Decisions, decisions, decisions...

[Chazwozel]

So I've been in a bit of a job market bind the past month. As many of you know my department went under in late November. In December, I was interviewed an accepted for a tenure tract community college position, starting in Fall 2010. Recently, I was hired as a Mass Spec technician at an academic lab, in an area medical college. So back in December, during my scramble for a new job I took several civil service job tests in my field. They're now getting back to me with interview offers...

Salaries are relative to each other (i.e. I don't want to the potential of possible employers seeing what they're offering, internet security... yadda yadda):

Mass Spec tech: current: 45k, expensive as fuck benefits (far commute), learning how to operate and interpret a really, really useful machine in all sorts of fields. Salary and job position is based of P.I./department grants so it's not the most stable job (i.e. I'm not going to be doing this for 10 years)

CC Professorship: 50k, benefits are decent and cheap (local area); I get to teach, which I love doing above all else (however, these are community college students, which may or may not be a good thing)

Microbio Civil Service job: Need to have interview yet so job isn't 100% yet, easy work, 50k, plus I'm pretty sure benefits are awesome (local area). Good solid government job ( I can see myself doing this for a long time without having to worry about job security).

Thus far, I think if I bag this Micro Civil job, I'm going to leave my current job and depending on how well it goes, by March/April inform the CC if I'm going to teach or not. The plan thus far was to ride out the mass spec job till I start teaching. I don't really want to job hop and miss the boat either. Thing is I actually really, really enjoy the mass spec job too, but the commute is an hour and half by train/walking and the benefits are hella expensive. I know that I love teaching above all else, but a civil service job is a pretty stable, and solid career with good benefits. I figure I could adjunct teach or do consulting on the side.

I dunno, what do you guys think is a somewhat decent course of action?

 

[HCGLNS]

Hop over to the Civil service job. Your kids are at an age where the more time you can spend with them the better. And Civil jobs are always sweet. Once in the Civil job, see if they will allow you to teach as well, some may allow it.

 

[fade]

I don't mean to pry, but aren't those salaries a little on the low side for a Ph.D.? Can you not ask for more?

 

[Chazwozel]

I don't mean to pry, but aren't those salaries a little on the low side for a Ph.D.? Can you not ask for more?

Well those aren't the actually salaries, I scaled them down, but they're relative to each other (I dunno, I don't like giving out my exact paycheck).

Cost of living in my area is relatively low. I was making six figures prior and was pretty much living like a king.

 

[ThatNickGuy]

It's very simple: rob a bank. Guaranteed high amount of money for a short amount of work with no side effects! Surely there's nothing that could go wrong.

But if you want to go a LEGAL route? I'd say Microbio.

 

[Necronic]

You have a PhD, don't waste your time on the Mass Spec job unless its just a placeholder. I have run analytical equipment before (ICP MS, GC, FTIR, UV-VIS, and AFM) and in most casaes, depending on the size of the company, if you are a tech you are getting the assignments/samples/run sheets from an MPT/PHD. There were exceptions, like the AFM, but that was because it was a very small company, the equipment and its application (nanotubes) were exceptionally exotic, and I was the only person with the time and understanding to run the research program around it.

For me a mass spec job wouldn't be bad, but I am a bachelored chemist. Having experience running equipment like that is part of my toolbox. For you, running the equipment doens't really matter, its the results that do. Maybe you would implement some better calibration methods and other things, but if its an ISO lab you will spend your day plugging and chugging. And that shit is way below you. Fuck, its below me. That stuff is for lazy assed bachelored scientists who are happy being a monkey who pushes a button and gets a treat.

I swear, if I had a dollar for the amount of half assed procedures I have seen on a piece of analytical equipment...ugh. My first week at my current company I tought myself the GC software and concepts around it and fixed problems that had been monkeyed for almost a decade. They had all these useless fucking methods in there. They were treating every gas as having a non-linear calibration curve and had bought like 10 different cal gas containers to handle the different concentrations.

Now, I have a 4 year degree, and a little motivation and fundamental knowledge, and I was able to completely learn that system and fix it in 2 days. That's how painfully simple these things are. And I doubt mass spec will be much harder. The AFM was different because there was so much image analysis associated with it as well as developing methods for novel materials.

I dunno man, of what you have listed the Mass spec job sounds like the absolute worst one on the list.

 

[Chazwozel]

You have a PhD, don't waste your time on the Mass Spec job unless its just a placeholder. I have run analytical equipment before (ICP MS, GC, FTIR, UV-VIS, and AFM) and in most casaes, depending on the size of the company, if you are a tech you are getting the assignments/samples/run sheets from an MPT/PHD. There were exceptions, like the AFM, but that was because it was a very small company, the equipment and its application (nanotubes) were exceptionally exotic, and I was the only person with the time and understanding to run the research program around it.

For me a mass spec job wouldn't be bad, but I am a bachelored chemist. Having experience running equipment like that is part of my toolbox. For you, running the equipment doens't really matter, its the results that do. Maybe you would implement some better calibration methods and other things, but if its an ISO lab you will spend your day plugging and chugging. And that shit is way below you. Fuck, its below me. That stuff is for lazy assed bachelored scientists who are happy being a monkey who pushes a button and gets a treat.

I swear, if I had a dollar for the amount of half assed procedures I have seen on a piece of analytical equipment...ugh. My first week at my current company I tought myself the GC software and concepts around it and fixed problems that had been monkeyed for almost a decade. They had all these useless fucking methods in there. They were treating every gas as having a non-linear calibration curve and had bought like 10 different cal gas containers to handle the different concentrations.

Now, I have a 4 year degree, and a little motivation and fundamental knowledge, and I was able to completely learn that system and fix it in 2 days. That's how painfully simple these things are. And I doubt mass spec will be much harder. The AFM was different because there was so much image analysis associated with it as well as developing methods for novel materials.

I dunno man, of what you have listed the Mass spec job sounds like the absolute worst one on the list.

Well the Mass Spec is a placeholder. I won't be doing it for more than a year. The machine is incredibly easy to run. I figured shit out in under a week, to the amazement of the P.I. For the most part, I am the Mass Spec core for the department, meaning I plug and chug and explain the results to those that pay for it. But I do also run and maintain the machine.

The nice thing about this job is the PI is really, really, lazy. As in some days he just doesn't show up, or not care that I don't do a goddamn thing. The Chinese grad student has attempted several times to make me his ordering bitch; to which I shoo him off with a VWR catalog.

It's slightly post-docish, in that I'm reading up on some of the current projects going on in the lab and I'm potentially going to get to do some of my own experiments, but for now I'm setting up the core to be a business type deal, where people pay us for Mass Spec usage.

Really the hardest thing on the mass spec (as I told the PI) was just learning the hardware configuration and how to swap shit out without damaging columns or the electrospray inlet housing (which costs like 200,000). Other than that, it was a really simple matter of reading the manual and calibrating the thing. What I'm hoping is that the Civil Service job is offered to me, and I'll have a couple of months to evaluate things there, before deciding on the professorship. I hate job hopping like this, but sometimes that's a good way to feel things out.