Smiles warm my heart

This post is my contribution to November 2009 Scientiae Carnival (which has not been published yet).

A week ago I started a new job as a postdoc in a new lab. In a new city with new people. I have started a new life.

Last weekend I was moving and I did not know how things are going to turn out. I hoped for better than the previous year's position. I had already met my supervisor and coworkers and I had known that they were positive people. I also met the students of the new group and I knew how friendly, open minded and relaxed they were. They are all smiles and I love them already.

Yet during my move and in the first days here I did not feel any change yet. My mind was still a haze, and I was deeply shocked to see how nice people here were. I was suprised by the positive and friendly interactions and their treatment of me with respect and dignity.

Within this week I have undergone a strange transition from tense and stressed (by the way things were in my previous workplace and by the relocation) to more relaxed and chilled out. The stress was gone after I cried one night mid-week when I realised that I was not treated with any hostility here what-so-ever!

In working in academia I like people. I love students. I enjoy the spirit of collaboration. I know that maybe it is not exactly only about STEM and it is not only about science. It is not about the topic I work on, it is about the human interactions. It is about working on this topic together.

I know that the topic on which people work on gives them the intrinsic motivation, and it gives them the pleasure from nice results and a job well done. Yet for me it is all about how it brings people closer, and enables them to interact with each other.

I cannot survive without human interactions, and this is why during the last year in my previous employment I was like a wilting flower, I had very little interactions as people around me withhold them from me and the isolation and exclusion made me depressed and miserable.

I am a people's person. I cannot live without the human interactions.

I realise that maybe being a scientist was not the best career choice for me if I value the human interactions so much. Maybe I should have become a psychotherapist, a trainer, a journalist, a sales person, a PR specialist, a politician, or go into some other career that requires rather intensive human contacts on day to day basis, rather than becoming a scientist who works on their own in the lab, analyses the data for long hours on their own and writes journal articles while sitting alone at the computer.

A job of a scientist has many components that require lonely work, but there are also those that require collaboration. I am in for the latter. There are group meetings, informal chats and lunches together. There are discussions of protocols and data and results and there is working together. This is what makes me smile.

I am not in STEM for the cut throat competition, fighting for projects and undermining each other competence to shine when the other is “mixed with mud” (my home language saying). I know I would enjoy becoming faculty, as I love teaching students and guiding them in their research. But I do not think I will go that high in my career, I do not think I would be good enough with my research output history for a faculty job (classical impostor syndrome, I know). So I do not know what and who I will be in the future, and where my career will go, but let me not worry about it now. I have just started a new job!

I am still working in STEM, for the love of science and because I invested so much of my time and energy into learning the inside out of the discipline and becoming so highly specialised. Maybe if I do not become faculty I could be a super-technician who mainly works with others to help them with their research? I think I could quite enjoy such a service role. We will see what future brings. I really do not want to overhaul my career completely into one of the earlier mentioned paths that suit my personality so much better. I like the interactions of the academic environment and I hope that I will be able to continue my career in academia in the future. For the love of science!

And about the influence of the weather on my mood? Well, I do not notice the weather, or it has minimal influence on my mood. It is mainly sunny here and we have a beautiful autumn, and when it is raining I cherish the time that I can relax at home. At least I do not feel guilty that I should be outside going somewhere, doing something and enjoying the beautiful days! I need this rainy time to stay in, relax and look after myself!