I am quite honestly envious of some colleagues and friends my age who have gotten PECASE or other young investigator awards. I want to whine, "But when's it gonna be my turn!" Of course, I realize that you have to write proposals, submit, talk with PMs, etc in order to get awards. Happily, my friends who get these awards are humble and genuinely deserve the recognition. Yet it is so easy to compare my success (or lack of?) with their recent accomplishments. Faculty a year or two ahead of me tell me that "it will come." I'll keep hammering away at the proposal process.
(So rather than whine to them, I'll just whine on my blog.)
In the big picture, with funding rates so low, one may have to submit 10 proposals to get one award where a funding rate is 10%. That's purely based on statistics, not taking into account the quality of the proposal, but the point is that a lot of effort goes into getting a little bit of money. Some older faculty who enjoyed high funding rates in days of yore can be unsympathetic. And others fully understand because they, too, experience the same current funding rate.
I am now at a conference where many junior faculty that I admire talk about how they work all the time and don't sleep. I get lots of sleep and work at my own pace, but I'm scared that it isn't enough to keep up with them. If I could just get another grant, then maybe my whining would stop :)
8 comments:
I used to think that too -- but then I got a few grants. Then, you just have more work to do, and you starting thinking about the next grants!
That sounds pessimistic. But my real point is -- enjoy the present, and make life decisions based on life, and not what you will do when/after you get the first (or next) grant.
I sleep a lot too, and shocked by my colleagues who get so little! I've decided -- if you can't get tenure with a decent amount of sleep, then maybe you don't want THAT job. What are they going to do - start sleeping more after they get tenure? Isn't that dishonest in some ways?
My partner and I are both tenure track in the same department. My partner sleeps atleast 2 hours a night less than I do. I can't function on less than 7-8 hours. We are both progressing well to tenure, (I have 2 PI'd grants, partner has 1), so sleep or lack thereof seems to have little effect on total productivity here. I am, however, the one who usually wakes up when the kid is screaming at 3 am...
I find that I hear a lot about how much some of my (especially young) colleagues work and how they don't sleep etc. I think that most of them are part of the culture of boasting how dedicated they are to this job, and there is some creative accounting of their many hours of work. Checking their email after the children go to sleep is counted, and so is waking up at 2 am and tossing about that meeting with the unproductive grad student, or thinking about it in the shower.
Even if the accounting is fair and true, most of our job is to read/write/think. How efficient can these sleep-deprived colleagues be? Finally, I try to just make peace with myself and enjoy my life - we only get one (most likely). I agree with Anonimous - if you can only keep this job by sacrificing your sleep (and presumably most of the time with your child), is it really worth it?
On envy: you are moving close to your family, with a job that makes this impossible for most of us, AND your two-body problem is solved. Enjoy it! You have already achieved the impossible.
Well you made a great sales pitch for your group's research today. That should help!
But was that sales pitch good enough to get a grant :)
I like Anon #3's point about colleagues who boast about little sleep -- and that may be inflated. I wonder if we do a dis-service to grad students who look at our lives and wonder if they want that work-life balance. If all we do is describe the hard parts (little sleep), and not the good parts, then maybe they wouldn't want to follow our footsteps.
There are some really great comments here. I love Anonymous #1's attitude - I have also reached the conclusion that if being successful in science means giving up the 'life' half of the work-life balance, it's not worth it. Although it scares me to death, I am prepared to fail dismally rather than give up my life for my job.
In response to the last comment, you are right - I look at the tenured faculty in my department and I don't want that life! And I have a feeling I'm not the only one...
My view is that you are in this for the long haul and you need to be able to sustain. If you genuinely believe you are losing sleep and burning the long hours and "working so hard" this is not going to last. You need to find some way to make it all work together or you are screwed.
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