Working for a company rather than an academic institution has had required me to make many, well a s@#$load of adjustments on how I try to perform cutting edge ideas and fabrication ideas. One of the biggest adjustments involves now I have a "Boss" to my work. Now, in academia, you are pretty much your own boss when it comes to many of the technical aspects of work, but now I am subjected to the whims of someone else. My experience in industry has provided me with some very critical traits that are good or bad when it comes to bosses/managers, (i.e., I've had crappy bosses, good bosses, and even crappy good ones). But it really comes down to if can you work with the individual or not. This was a deciding factor for my decision between taking a job in Minneapolis with a heck of a lot more money which was exactly the type of research position I wanted vs. coming to this huge corporate giant with less pay, more exposure to different technologies, working with more universities, and just...bigger. The manager decision was a deciding factor. Guess what...I chose wrong...the manager was crap.
I found out immediately after my AZ canyoning trip that my manager was leaving the company, and to all places, the company I had a previous offer from in Minneapolis! This really left me worrying about my time at my present position. While my manager was crap, he was good at getting and obtaining really neat projects for our group to work on. But when it came to actual "managing," well there was none of that, it was a free for all. He had a very different view on how to assign projects to his subordinates and I was one of the massive casualties of his lack of managing skills. So much, that a number was placed on my board signifying how many more days I was going to remain at the company. The poor managing lead to the majority of my stress and was a main reason why I did not even want to update my blog to let you all know how bad things were actually going....we'll get to that.
So while waiting to see who would replace my manager/boss, I started looking for new positions just in case. To my surprise and anger, an exact duplicate of my position had opened up in Seattle. You can only imagine how angered I was. It had already been filled so I was still in a holding pattern while interviews were conducted and I went manager-less for 3 month. My projects span out of control, political lines were drawn within our group and I wondered more and more about my decision to leave academia.
Luckily the hiring committee selected a new manager who is working out just fine. Things within the group have settled down and I am doing much better. During my performance evaluation which is done in 3 stages throughout the year (for me by 3 different people) I learned that even someone with my background is not usually placed as a PI (principle investigator) on a project their first year of hire (allows you time to get to know the company). My response was, "So it is unusual for me to be the PI on 3? Where each 3 are on non-related technologies?" I was even able to write a proposal and get external funding during that time. Not too shabby for a "new hire."
I am the PI on 3 projects for 2009, but I am used to it now. The new manager has worked out fine and my travel for this year should be more under control. I estimated that I was on the road a total of 2.5-3 months in 2008. Hence the emptiness of my house! I have been able to see some very interesting places in the UK and the country. It is pretty cool to be able to get this close to a multi-million dollar vehicle. I guess my job does have some perks....
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