Very laid back day:
9am Arrive
9-10am Emails
10am-11am Meeting
11am-1pm Lunch
1pm-3pm Work (experiments, design, etc)
3pm-5pm Email and read articles/patents/etc
5pm Leave and forget I even have a job
Laid back day
8am Arrive
8-9am Emails
9am-10am Experiments
10am-11am Meeting
11am-noon Brainstorming
Noon-1pm Lunch
1pm-4pm Work (experiments, design, etc)
4pm-5pm Email and read articles/patents/etc
5pm Leave while rarely thinking about work outside of work.
Busy day
7am Arrive
7am-8am Email
8am-9am Meeting
9am-10am Work on designs
10am-noon Experiments
Noon-1pm Look at data while eating
1pm-3pm Prototype changes and more experimentation
3pm-4pm Meeting
4pm-6pm Experiments and prototyping
6pm-7pm Emails
7pm Leave tired
Very busy day
6am Arrive
6am-7am Email
7am-8am Prepare materials for big meeting
8am-10am Big meeting
10am-11am Work on designs
11am-1pm Experiment while eating lunch
1pm-3pm Big meeting
3pm-5pm Experiments and prototyping
5pm-7pm International meeting
7pm-9pm Experiments to prepare for big show-and-tell
9pm-10pm Data processing
10pm-11pm Work on presentation
11pm-midnight Emails
midnight Sometimes leave while thinking about work...sometimes sleep in my office
midnight Sometimes leave while thinking about work...sometimes sleep in my office
Average day while traveling
5am-6am Check email during breakfast
6am Report to hospital
6am-8am Prepare equipment
8am-1pm Run animal study
1pm-2pm Lunch
2pm-7pm Run animal study
7pm-8pm Put equipment away
Do this 5 days in a row.
My percentages are probably like so, on average:
2% VLBD
8% LBD
50% BD
10% VBD
30% Travel
Overall, I am very satisfied with my work, and it doesn't always seem like work since I'm having fun. The clinical-impact makes me feel great about the long days at the office, but I prefer VLBD :)
So your most common days are 12 hour days? I hope you are compensated appropriately (by how much wil you get the pay cut by going to academia? 2.5 times or more?) and that looks like a lot of meeting time... Maybe the person asking would like to know your schedule before you started (you are a team leader now, right? So probably higher pay and more responsibility (also longer hours) than someone just starting out?
ReplyDeleteI am compensated very well (and am not looking forward to the paycut both in research funds and take-home), but I don't really consider myself too busy (thus needing the higher compensation) because I don't have any kids or heavy responsibilities, plus I love what I do. The amount of work never really factors into my pay discussion...just how much I do (or don't) complete. One thing I didn't mention was that I will frequently leave at 6 on busy days and do email on the train. But I'll usually do it from the comfort of my office. I'll also take roughly every other Friday as a day off or half day.
DeleteYou make a very good point about the entry level schedule. I'll add an addendum or put up another post to clarify :)
Oh yeah, one thing about the large amount of meetings: I arranged a deal where the people in charge wanted us all to go to meeting since we come up with everything, but I don't want us all to lose the research time. So I proposed a new offer where only I take part in the meetings (mostly remotely...where I can do real work while listening in on the teleconference), and all my workers don't have waste their time learning about market-share, sales, etc. This results in less for my group, more for me, but my fantastic researchers coming up with the therapies to save lives. I will NOT miss the meetings....though I remember my advisor having a ton of meetings all the time...
DeleteOne question I have is how much travel did your company say you were going to do? I am applying for jobs and I don't like being away from my wife and kids for too long and I am worried that 10% might actually mean 30%. On the counter, are companies conservative where 50% posted travel might actually mean 30%?
ReplyDeleteMy initial position did not have as much travel listed....maybe 10%. And I had to travel about 15%. I found out the numbers are usually spot on with the rare deviation. The deviations are usually higher than the posted amount. I have a friend who travels about 50% when 10% was listed on the position. Most are less or right on the number. Good luck with the hunt!
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