So Friday I posted a photo of an ad that went up in our lunchroom. The feedback was very indicative of the current mood of postdocs within the life sciences: frustration.
It all started with this ad:
And it sparked an interesting series of comments. The type of discussion that our profession needs. I'm not cheering for one side - but here are my two cents.
PIs, I understand, some of you look at this ad and you see passion, dedication and all these other virtues. And many postdocs (me included) see this ad as representative of an academic system gone amok. Sure we all value working hard and getting the answers (for the love of science) but most postdocs want to stay in academia and feel the weight of the numbers on their shoulders. There are more postdocs vying for fewer and fewer jobs. Postdoc positions are lasting longer and longer. To succeed, the bar is rising with every passing year. It's publish or perish. Thus postdocs must sacrifice more and more. My boss does not monitor our lab presence, but 90% of the postdocs I know are workaholics and feel trapped ina pyramid scheme - work hard now and the payoff comes later. Is this why we chose science as a profession? Unfortunately postdocs are temporary and have not really fought for better security, benefits etc. but many PIs have anticipated our falling status. In the late 90s they lobbied the NIH to increase the "suggested wages" in the NIH guidelines to help postdocs. Our salaries went up from the 28K to 40K in a decade. But today our future within academia is more insecure than ever. We put in the long hours for a chance of getting our own lab and its getting harder. In the end we feel exploited.
All this venting by many individuals is just a manifestation of our collected frustration at the current system.
(In an attempt to bring more PIs and postdocs into the discussion, I posted this comment in modified form as an entry.)
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It is interesting that many lab heads take the traditional role of employers and that postdocs take the role of employees. The employers want to get the job done and value hard working employees who keep their mouth shut. They (and I really mean some) don't care about their worker's family and "having a life". Employees are just fumming, but as you point out their job is too temporary for them to rise-up and take action.
Acme, you're right but I think that most PIs aren't exploiting capitalists trying to extract every last drop of blood from their laborers. They see science as "love" as a hobby that you get payed for. But some of them don't realize that under the curent circumstances that it's very nerve racking. Some big shot once told me that being a Postdoc was the best part of his academic career. No way. Under the present situation, your head is to the gun. And then there are other competing factors such as FAMILY.
This ad just reminds us of our present state.
Damn PIs ... (man will I be eating my words if I ever become one!)
This is so ironic. An ad for "wouldn't it be cool to build a place where you can have fun doing science with other passionate people, without most of the bullshit inherent in the aystem" gets jumped on as one more example of the bullshit inherent in the system.
Maybe folks should read about Janelia Farm before flaying straw men quite so vigorously?
(I'm a Janelia Farm PI.)
I do not think any comments specifically targeted Janelia Farm. The original post was focused on what the advertisement said not on where it came from. I think all of us would like for that statement(on the ad) to be our reality, but the reality is that we are far from this -- that fact is what has generated the heated discussion and frustration.
I hope Janelia Farm is as good as it sounds. Although leaving behind fried ravioli must have been tough...
As a new PI I have to say that I don't view any of my employees as simple employees. They are my friends, my colleagues and I have a great responsibility to their future. I like to think that all of my previous bosses felt the same way. The reality is that the system screws all of us. I am dependent on my employees and I need them to work like slaves. It is the only way we can all succeed. It sucks, but what can I do, I need results to stay alive as well. I can tell you that I work like a slave as well and my life is crazy. This is a very hard job. I would definitely say that being a post-doc was a lot more fun and I've had a lot of other PIs tell me the same thing. I really don't remember it being so hard. Of course, I didn't have a family but that really is a choice.
As a junior faculty member having my first RO1 grant and trying to keep a lab running and productive as tenure approaches, I am somewhat concerned about the inherent ideas here. I find that the discourse from the post-docs sounds akin to spoiled kids having to actually work hard for something special. Yes, academia is extremely competitive. This is not new. There was a brief period, that has ended, when the NIH budget doubled that led to some marked hiring at Universities. However, the pendulum is swinging back, now that NIH budget has tightened and will continue to tighten, many of these new positions will disappear. Either faculty will not get tenured or tenured faculty will not be able to maintain funding and retirees will not be replaced. Regardless, did any of us get into this field because we thought about the 9 - 5 hours, with weekends free, and great pay? As a post-doc you should be able to find a lab that works for you, talk to the lab members and find out what the expectations are. You want to go to a top notch lab and compete for great projects in order to obtain a faculty position expect to work extremely hard, with no guarantee for success. You could go to another lab, maybe not the absolute top, and work a little less hard and still be competitive for a faculty position. You want to have 2 children and have lots of time to spend with them, go for it, it is awesome. But do not expect your labmates to work less because you do, nor expect lower expectations from your lab head. His or her grant administrator and study section cares little about these issues. Their department head and dean do not count your outside activities as laboatory productivity. I do not mean to belittle the stress involved, I have been through it recently as well, but this is what we signed on for. If you had different expectations, I expect you either received bad advice or ignored better advice. Also, remember with the work, stress, etc comes great rewards such as being able to study what you consider interesting, being able to learn something noone has ever known, and having the intellectual interactions with other motivated and smart people. I think I would rather have what is arguably a cushy job (grad student, post-doc, PI) compared to hanging sheetrock all day long.
Well, in the end it comes down to where you place your priorities. As I said in the other thread, my highest priority is now raising my daughter. The accepted corrolary of this is that I won't be getting a job at Janelia Park. And you know what? I'm OK with that. Like I said before, I do science because it interests me, and it seems I'm pretty good at it. But it's not the driving force behind my existence. There is more to life than grants and pubs.
Now none of this should be taken to mean that I don't on occasion still stay in the lab until the experiment is done, whether that be 11 at night or 11 the next morning. But I'm pretty discriminating about when that is really necessary. The best part about being a postdoc is the freedom to decide when doing that is necessary, and when it's just scientific machismo.
OK folks lets not go overboard. Some misconceptions:
- I don't think that postdocs want 9 to 5 jobs.
- I don't think that Janelia Farm is a slave camp - in fact it is probably better than your average institute as it is under the HHMI umbrella.
- The problem (as BTM points out) is the system, not PIs.
- Postdocs are definitely not spoiled. Anyone in science has sacrificed a lot. If you think postdocs are spoiled, you are out of touch with the current plight of postdocs.
- Lets find answers, not engage in finger pointing.
My opinion is that a great first step would be to secure universal benefits packages for postdocs. This means that all postdocs would be entitled to the same health, life and disability insurance that everyone else working as staff at a university gets. Moreover, enroll all postdocs in retirement plans with matching. I know that many places already do this, but it is far from being across the board (especially for those of us with fellowships). Part of the problem, I think, is that postdocs work their tails off and enjoy the science aspect of it but the insecurity is very difficult to deal with. Maybe long-term job security is an unreasonable goal (although I very much like Alex's idea of permanent postdoc positions -- just not for me) but the security of full benefits and knowing that you are getting a fair retirement package may be able to placate that.
I realize that this would be very expensive and would cut into research budgets. However, speaking as a postdoc who is perhaps not so far from turning into a PI, I'm sure it is the right thing to do.
"My opinion is that a great first step would be to secure universal benefits packages for postdocs. This means that all postdocs would be entitled to the same health, life and disability insurance that everyone else working as staff at a university gets."
At my institution, all post-docs are provided with health insurance, paid for by the PI's funds or by the post-docs fellowship, if he or she has one.