Pride

I haven't felt this in a while, pride at the end of the day. I am a simple public servant and what I do matters. *sigh* It's a good thing.

Bad Science

I don't mean to continue a rant on a job that I'm leaving, but I must address one last issue; Bad, bad, bad science. I've spent basically my whole adult life in pursuit of scientific truth and I've learned from great scientists how the art of science is practiced. I'm highly ethical, and meticulous in my science. So, when management told us what results we needed to find in the data we were about to collect, I had to swallow a snort of contempt. In other words corporate already said what the data was, now we had to make it so. I've spent years working on maintaining neutrality, knowing any result is interesting, there is no emotional investment in an outcome, and finding the truth of an experiment is the real purpose. I do pure science, not corporate order science.

Two Weeks and Counting

I've done it. I've landed a new job, best of all a job that I can be proud of and feel challenged by. I have learned a bit from these last 3 months. Not about science or research, but a bit about myself. Specifically, how in my adult life I've frequently let my work (or schooling) define who I was. I labeled myself "college student", "conservationist", and "grad-student" in turn. (All the while thinking of myself as an independent person who rejected labels.) It's a bit funny to think that I only realized this short coming when I got stuck in to a job I was ashamed of, and had to search for purpose and meaning in other parts of my life. I certainly haven't gotten it all figured out (what would be the fun of figuring everything out this early on) but I have found that I need to have goals and purpose in my personal life as well as my professional (maybe even first).