Give me one good reason...

[Editor]

why I shouldn't find a new job and leave research ASAP.

All reasons welcome - unless you hold the opposite opinion, in which case, tell me about that too.

Needless to say, it has not been a good day/week/month/year for me.

[nnyhav]

because you love it

even if sometimes you hate it and even if it doesn't love you back.

[Joao]

There are words from a young scientist that simultaneously sum up why it is frustrating and why it is done. They may be of use here...

http://blogs.lablit.com/2011/03/no-news-is-good-news/

[Editor]

Joao, that's a bit below the belt.

Actually, therein lies the problem. The referees asked for just one experiment, but I'm not sure that I can get it to work. And on this one experiment/paper, my career stands or falls (as summarized a bit more optimistically here.

It's amazing how up and down I go. I used to be more even-tempered and philosophical about the vagaries of science, but as the months dwindle and the End is nearer and nearer, I find I've lost my serenity. There is only a very thin membrane between me and the depths of despair. Yes, as nnyhav points out, my unrequited love is one of the things that keeps me coming in to work day after day, but sometimes I am so close to walking out and never coming back that it scares me. The other thing that keeps me in place on those days is sheer practicality: a mortgage that has to be paid, that leaves no room for dramatic gestures or flouncings out of the lab.

[Nik Papageorgiou]

By leaving science, you mean leaving academic research or the whole thing?

[Editor]

I'd definitely go back to industry if that were an option, but in looking at job adverts, it seems to me I'm overqualified for most tech-style jobs, and underqualified for most of the higher positions. Actually I probably am qualified for the latter, but it's been so long since I ran a team in industry or dealt with the business side that I don't have the required confidence.

[Octavia]

Because the job offers lots of flexibility - you come and go as you please, you make your own way through the experiments, you learn things that no-one else in the world knows.

[Joao]

Joao, that's a bit below the belt.

The two things HAD to be related...
Actually your paper is almost accepted, in my reading (in that I don't think either experiment has to be airtight for it to work). If it had been rejected outright and nasty comments made on why time was wasted on it maybe I'd think different.

Otherwise, I'd likely come up with a variation of what Octavia said. I also would say that I know a few people who went into science editing to try and keep the best of two worlds. But you probably know a lot more about that than I do, and a few who went down that road also say that didn't work out exactly as planned. What does?

Plus there is always so much drama! Hey, maybe you could write about that!

[Dr Mike]

Because it may be depressing but it's hardly ever boring.

[The Prof]

Except when it's both boring and depressing.

[challenge]

Because you'll miss the research when you don't have nice results to make you high.... I'm clearly missing that part of my 'own' research, although I try to remember those long nights and months when I slaved away only to get 'nothing' as a result ....

And that's not even adding on the "get to plan your own days and time"....

[Editor]

Yeah, I'd definitely miss the flexibility of academia. I love not having to worry exactly what time I'll be in in the morning, being able to nip out to meet a friend or run an errand.

[tideliar]

I miss the lab desperately. I am trying to get some measure of research back in my career (and thankfully have a supportive boss). I don't want to do experiments per se, but damnit I'm trained to DO science.

You'll miss it Jbones. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day you'll look back and the rose tinted saftey goggles will reveal how much you left behind.

cheerful, no?

[rwintle]

Because if you give up research you might end up like me, endlessly dealing with HR, government reporting, and a thousand other tedious administrative things.

And writing grants.

Oh wait...

[Editor]

I'm not fooled - you love it to bits really.