Sciencegirl asked (a long time ago! she probably forgot about it)
"How is the transition out of the grad student/postdoc stage treating you? Are you still enjoying living back home?"
The short answers are great and yes. I love being near family and old friends again and living in this town is just awesome. We get to bike all around, we are near the beach, the weather is always pleasant and all the wonderful places to hike around are amazing.
While at times I miss the freedom of being a grad student it is nice to be done with that. I think the hardest transition for me is dealing with managing my time. As a grad student it was acceptable to put something off and then deal with it when I was ready because I was working all the time. Now I'm on a more strict schedule and I find that if I feel in a bad mood or don't want to write (like now), I'm still stuck at work. Since my work load isn't very big right now it's hard to say, not want to work on something so I move over to something else-as there isn't something else. I also have to bill all my hours to get paid and there is no line item for "didn't feel like working so I blogged," i.e. I'm not getting paid for sitting here at my work desk writing this post. Which is fair. I shouldn't get paid to sit here and write this, but I've created this bad habit while writing my dissertation of inefficiency, and I can't figure out how to change this bad habit. It wasn't this hard when I first started my job, there was a lot to keep me busy and when I'm out in the field I have a great time. So here I sit, trying to find the motivation to work on a project I know nothing about, hopefully it will come to me soon so I can actually make some money today. . . .
I've been putting off Psych Post Doc's questions "why don't you tell us about being a consultant? What are the pros and cons (other than the crazy commute)? Are there any things about the job that surprise you? In a good way or a bad way? Do you think you'd want to do this long term?" I will answer this soon.
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2 comments:
Thanks for answering :)
I hope working within set hours gets easier with time, as I too shift tasks around according to my mood and just when I work better (i.e., most of my writing happens in the evenings). Perhaps building some new habits will help trigger motivation (i.e., getting some tea and spending 5 minutes enjoying it, then getting back to work). Good luck, and definitely let us know if you find any new tricks!
I can see how accounting for your time in that way would be a drag. And I can totally see developing those bad habits while writing a dissertation. I hope it gets easier for you.
Looking forward to hearing about your experience being a consultant.
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