Current Comments about Work

(Ok that was a bad title. Substitute with a better one in your mind, if you have one.)

Alot of people uses "academia" and "industry" almost as antonyms. To an undergraduate grunt, though, the routines are kind of the time. Except different.

Superficially, they are the same, in the sense that I still spend all day weighing stuff, running relatively easy-to-run instruments, waiting for this and that to finish, that sort of thing. Also, I actually work for coworkers (replaced by grad students and postdocs) who report to the supervisor (replaced by the PI).

Everything else is different.

In all my previous work terms, the procedures are fairly well-set. This is the SOP, here's how you do it, and (upon some prompting) the "why" is also fairly clear. Even the time in which one does things is clear. Not so in a research lab; other than (some) instructions on how a particular instrument* works, what procedure? As for a daily schedule - I basically do stuff when someone goes "hey, I have time right now, let's do this!" This irks me a bit; I like to have a sense of what my tasks are for the day so I can plan for them.

One neat thing to do is to look around and see how different people do things slightly differently**, and more importantly, ask *why* they do it the way they do. (It's amazing how often the word "guessing" comes up...)

Another fun thing to do is to to ask people questions. Questions, questions, questions. Some dumber than others. See, if I ask a professor in class, s/he can usually answer quickly. With grad students and postdocs, they'll spend some time actually thinking, but the answer will usually be more reality-based (e.g. with respect to labwork/literature) and might actually have citations to go with it. (On the other hand, grad-student-answers may have alot of handwaving as well.)

What I really love about my supervisors is that they ask me what I think, and take my answers seriously! This, in my experience, is rare.

Of course, it's not all fun and games. I've noticed a, well, I'll call it a "trust" issue.

One thing is really a "laziness" issue. On work terms, I actually have access to work computers and the resources therein. Here, I hijack a logged-in grad student's computer. Yes I'm just here for a few months, but it's just plain weird to run calculations under someone else's account! I call this a laziness issue because I suspect the PI just doesn't want to set up an account for a mere summer student. Sigh. The only positive side effect of this is that I can't slack off on the internet, because when I do actually have internet access at work, I better make the time count.

The other issue is much more awkward. In all my previous work terms, once I've reached competency (which doesn't take long), my coworkers just leave me alone to do whatever that needs to be done. This term, my supervisors are slightly micromanaging. With the exception of sample-weighing, they *have* to watch me do everything, even when it's pretty clear that I can do this on my own. Really, I can load samples into a furnace. Really.

Obviously "trust" is something that needs to be earned. On the other hand, it's pretty stupid if I could've done something in five minutes but am forced to wait for an hour for a supervisor to be available to watch me do something trivial. Both of us have better things to do. Eh, I don't know, we'll see what happens in another few weeks.

*I was going to say "the instruments were more reliable" in my previous work terms, because currently something's always down. Then I thought about it...never mind.
**Example: ask three different people how they transfer stuff in/out of the glove box, and there'll probably be five different answers.

Postscript 1: I have successfully infected a supervisor with my paranoia about tong placement! Yes! *evil grin*

Postscript 2: At a recent group meeting, a lab member did a practice presentation. Said lab member got (politely) slaughtered - it was scary (but in a sense, good to see - better to watch a slaughter at a group meeting than at a conference or something). As an undergrad I hadn't had the authority (or the heart) to point out that the powerpoint and presentation style were terrible, too...(To be fair - the PI's powerpoints in class were hideous as well, so it's not like there's a plethora of good examples there.)