My replacement

A year into my job out of grad school I proposed the idea for the creation of my group. It was a new idea for research and medical device development that has proved to be very successful for the company and for patients. We started off in leftover lab space with a dedicated, smart, but inexperienced team (I was the oldest...and only a year out of grad school...). We slowly developed into the best group in the company and a little over a year ago started working in a custom-built lab that we designed down to the border on the windows. It has all the equipment I wanted, with the exact layout I thought would be most condusive to doing great research. I love it. And I love my team.  It's incredibly fun; a start-up feel with big company name and dollars.  And the concept has worked out so well that a year ago I was made the international representative for this kind of group.  Every division across the world now has a group similar to mine.

When I accepted my academic job I started to talk to management about cultivating my right hand person to take my position. They've been with the group since the beginning and is only second to me in patents/year in the company. Leadership agreed this was the best move. 

But today I was given some troubling news. Leadership has found someone they want to join my group and shadow me to pick up everything they can in the one+ year before I leave. This person has a very good track record as a leader in other biomedical companies, but doesn't know much about applications.  Mr. MBA, as I've been calling him. Also, we've all talked with this person and our personalities don't match at all. Our group dynamic is one of the most important things about our team, and I'm pissed that leadership wants to mess with this dynamic.  He tells very different types of jokes, and comes in thinking he knows everything.  He worked in the old-world way of biomedical development, and very different from how my group does R&D; focused on money not lives.  And we can all tell that he's here to move up the ladder.  I would have never left my group if not for academia.  Even if they offered me the CEO position.  I love my group too much, and he's definitely here to leave.  Honestly, I think leadership put him here to quickly get experience in leading the best team in the company before moving up the ladder with that 'experience'.  There's no way this is going to stop me from leaving, but I'm suddenly fearing that the group will go downhill when I leave. And my group has been responsible for the vast majority of the company's recent success. I've got nothing to lose so I'll DEFINITELY be voicing my opinion.  My #2 isn't upset they're getting pushed back, and they definitely won't leave because the group is too important to them, too.  The rest of the team is sticking around, too.  But they definitely aren't happy about this.

I already hated business-types. I'm about to hate them more. 

Saying 'hello' to my soul again

Sooooo, I finished my PhD a couple of years ago in a bioengineering-type field. I had always been industry-focused because I wanted the real-world relevance. I even took a break between my undergrad and grad educations to get a few years of industry experience.

About a year from graduation I started to apply for industry positions in the medical field. I lined up an offer very quickly for one of the most publically reputable companies in the world in a fast-paced laboratory. It was my dream job. Was. About 6 months before graduation a lot of my results came together and I learned more about academia and I realized I made a huge mistake. I wanted to enter academia. I wanted the freedom, the mentorship and teaching of students, the core search for good, expanding my knowledge-base beyond what is needed for profits, and working with people who are genuinely brilliant. I don't mind the politicking and endless committees and egos because I'm going to have that stuff anywhere. I had all these good things in graduate school (self-funded through my own research grants) and I didn't realize how much I liked it until too late. I ultimately decided to continue on the industry track because I knew it would give me experience beyond what a typical post-doc would have. And the pay. I am easily making 2x my old advisor. 

I've already developed a couple products in my industrial R&D lab and feel like I've gotten all the real-world experience I want. To be honest, I feel like I'm getting dumber in industry. I'm learning a lot about one little field and how to think like an evil business man, but I don't have exposure to anything else. I've been reading all I can, but there's only so much time. The academics out there are thinking "duh. Of course we're smarter". And I would say "you're not all smarter, but you're definitely less evil than industry scientists." I'm looking at you, Monsanto. 

With that, I'm going to make the shift to academia. So far, I have applied for 20 R1 universities and will talk about the hardship of the transition and my application process if it happens this year. If it doesn't I'll just continue on the journey to next year's application season. So I've been kissing a lot of butt, and trying my hardest to switch mindsets to creating an academic application package those already in the ivory tower will like. Here's to a year of depression in an overpaid job if I don't get any offers!