in a date when everybody involved could do the interview, and between E's wedding and other people's travel schedules, it would have been at least 10 days before we could possibly reschedule, and I was already the second to last person interviewed.

Even without a checked bag it was almost 1 am before I got on the highway to drive the half hour to my hotel.  It's totally desirable to get about four and a half hours of sleep before a job interview, right?  I set about 4 alarms to make sure I made it up with plenty of time to make myself presentable.  Unfortunately in east coast humidity it takes about twice as long to dry and tame my hair as it does in Tucson.

I made it to the interview on time (first requirement!  see this awesome link Boyfriend shared for more interview tips, in convenient graphical format), gave my talk, and sat through the panel style interview portion.  I know the talk went well (thank you E and Sugar Pants for listening to me practice and giving me feedback!), and that they enjoyed it.  My dissertation research is really different from what they all (at least currently) do and I could tell they had fun hearing about something really different but neat, and that made it all the more fun for me to give it.  They asked decent, although sometimes funny questions about my talk, all of which I could answer, including the historical/literature question, so that was good.  The actual interview portion felt like it went really quickly.  It was a behavior-based interview rather than technical skills based, which I expected.  I had previously thought about responses to several behavior based interview questions, though none were questions they asked.  I could pretty regularly think of answers to everything they asked, though I was a bit horrified that the first situation that came to mind for most questions was not a lab/science situation!  They didn't seem to think that was problematic though, so I told them about the first relevant scenario that came to mind anyways, promising to return to the question if a lab/science based story came to mind.  I guess since they're looking for examples when you demonstrated certain social interaction, thinking, or character skills or qualities they didn't really care about the context of the example.  After a brief tour, the entire thing was over in less than three hours.

I returned my rental car barely twelve hours after picking it up.  And while I spent the entire afternoon chilling in the Philadelphia airport (yay for free wi-fi at the Terminal C Au Bon Pain!) for convenience sake, the trip home was fortunately uneventful.  Although I got home about midnight.  And had no idea what time zone my thought it was in or should think it was in.

About a week later I got an offer for the job!  Yayyy!  After some back and forth I formally accepted the offer this past week and got a start date this morning.  I'm really excited about the job - I really liked everybody I met before/during the interview.  While that's not essential, it's certainly encouraging.  I think I'll have good bosses who will be good mentors.  The job is a post-doc, but an industry post-doc, which pays a heck of a lot more (~2x more) than an academic post-doc.  It's a nice transition from academia, and somewhat less scary because I won't be expected to know everything and just go on my own because it is a training position.  The work is also really, really different from what I do now (but still mass spec), but also directly related to what I think I'd ultimately like to do, so awesome.  As mentioned in J's guest post, I'll be employed by an instrument company, but work in a lab at an academic institution.

I start September 5th.  The next couple of months will be full of dissertation defending, cross country moving, and beach sitting.  I'm pretty psyched.

J's account of my life for the past month

Because I haven't been able to blog often enough to satisfy him, J (of E & J) has decided to step in and write a post for me.  Yes, he calls me Annie.  Here's his account of the past month of my life [with a wee bit of my own commentary thrown in]:

I am an avid reader of Annie’s life in a lab coat blog.  I am sure that her other readers are experiencing the same angst as I am, wondering what she is up to.  The following is my account of the happenings since her last irregular blog post.

1.       Lil sis graduated from High School.  This is a momentous occasion.  She is a smart and at times goofy young lady.  I think back to the mix of emotions that I experienced when I graduated from high school.  I was overjoyed to be done with a 12 year educational endeavor and anxious for the post secondary hurdle ahead a.k.a. college.  Lil sis was accepted to a good school and even got a scholarship!

2.       E. had her bachelorette party in Sonoita, AZ, in Arizona wine country.  The party of ladies took several tours of various wineries and handed out cookies to several of the operators who gave unscheduled tours of their operation.  Side bar: I am jealous of this trip as it is on my Tucson bucket list and I have yet to go but, E. had a good time and that is all that matters, ever. [Isn't J a great husband?]

3.       Anne went on several job interviews [actually just one on-site interview, plus a few phone interviews, and a couple face-to-face interviews at the conference last month] for post graduation aka the real world with a real job.  This should not be confused with some no-talent hollow a-holes who end up on MTV drinking too much and in general sucking at life.  She had the trip from layover hell.  To keep it short and sweet, she was supposed to get in at a reasonable time and have dinner with the infamous C. [aka Boyfriend] but, Murphy’s Law and the airlines [and the weather] took over and killed that dream.  She finally, after many hours of waiting, landed at 0000 (midnight for you non-24 clock people [--> E]) and made it to her interview at 0700 tired but there in person. 

4.       J & E FINALLY got married after ~6.5 years of dating!  Anne was the MOH and gave a great toast. The back story:  The wedding was on 6/2/12.  Annie returned from her interview and entered pre- wedding combat.  E. decided to make her own wedding and grooms cakes.  So, beginning on Thursday, she worked for two days baking cakes, making marzipan fruit, crumb frosted, frosted, decorated the cake, and flowers.   She did this side by side with E’s mom who is high strung [no comment].  Being my M.I.L., I will make no further comment.  I cannot express my level of thanks for her help.  The cakes were delicious and looked awesome.  Annie is a truly talented baker and any man lucky enough to have her in his life will eat well.  C. take note. [Yes. Boyfriend, take note.] Pictures to follow.

5.       Annie was offered a post doc position that is affiliated with one of the premier medical institutions [located at one of said institutions, I'll actually be employed by an instrument company] in the country.  Last I heard this was where she was going to accept as a job.  It is a bitter sweet event.  On the one hand it is nice to graduate and get the hell out of grad school.  On the other it is sad as she will be leaving a group of great friends and a town that she has come to love and hate.  I can only wish her the best of luck.  I know that she is a great chemist and will flourish at anything she takes on. 

6.       The dissertation is for all practical purposes done, yay!  [YAY!!!!]  I know this has been a looming cloud for a few months but, it is in the final stages of done and should be finished very very shortly.  Annie and I discussed her monumental achievement this evening; I was informed that she was celebrating with ice cream.  For those of you curious souls: Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked.

I am sure that I left some things out but, this should give you some much needed Annie news.

Thank you for reading this somewhat rambling post and have a good morning/afternoon/evening.

~J. of J & E

Wanted

"Tactful assertive interpersonal skills". Best preferred qualification I've seen in a job posting yet.

P.S.

To those of you who read that last post as one giant paragraph, I'm very sorry.  Blogger on my iPad can't seem to handle even basic formatting such as paragraphs.  It's fixed now.

Shark week started this morning.  Shoot me.  Yay for heightened anxiety.  (Not that I don't think almost everything I just rambled about isn't anxiety-worthy on a normal day.)

The guys from the post doc in northern NJ emailed this morning - their higher ups want assurance that I really will be done by August.  The Queen and I gave them this assurance, along with a summary of my dissertation writing progress and what's left to do.  Since my offer there hinges on this project being funded, I was very, very clear with them when we first started talking about this that I needed to continue looking for other options, and that even if they were funded, if I had a better offer (in terms of money or geography), I'd probably take it.  They were totally ok with this, saying I wouldn't be "screwing them over" if I took something else (their words, no joke).  Though this was when we all thought they had 9 months to fill the post doc upon receiving project approval/funding, but apparently that has changed to 6 months.  And it sounds like they should hear back about their proposal "by May", which for all practical purposes is NOW.  Crap.  The people in Lancaster had better get their act together and realize they should want me.

Oh, the swamp cooler has been serviced and is running for the year.  So there's one thing off the to-do list at least.  My mother would have killed me if she'd come out here for commencement and it weren't running yet.  (Not that it's running and perfect operation will prevent her from whining about the heat.)

Time to find some caffeine and some chocolate.

Sleepless Ramblings

I can't sleep. It's quarter past 3 and I've been wide awake for the past hour and a half.

Aside from the predicted high of only 80 on Thursday, summer has hit in Tucson. We had a record high of 101 on Sunday. Overnight lows are in the 60s, so I suppose at least we're not to the worst of it when it stops cooling off overnight (lows in the 80s, which is still insane to think about after 5 years). But it's mid April, so the swamp cooler isn't on for the summer yet, I'm cold without my sheet, but hot with it, and not yet reacclimated to sleeping with a fan on me.

I've been dieting for the past 2 1/2 months with the help of an app on my iPad. It's actually been going quite well, except Saturday I got fit for my bridesmaid's dress for E's wedding in June, so I can't lose anymore weight before then of the dress won't stay up (the tailor is already taking it in 2+ inches on both sides...whoops...). So I switched the app settings to maintain my current weight, and after working out this morning and playing softball tonight I finished today 775 calories under "goal." After really not eating particularly healthy or skimpy today. I don't want to not work out between now and the wedding because that isn't healthy either and I don't want to lose all my muscle! This is going to take some getting used to... 

The anxiety in the office surrounding the move seems to have at least temporarily calmed as people are over the shock and looking into their various options, but my anxiety just seems to be getting worse. I'm getting more and more worried about my last experiments not working and not having enough (good) data to put on my poster for ASMS or the last chapter of my dissertation. ASMS is going to be a huge time suck between now and May 25th. I kind of wish I weren't going, but I argued my way into going because I was worried I wouldn't have a job by then and then I worked hard to gather more than enough outside travel funding, and got a poster abstract accepted and then had to convince the organizers to reschedule it for another day when it conflicted with Little Sister's high school graduation. So I have to go, and yes this means I'm taking the 5 am flight from Boston to Vancouver the day after graduation.

The whole not having a job yet thing is also a major source of anxiety. There's a potential post doc in northern NJ that looks promising - they've submitted an internal proposal for the project and if they get funded (they think their odds are good) I will have an offer. But the project would be a collaboration with The Queen, and the more the move situation unfolds the more I want to just cut ties and move on completely, and the outskirts of NYC/Newark is really pretty high on my list of places I've never wanted to live. I found a post doc opening actually in Lancaster last week that I am unbelievably perfectly qualified for and obviously applied right away, but I'm nervous I won't hear anything at all back from them (like most of the other jobs I've applied for) or that the salary will be garbage or that it will be another case of a company trying to save themselves $30k by listing a "real" PhD-level job as a post doc (yet another thing I've discovered I have to be wary of when looking at job postings). But speaking of "real job" vs post doc, I'd much rather have a real job than a post doc, but very few people seem to be hiring new grads and most want proteomics expereience, which I don't have and really hate anyways.

Then there's this weird pain in the lower right corner of my mouth. If it's actually something real I'm sure it would be super expensive to fix, and surprise surprise, the student health plan doesn't include dental coverage, and the thought of thousand(s) of dollars of dental expenses when I'm trying to save for a cross-country move and potential unemployment makes me nauseous. Not to mention I HATE the dental practice I've been going to and don't remotely trust 95% of what they tell me. And dental work = through the roof anxiety. Just listening to somebody in the next room getting a filling sets me on edge. I leave every dentist visit drenched in sweat and with achy back and shoulders from clenching my muscles so hard. God I hope my wisdom teeth haven't finally decided to make their presence known.

I'm terrified that between ASMS, mine and Little Sister's graduation schenanigans, and E's wedding (crap, have to figure out bachelorette stuff still) that I'll never finish my dissertation in time. Our group admin is trying to schedule my final seminar and defense for some time in July, because The Queen leaves in early August and I'm not sure I can be done any sooner, but The Queen is going to be out of town for like half of July (and who knows about the rest of my committee members...). On top of worrying that I won't finish in time, my best guess at the moment is that my dissertation will be about 200 pages, which looking at past dissertations out of my group seems inadequate. A friend commented today that she's at 236 pages and not even close to done. I keep telling myself that nobody wants to read even 200 pages of dissertation, never mind 300+ pages, but 200 pages just doesn't seem like it could possibly be representative of 5 years of grad school misery. And I'm quite sure I'd cry on the spot if they told me at my defense that it wasn't going to cut it (never mind that I'm not at all convinced that anybody - including The Queen - will read it and I've never heard of anybody failing their defense here, and my committee seemed satisfied at my 6 month meeting in December).

Great. Now it's 4. You can probably why see I'm having a hard time sleeping. Tomorrow/today is going to be a mess.

I applied for a job!

My very first grown-up job!  And actually only my second real job "application" ever.  The only other job that I specifically applied for was the cashier position I had at the grocery store through most of high school.  Of the three jobs I had in college, one was offered to me unsolicited (summer research position with a faculty member in the department), and the other two I just talked to the prospective boss (gen chem TA and mass choir pianist).

The job I applied for yesterday is based in Pennsylvania (according to the posting at least...the same company had another posting that said Pennsylvania on the front, but then said Buffalo when you opened it...) with an instrument company.  Having one applications in puts the pressure on to get at least a few more submitted.  I have a short list so far of other positions in the mid-Atlantic area that look like good possibilities.  If I am so lucky as to get somewhere with this application, I'd really like to have something else in the works so I can 1. use it to my advantage for salary negotiations etc and 2. not be cornered into saying yes or no without having any idea if there's something else that sounds better or not!

Fingers crossed!

Pay Day!

My stipend for the semester showed up in my account this morning.  When you only get paid 3 times per year (before each semester, and a smaller amount at the beginning of summer), pay day takes on a whole new level of excitement.  Even though I'll stand to make nearly 3 times my current salary when I get a real job after graduation, it's a little weird and sad to think that these are probably the biggest paychecks I'll ever have!

6 months to go! (ish)

I had my six month meeting with my committee this morning.  I think it went well.  They all seemed on board with my plan - that the work I have left can be done in the next semester or so.  The only "concern" they had was whether my timeline factored in how long it takes The Queen to get around to reading things.  (As if she's actually going to read my dissertation... Ha!)

In my department, there is a TON of folklore surrounding the oral exam.  While everybody's oral is a little bit different, if you ask around at all, you can at least get a pretty good idea of the process and order of things.  However, there's essentially ZERO folklore regarding the 6 month meeting.  I was able to get some idea from Tiff and previous grad students, but still had to kind of sit there awkwardly til I had some direction.  While each professor cared more about one thing or another here's what was discussed:

• General overview of my research - My biochem committee members are actually fairly familiar with my research as I've heavily collaborated with them both.  One of my analytical committee members in particular is not terribly familiar with my research (and I suspect she also wants to see how competently you can briefly summarize your research).  So I talked briefly about the bigger picture and broader themes and goals of my dissertation research.
• Chapters - Generally what's in each of them and the major conclusions.
• What's left to do - This is a big one.  I think I've got my dissertation pretty well planned and outlined, but I know there will still be some surprises and gaps once I really get to writing.  One of my committee members really only cared about what work was left to do and was it do-able in the time frame I think.  In my case, I don't have many experiments left that I already know I have to do (although I do have a ton of data analysis left...), and I'm expecting some more experiments to pop up - I discover a hole in my story while writing, or that some spectrum I want to show has kinda crappy S/N etc.
• Publications - How many publications do you have?  How many are you first author on?  What's submitted/impreparation?  What else will or can be published?
• Timeline - When do you think you'll be done?  When do you plan to finish labwork?  When is your final seminar scheduled?  When do you plan to defend?  Do you need to file in time to have your degree posted by May 2012?
• What's next? - The dreaded question I very much hoped to avoid.  I was SO close to escaping without talking about it when one of my committee members asked.  This particular committee member happens to know about the cross-country-boyfriend situation, and I swear she asks ALL THE TIME what I'm doing after graduation, like to the point where it's weird.  But anyways.  I told them I needed a job.  You know, somebody to pay me.  At which point one of my committee members interjected, "Wait!  What is this? An unemployed mass spectrometrist?!  That's unheard of!"  Fortunately my advisor told her I hadn't really started looking, and the snarky committee member kept his mouth shut.  They let it drop and the meeting was over.

Woohoo!  They're gonna let me out!

Retraction

Ugh.  I just ran into one of my committee members (and E's advisor) in the hall, and he asked when I was trying to have my 6 month meeting.  And then said he probably couldn't make it (keep in mind I told him a FOUR DAY window, and the exact time of this ONE HOUR meeting has yet to be determined, and no, he isn't going to be out of town).  And then he asked if I had a job yet.  No.  And then he asked if I had a post-doc yet.  No, and I don't think I want one anymore.  And then he asked why I was having my 6 month meeting already if I didn't have a job or a post-doc lined up.

Because I CAN be done in the spring, so I WANT to be done in the spring, so I WILL be done in the spring.  Get me out of here now please!!!

PHEW!

Yay!! The Queen says that aside from looking up fellowship application deadlines and putting out a few feelers to professors about fellowships that I can stick my head in the sand and ignore all life-after-graduation-decisions until after Christmas at least! PHEW!

Too Soon

Just the other day I told you I'd like to run a mass spec facility when I grow up. Before I can do that, or post doc, or anything else for that matter, I have to graduate. I'm planning/hoping to write my dissertation and defend next spring, walk in May, and then next summer hanging around working (doing corrections, writing papers, training younger students etc) about half the time and traveling about half the time. More than one late night at school has been spent mapping out a ridiculous fantasy post-graduation roadtrip all over the country. So theoretically/ideally I'd start a job/post-doc during the fall of next year. If I found something I really liked that really wanted me sooner, I'd certainly try to make that happen.

In some ways, graduating and leaving Tucson in 10-14 months sounds really far away. (Please, please, please just let graduate school be over!) In the scope of graduate school, and in terms of lining up whatever I do next, it's really not that far away. Which scares the crap out of me.

While you may be under the impression that I have a pretty good idea what I want to do, nothing is set in stone. I have no idea where my life is going to be in a year, or even 6 months, and only a hazy idea what it might look like two weeks from now. I used to be a huuuge planner. Let's face it. At my core I'm a type-A, perfectionist, eldest daughter. I like to be in control and know what's going on and when. I'm also the super weird kid who, with M.D. and Ph.D. parents, grew up thinking it was totally normal to be in school into your late 20s and assumed that I, too, would go to graduate school. The older I've gotten the more I've been able to let go of some of this, and better at realizing that while I can certainly work for almost anything I want, a lot of things just aren't up to me. Some of the things I want out of life inherently require giving up control. Sure, I can plan my experiments for the week, I'm excited to make plans for the weekend or for a trip 3 months away, but I'm no longer eager to make decisions and solid plans for 6, 12, or 18 months from now. Actually at this point I'm dreading most of the decisions that will have to be made sooner than I'd like. It's not that I don't have exciting opportunities for after graduation, because I do. I'm very lucky to have the options that already appear to be open. I guess the decisions coming up just seem more important, with more significant consequences that may affect more than myself than previous decisions. Sticking my head in the sand as long as possible is looking really good.

Unfortunately not all the pressure to figure out what I'm doing is internal. Talking to a friend and former labmate who is in industry, it sounds like I can wait til next spring to look seriously for an industry position. I'm ok with that. I think that by then I might have some idea where the rest of my life is headed, or at least be ready to figure that out. What scares the crap out of me is that if I want to post-doc, especially overseas, that I need to figure that out much sooner. One of the professors I talked to at ASMS (this on in Switzerland!) made it quite clear that the best post-docs are the ones that plan far ahead. Ok, so I get that it's a the-sooner-the-better situation, but how far ahead do I have to decide? I understand that it can take quite a while for the advisor-student-funding-project stars to all align, and that with enough lead time funding can be obtained to pay a post-doc to work on an appealing project. And a lot of fellowships have application deadlines quite far (easily a year) in advance of when they would start paying. My committee members have also started asking what my post-graduation plans are.

I could certainly continue to pursue all of these options, apply for every position of possible interest, and go ahead and write fellowship applications. Fellowship applications are an enormous amount of work though, and it's not like I don't have enough regular work to do, so it would be incredibly frustrating to apply for fellowships that I may not even take if I got them. I'd feel really bad wasting lots of other people's time, too - fellowship applications also require knowing what lab I plan to go to, and having the support, assistance, and letters from that advisor, department chair, etc.

Sigh. I have decent ideas about what I'd like to do, and some ideas how to get there. At this point though I'm still really uncertain as to the best route to get there, or what the rest of my life will look like or what I'll want a year (plus or minus) from now. It's getting somewhat stressful that I just don't know and that I may have to make decisions before I'm really in a good position to do so. I have a meeting with The Queen in a couple weeks to quiz her about time frames for all this, but I think I'm going to stick my head in the stand and ignore it as long as possible.

Hm. What next? Part V

Ok, so hypothetically, let's say I take that post-doc in Europe. Then what? I've told you why I don't want to be a professor, what I want in a job, and some other types of jobs that are out there. So now I'm finally to the point of spilling the beans as to what I think would be a great career choice for me.

I think it'd be really neat to run a mass spec facility. Many large universities have such a facility, and some large pharmaceutical or manufacturing companies do as well. We have a fantastic mass spec facility in our department, and while the majority of existing facilities don't operate the same way that ours do, a lot of the aspects that I like about our director's job would still exist. Our facility has a PhD-level director, a PhD-level staff scientist, 2 grad student workers (who work in the facility rather than TA), and an engineer to help keep instruments up and running. There is an enormous variety of instrumentation - all the way from "low-end," fairly simple instrumentation (costing say around $75k) to very sophisticated "high-end" instrumentation (worth over $1 million). They run a huge variety of samples (from small molecules of all sorts to large things like synthetic and biological polymers) from other researchers in the department, in other labs on campus, and even off-campus users from other universities.

I really like the idea of still being able to be very hands-on - using instruments, deciding how to run samples, trouble shooting instrument or sample complications. The vast majority of facility samples are routine - a synthetic chemist wanting to confirm that they made the molecule they think they did, for example. However a facility at a research institution can get plenty of research-oriented samples and questions where an experienced mass spectrometrist would be a huge advantage. I could still be involved in research, and frankly be involved in a much wider variety of research problems than I can be as a graduate student. The idea of working on a wide variety of projects is really appealing, with the huge, huge benefit of being able to go home at the end of the day.

I'm sure there would still be some stress, some writing to do (mostly for grants to acquire new instrumentation), and deadlines to meet. But at the end of the day, it's a facility with set hours, and none of the research projects are mine, so I could go home at the end of the day. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can shake this perpetual feeling of grad-student-guilt and enjoy my evenings and spent time with family and friends.

When I TA'd as an undergrad I really enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind teaching full-time in some venue in the future, but frankly I'd like to make more money for the nearer future. :) One perk of a facility job, especially one in an academic setting, is that I could still have the opportunity to teach. There would be one-on-one situations - teaching graduate students or researchers about the instrumentation and experiments that answer their questions - guest-lecturing in courses, and teaching short-courses specifically on mass spec.

Facilities like the one here aren't super common. There are a lot of facilities that have mostly low-end instrumentation that are for "walk-up" use - i.e. researchers run their own samples. The only time grad students use facility instrumentation themselves is when they have a long-term project requiring heavy usage. In this case they get trained by the facility director before being allowed to run their own samples. Even at an institution where the facility is limited to lower-end user-oriented instrumentation, there will probably be potential for me to expand and grow a facility to include research-oriented mass spectrometry. Mass spec can be used to address such a wide variety of research questions for all sorts of samples. With effort to educate other scientists as to the benefits and power of mass spec, and lots of grant writing to obtain funding for new instrumentation a facility can be "built" or expanded. It could be fun to build a facility from the ground up to benefit a research community.

Even though I don't want to be a professor or run a research program, I do like the laid-back atmosphere of academia. I could be ok with being able to wear jeans to work 95% of the time. :) Although dressing up for a "real grown-up" job would be fun too. For a little while at least...

Ok, so while I don't have my heart set 100% on it, all that pretty much sums up why I think running a facility could be a great job, particularly for me.

Hm. What next? Part IV

I've let this train of thought sit idle far too long, especially since graduation is getting closer rather than further away (I hope). It's been a solid 6 months since I last posted on this topic, though I swear it hasn't been that long since I've thought about it. I've been thinking about it all along, but within the past 6 months I've gone from fairly sure about what I want to um, considerably less sure. What I thought I'd ultimately like to do 6 months ago is still applicable - I still think that sounds like a great job/career. However I'm not as heart-set on doing that and only that now, and what's really unclear is what might be the best professional route to get there (or somewhere) taking all aspects of my life into consideration.

To recap, I've talked about why I don't want to be an academic, what I want in a job, and what some viable options are for me. For the sake of argument, let's talk about doing a post-doc, because that's what I think I'm still fairly likely to do next (ignoring currently unknown other substantial variables). And because my advisor recently sent me a fairly out-of-nowhere email saying that she and one of my collaborators think that Oxford Prof is my best option. (Side comment, I have no idea when or why this conversation took place, or what sort of contribution my collaborator made as he is not a mass spectrometrist.) Also because I've been thinking that this blog hasn't had enough serious science/graduate school/career content lately.

Ok. Confession time. My biggest reason for wanting to do a post-doc is for the opportunity to live somewhere neat and different fairly short-term and travel new places while there. I'll admit that a post-doc is a handy cover story for I-don't-know-what-I-want-to-do, but I'm not necessarily opposed to getting a "real job" after graduation. I figure that while I'm still able (i.e. don't have family obligations to require moving somewhere specific), I want to travel. Until recently, most of my post-doc searching thoughts (granted, still vague at this point) have been focused overseas. Mostly Europe and Australia, since the only languages I speak are English and French.

A friend recently asked me if I didn't like graduate school any more, would I really be any happier in a post-doc? It's true that I'm really quite tired and fed up with research, but I think a post-doc has a few things going for it that could make it better than grad school. I could be wrong, but here's my reasoning. I've been working on my dissertation research for three and a half years now, and in the scheme of things, it's relatively recently that I've lost interest (and partly due to some disagreement with my advisor as to what "sub-projects" I should be working on). Whereas a PhD in chemistry takes 5+ years (4 if you hit the right combination of luck and no social life), a post-doc is generally only about 2 years. It would be a shorter length of time with a new project in (ideally) a different area of research. Aside from a new project, I'd also be in a new geographic location with new people. Perhaps the biggest plus is that I don't have to get a dissertation out of a post-doc. Ideally a couple of papers, but no 300+ page cohesive document.

I will eventually blog about what I think would be a great job/career is (for me), but for now, let's say that a post-doc would be a very smart, if not necessary, step towards that. At least to do it the way I'd like to do it. I'd need to be familiar with as wide a variety as possible of instrumentation and samples, and a post-doc in a mass spec group where I'd work on something besides protein complexes with something besides Q-ToF instruments would be a good way to develop a broader background, with expertise in another area of mass spec.

Unfortunately Oxford Prof - the option that The Queen (and apparently one of my collaborators) thinks is the best option - is in a very, very similar area of mass spectrometry. Last year and this year there are people from her group as well as "alums" from her group presenting in my session as ASMS. While I do think I'd still learn something, I think this professor would be a great advisor, and I could totally live in Oxford, England for a couple years (!), I can't help but think it's far too similar to what I do now to be the best preparation for job-after-post-doc. I've pointed out this problem multiple times to my advisor, and she really insists that this professor is so well respected and her group does such great work that that wouldn't matter and that I couldn't possibly go wrong working for Oxford Prof. Last year she seemed excited that I was interested in working in her lab, and said to let her know when I'm about a year away from graduation so we can talk about fellowships... That's all good and exciting, I just don't know that it would be the best move professionally.

The other European ideas The Queen has had are outside of Paris and Lausanne, Switzerland. Both of these labs do very different work from what I currently do. I'd love to live in France again, and it would be great to be able to see my host family regularly. Lausanne is also close enough to Lyon that I could see my host family often. And Lausanne as well as Paris (obviously) are French-speaking areas, so communication would be ok, though I'm sure it would be a rough few weeks to get back to functioning in French and a rough couple months to get to the point of doing science in French. The professor outside of Paris is somebody other people in my group have collaborated with - I have one labmate who would have absolutely considered post-doc-ing with her if she didn't have a husband and plans for a baby, and one labmate who had an absolutely wretched time doing a semester-long "study abroad" type program there. I think a lot of the wretched-ness wouldn't be a problem because I'd live there long term - get my own flat and such, and I'm much more familiar with living in French, but Parisians really do have a reputation for being much less friendly (to put it mildly) than the Lyonnais. I really don't know anything about Lausanne. Both of these professors are super busy and have administrative positions, so I wouldn't really get any more advising/interaction with them than I currently do with my department-chair-advisor. That would be a bummer (Oxford Prof's lack of administrative/teaching responsibility are a big part of why The Queen thinks she's such a great option), but both professors would appreciate that I can clearly function and carry out research without my guidance or supervision on their part.

There are a couple of professors in Australia that I've thought about too, and Scandinavia and Germany are also places where I could easily get by with English (at least professionally, and I could learn enough of another language to not look like an @$$hole outside of work). There are certainly options domestically as well - research/advisor-personality-wise the most appealing possibility I currently know of is at Purdue...but I really don't know that I want to live in West Lafayette, IN. :/ I'm pretty sure it's nicknamed PurDon't for a reason...

Anyways, there are several viable options without actually researching the post-doc route in earnest. I can certainly find a job, and probably one that I'd like, without a post-doc, but I do think it's probably the best next step.

Hm. What next? Part III

So a while ago, I explained why I'm quite sure I don't want to be an academic, and then I wrote a bit (ok, a lot) about what I think I want from a job. While I have only minimally narrowed down my options, I'm feeling somewhat less overwhelmed at the thought of deciding what to do next, and even have a plausible "front runner." As I'm sure that you really love reading my stream-of-consciousness wandering thoughts, here are some thoughts on various still-in-the-running options.

"Industry" seems to be the most obvious alternative to "academia," however that's still an incredibly broad and vague descriptor. The subcategories that I can see in this (at the moment) include:

• large "manufacturing" companies (stuff like Proctor & Gamble or General Mills)
• large pharmaceutical companies (Merck, Pfizer, etc) or "small" pharmaceutical companies
• chemical and/or chemical equipment companies (Sigma-Aldrich or Fisher Scientific for example)
• bio-tech

I'm sure there are pros and cons to all of these types of companies, and I have to admit I don't have many specific thoughts as to whether or not I'd like working for them. Lunch with VeryBC was really quite helpful in getting an idea of what kind of career path and projects I might expect. It didn't leave me super gung-ho to work for that sort of company, but it certainly didn't dissuade me from it. One upside of working for a really huge company could be job stability - if your project gets cut for whatever reason, assuming you don't suck at your job of course, there is much higher likelihood of being able to keep your "job" by transitioning to another team or project. Another bonus in my mind is a large company is more likely to have many locations world-wide...in other words travel opportunities.

Working for a pharmaceutical company (especially a huge one) seems like the epitome of "working for the man" as far as chemistry jobs go, and I'm not really sure why that is. It's not any more profit- or product-driven than almost any other company. One such company sent a recruiter in about a week ago, but unfortunately the "informal Q&A" session he held wasn't very helpful. They only currently have one PhD opening, and he spent most of the time talking about that one specific position (only 2 people out of about 12 were close enough to graduating to apply) and flipping through the corporate slides he had. A pharmaceutical company sounds like a fine option, I have nothing against it. I just don't know much about it and the visiting recruiter didn't give a whole lot of insight into what the pharmaceutical industry is like.

Working for a chemical company frankly sounds rather boring. But to be fair, I have no idea what (if anything) they do besides synthesize/isolate/purify/characterize compounds.

Bio-tech could be very exciting in terms of the most cutting edge developments in Science, but it seems like it could also be quite risky. An awful lot of small bio-tech companies seem to come and go more often than I change the sheets on my bed. At the moment "settling down" somewhere (i.e. moving somewhere with the intention of staying there indefinitely) is really weird and not particularly appealing, I assume that someday that will be a desirable thing, and that I will want/need a stable job to allow that.

Any of those job options could allow me to continue in mass spectrometry, with bio-tech probably being the least likely to specifically want a mass spectrometrist (unless we're talking about a mass spec-based technology). I'd probably have travel opportunities in any of these sorts of companies, least so probably in chemical industry. I think in any of these it would come down to what project(s) I were actually working on, and the people. Big manufacturing or pharma are the most appealing of the "industry" options. The recruiters that have come from VeryBC and the pharmaceutical company have made annual trips here for several years now (a perk of being in a highly-ranked chemistry program, especially in analytical). I'm hoping more people from different companies and different types of companies will come visit to help me get a better idea of what I want...

As a mass spectrometrist, a somewhat related option would be to work for an instrument company. I honestly think anything except the R&D aspect of this would get boring pretty quickly, so let's go ahead and ignore/eliminate the sales and demo lab type positions. Even something like a field engineer position would probably be boring pretty quickly as most of your users will be of the "black box" variety - i.e. use the instrument exactly as intended, never take the covers off, don't actually know how it works... If I could spend my time helping research/instrumentation labs (like mine), now that would be different. Probably much more interesting. Instrument or application development could be fun. My advisor thinks I'd enjoy working for the company that makes the instruments I currently use for a few years and then be bored. Who knows. I've made lots of good contacts in various divisions and geographic locations with that company to keep that option on the table.

A sort of middle-of-the-road option between industry and academia would be to work in a national lab. I don't know a whole lot about this, although I have a bit of a better feel after talking pretty extensively to one of my former labmates (and current national lab employee). Depending on the lab and the division, it seems like this could be almost like academia minus the teaching and university-related B.S. My labmate's particular position doesn't sound like this, but rather closer to industry (less research- and more figure-this-out-for-us-based). So it seems like there's some variety. I don't think I really want to do pure research anymore (not that what I do now is terribly "pure" science), but this would be a good option should I change my mind. It seems like it could be a somewhat more "industry"-like job in a more "academic"-like setting. One thing that surprised me about this option is that the pay seems to actually be pretty good.

A slightly different option is working for a government agency, like the FDA or EPA. This would likely be less research- and more quality control/problem solving-based. The pay generally isn't as good as private industry or national labs, but the job security and benefits are supposedly excellent.

Another government, but totally unrelated job is one I heard of from one of my committee members via one of my classmates. Apparently all (?) congressmen and senators have "science advisors" - PhD-level scientists whose job it is to be up to speed on relevant science/policy issues in order to advise (duh) politicians how to vote. This is something that I think could be really fascinating to do for a couple of years. Politics have become more interesting (and aggravating) as I pay more attention to what's actually going on. It could be a blast to live in DC for a couple of years and learn about all sorts of different Science. I could also see becoming really disenchanted, but that's why I think I'd only do something like this short-term.

During a recent "what do you want to do with yourself" conversation with my advisor, she asked me (with the faintest hint of exasperation), "What do you have against teaching??!" Nothing actually! I really, really enjoyed TAing in undergrad. There's something incredibly awesome about the moment you see a concept click for somebody. I swear, you can see it in the student's face, and it's just so cool to witness that and know that you had some (small) part in making that happen. The thing is, I don't want to teach, and run a research program, and do all the miscellaneous other B.S. that comes with being a professor at a research university. I'd really rather teach or do research. NOT both. There are lecturer (or adjunct, depending on the university's current needs) positions, but the pay and job security are mediocre at best as they are non-tenure track positions. A teaching position at a community college would be more stable, but they seem to pay absolute crap. It would be one thing if I had a family and wanted something fairly "low" time-commitment for that reason, but that's certainly not my situation. With a PhD I'd be "over-qualified" to teach at all but the most elite of high schools. Teaching at a small and/or teaching-focused college would be a possibility. However if that's what I want to do I'd need to realize/decide that soonish, and take appropriate steps to actually be qualified to do that - i.e. ask for a teaching assignment (I haven't TA'd at all in grad school as I've been on fellowship the entire time) and possibly take a teaching "post-doc." A variation on this that could really be quite fun would to be a lab coordinator (preferably for upper division labs that use more instrumentation). Many large universities will have lab coordinators for gen chem, organic, and "upper division" (usually analytical and physical chemistry) labs, who oversee and train TAs, manage/maintain/troubleshoot instrumentation, and do a bit of more "traditional" teaching. (I've also considered the possibility of teaching high school full or part time after a career in industry. One of my favorite teachers in high school retired after 30+ years as an engineer, decided retirement was boring, and came to teach math and science at my small, all-girls, Catholic high school. Needless to say he had NO idea what he was getting himself into, but we had fun with him and he was a good teacher.)

One last job option that I'll only mention briefly because I'm pretty sure I don't want to do it (even if it does sound interesting) is to work for a scientific journal. Not as an editor - all the editors (that I know of anyways) are big name professors in their own right, separate from/prior to being an editor. My advisor was recently visited by a PhD chemist who works for an analytical journal essentially as a scout and blogger. She attends conferences, reads, and travels in search of cool science for the journal to feature in print and/or in her blog (through the journal, not a personal science blog). I really don't think I enjoy writing nearly enough to do something like this, but it's a neat, off-the-beaten-track option, and I'm sure there are others like this that I wish I knew existed.

I've rambled long enough. I'll write another post later about post-doc-ing and what I think my currently most-appealing career/job option is.

Hm. What next? Part II

So in thinking more about what I want to do "when I grow up," and in seeking advice/information on various options, I've decided it could be helpful to think about what I want in a job.

Based on my last post on this subject, it's fairly clear that I want a job where:

• I generally like my co-workers. I realize there's always going to be the one (or more) person I absolutely can't stand, or drives me up the wall, but it's important to me that for the most part, I like my co-workers and enjoy working with them. It would be the pits to loathe the people with whom I spend 40+ hours a week.
• It is feasible to have balance between work and family/private/home life. As I said before, my career is important to me, but so is family - the family I already have and the family I someday hope to have. Both my parents have advanced degrees and have/had high-level, demanding jobs. Granted Dad's job has always been considerably more flexible and "9-5" than Mom's (night and weekend call is certainly an obstacle to flexibility), but I never felt neglected, or like I didn't see my parents enough, or like they weren't there for important things. So I guess my point is I know it's possible to have a successful career in science and still have a family, therefore I won't take (or stay in) a job that doesn't leave room for other priorities.
• I never become completely removed from the lab that my expectations are ridiculous. A lot of PhDs get sort of pushed into a management track, where it seems all too easy to lose understanding of what it takes to make something actually happen in lab. On one hand I like to be in charge because I like to be sure things are going to get done right (um yes, I can be somewhat bossy at times). Although the older I get the less I care because less and less often do I think the stress and pressure are worth it. Maybe someday management will be more appealing than it is now. I guess it's a good recent grads wouldn't start out in a position like that anyways. I also discovered during grad school that I really like to tinker. I enjoy disassembling, trouble-shooting, replacing parts, and reassembling the instrument. For now at least I want to be able to continue getting my hands dirty.
  

I think those factors will go a long way towards me being happy in my job. There are some other things to think about too.

• Travel. If you know me or have been reading this blog for a while, you've probably figured out that I'm a wee bit addicted. I love going to and experiencing new places. Most business trips likely wouldn't really allow time for sightseeing, but you still get the chance to meet and interact with people from somewhere different - something I almost always find interesting and valuable. And maybe I'm weird, but I always get this thrill just walking through the airport looking at all the gates as pass thinking, "Oo! I could go to Seattle! Or Memphis! Or Montreal! Or Tokyo! Or Cairo!" And the list goes on, and on, and on. Dad commutes to DC (from Boston) almost once a week. I don't think I really want to do that; it just seems draining. He takes a 6 or 7 am flight down and then gets home between 9 and 11 pm. And then goes to work at his normal 6 or 7 am the next morning! Besides, who wants to go to the same place over and over and over again? :P
• Benefits. Growing up we were very fortunate that we always had great health insurance as part of one parent or the others' benefits package. Now in grad school, paying too much for pretty mediocre insurance makes me really, really appreciate the value of good benefits. I'm really looking forward to having better health insurance, hopefully with vision, dental, and prescription included!! While we're at it, let's admit that money is nice, my travel addiction is expensive, and I'd like to think I will have toiled through let's not think about how many years of graduate school to make more than $30,000/year. Oh, and a decent amount of vacation time would be appreciated.
• Mass spec vs "other" analytical chemistry vs "other" chemistry. I'm pretty sure that I want to stay in mass spec. Most chemists seem to wind up in positions drastically different from their dissertation work. That's not necessarily a bad thing - I most definitely don't want to do the same thing forever. That said, I really like the wide variety of applications, instrumentation, and problems encountered in mass spectrometry. Which brings me to my next point,
• Variety. I absolutely do not want to do the same thing everyday for the next year, let alone the rest of my life.
• Learning opportunities. Whether that's in the form of in-house seminars and classes as very-BC talked about at lunch, attending conferences, training from instrument companies, and who knows what else. I certainly don't know everything I'll ever need to know, nor will I when I've actually finished this stupid degree.
• Interaction. As much as other people drive me crazy sometimes, I ultimately do want to interact with lots of people in my job. Working by myself all the time would get really boring really quickly. Fortunately science doesn't happen in a bubble.
• Application. I like coming to specific results or conclusions that can be of use to other scientists or people in the near-ish future. I loathe strictly theoretical or computational work. As an analytical chemist this isn't likely to be a problem. After all, the whole point of analytical chemistry is to measure stuff. I'm also really not attached to doing true research. I'm ok with more application-oriented problem-solving.
  

I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking of now, and probably things I won't realize I care about or should have been thinking about until after I've had a "real, grown up" job for a while. This is a pretty extensive list though, and hopefully thinking about what I want from a job will help me decide what will be a good choice for me.

Eventually I'll get around to musing over various options...