Fresh Wallaby Juice

Job interview yesterday. It went well! They liked me! Woohoo!

(Clearly they haven’t talked to my current boss yet. Although he supposedly has nothing but good things to say about his students, no matter what he really thinks about them. Which is nice, I guess, but kind of reinforces his image as a two-faced jerk. Better this way than the reverse – nice to the student, badmouths them to the world? Perhaps. But there’s a striking disconnect between “I don’t think that your work as a scientist is even acceptable by standards for undergraduates, let alone postdocs” and “Of course I recommend him for your company!”)

Anyway. They want me. Do I want them?

Dunno. Looks like a nice place to work, good small company that recently got bought by a much larger one – long ago enough that the “consolidation” is done, with this particular company existing now as a nearly-intact division in the main corporation. One that is being left to do its own thing, largely, as far as product development goes.

(Shall I say what the product is? Nah. It’s something in a type of instrument I’ve never used directly, but doing very similar stuff to the basic techniques I did my thesis in. And the field is small enough that this paragraph and the last one will certainly say which company it is. I’ll call them SmithJones Co.)

So, yeah. I’d be an “applications scientist”, which in this case would mostly mean running samples for off-site customers, and writing internal and external training materials. “Internal”, to enhance the company’s in-house knowledge with procedures as we try them. “External” to train customers how to get the most out of what we sell them – for some reason, that really makes a difference when your product costs a quarter of a million dollars.

OK, so it’s analyzing stuff and writing about it, with a particular emphasis on explaining the technique to newcomers. Two things I’ve found I’m good at. It’s a nice area. SmithJones sounds like a nice place to work. But …

The customers, and therefore the samples, are mostly from the pharma world. Which means that I’d be looking at one set of tablets/powders after another, with very little interest in the actual answer (of “what’s this powder”). So I’m not really sure how long I’d care to do that. (Compare it to inspecting bowling balls, or something – there’s a lot of different designs for what they look like, and the weight, but at the end of the day that’s just a lot of bowling balls.) (Then again, “all” a professional catcher does is catch a baseball for a few hours a week, and they don’t talk about boredom much. They also make a lot more than I would… heh.)

So I guess it’s a job that would offer a great chance to exercise my (relatively rare, apparently) skills on a narrow range of not-very-interesting stuff. In other words, sort of a “B” overall, but a very flat “B”.

But… it’s a job. And I’m fairly likely to get an offer, I think.

The other possibility in my sights right now is a temporary faculty position (9 month contract), at a school that (I think) I’d really like to teach at. (“Hobart U.”) They haven’t even started reviewing the applications yet, though, so I have no idea how my chances are there – and it’s still only a temporary thing. (Apparently it was an unexpected vacancy, so they’re only looking for a fill-in right now. But, they’re hoping to fill it in with someone who can stay on as a tenure-track appointment.)

I know I don’t expect to like every aspect of being a professor – even a temporary one. I think that the potential for really enjoying it is a lot stronger at “Hobart”. (It’s just about the right size, in a state I like, and their department is not already stuffed with spectroscopists.) In other words, there’d be a lot more ups and downs, with terrain ranging from “A” to “C”. And it’s only a temp position, with no guarantee about being the one to get the nod for the regular appointment…. so I might find myself in this same position a year from now. (Although I’d at least have a lot more teaching experience. And new people to comment on that experience as references.)

So it’s a choice between… take the safe flat “B”… or wait around hoping for the irregular “A” to “C”?

Tags: faculty, job hunting, teaching