What did I really think when I made the decision to leave the lab and pursue a career using my other skills?<\/p>\n
To be honest, I don’t really know. I don’t really remember. “It seemed a good idea at the time,” is probably closest. But then, every step on my career path has had that rider. That, or “I couldn’t think of anything better.” <\/p>\n
Coming to my current gig, perhaps more than any other choice I’ve made in my professional life, was a more positive step than any other I’ve made\u2014that is, I wasn’t reacting to circumstance, or trying something new for the sake of it, or leaving somewhere else in a huff or trying something on the off-chance it might turn out all right. <\/p>\n
I am working very hard\u2014perhaps harder than when I was doing some reviewer-requested experiments for a Nature Structural Biology<\/em> paper a decade ago. In the five months I’ve been here I have been dumped in the shit, had to deal with post-last minute panics on a regular basis, thrown a strop at a client and warned them their third of a million dollars project was in jeopardy, smoothed ruffled feathers, stressed beyond imagining and snatched from the snarling maws of defeat victories that would have made Henry V proud. <\/p>\n And to be completely honest, I’m having a whale of a time. I have learned more science than in any comparable period since I did my doctorate and met some amazing people. I have managed projects that started with a few lines in an email and gone to something real and exciting that has my client contact saying things like “extremely impressed” and “everyone loves [it]” and “one person even wanted to take [it] home” (and I’ve promised the creative team who have made this particular project real some serious drinks…).<\/p>\n So that’s where I am. For various reasons I can’t give you much in the way of details, but soon I hope (probably June) to be able to share some of this work with you.<\/p>\n Come on in. The water’s lovely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What did I really think when I made the decision to leave the lab and pursue a career using my other skills? To be honest, I don’t really know. I don’t really remember. “It seemed a good idea at the … Continue reading