It is time, once again, to talk about a job high school students have never heard of. This time, we are looking at research administrators. High school students have all heard about actual researchers. They have lab accidents that turn them into superheroes, work with nanotechnology, invent invisibility cloaks, and try to solve the problems of faster than light travel, curing cancer, or finding secret messages in DaVinci’s works of art. (Some of these things mayread more…

In my previous position, I had a direct report. She was an admin I inherited with the job. In my transition meeting with the person I was replacing,  our discussion about the admin was basically “she’s been on a personal improvement plan, but the issue has mostly cleared up, so I’ll close that out before I leave.” That’s not exactly an auspicious start, and truth be told, it was not really an auspicious relationship. Do notread more…

This is my first week on the new job. I am slowly adapting from having a 7-3:30 schedule with a 10 min each way commute to an 8-5 schedule with a 60-90 minute commute. It is not a supremely easy transition, especially considering I had about 8 weeks of not working at all in between. Part of my new schedule it taking public transit. My commute could be slightly shorter if I drove, but it wouldread more…