Fantasy Football and the Crisis of Change
It was summer 2018. Life just didn't seem to be going the way I'd have liked, and I was looking for ways to shake it up.
When I used to picture myself as a 32 year old woman, I saw someone with a lucrative career, working as a scientist and making the world a better place. She had it all, the beautiful home, the nice car, the handsome husband and maybe a kid or two (maybe). She was in good condition physically, and somehow always managed to have her nails neatly manicured, and her hairstyle carelessly elegant - perhaps in a side braid with diamond earrings flashing modestly from behind artfully arranged tendrils.
You can probably guess that the image in my head does not match reality. I graduated from college during the Great Recession of 2008 with a Biology degree... a Bachelor of Arts. Needless to say, I was not immediately launched into a rewarding career or making boatloads of science cash. Instead I moved back home and worked at a gas station for a couple of years, wondering what on Earth I could do with a degree that I considered useless and $40k of student loans from my private liberal arts college.
Finally I found a real grown up job in 2011, working at an actual laboratory in Metro Detroit, looking at mold spores. Not research, but air quality. I learned quickly and I came to feel very adult. I stayed with that company for five years before defecting to a competitor who promised me $15k a year more in salary, and a relocation package to an exciting new city, Portland, Maine!
Uprooted my life and my boyfriend and headed East to the land of the 3:30 PM winter sunset. I built a laboratory there for microbiology before being summarily let go and replaced by an entry-level technician who cost less. For the first time in my life, I was unemployed, and I both loved and hated it. The awful stress from the job was gone, but replaced with stress of not being able to pay the bills. We moved back to Michigan as soon as we could in 2017.
Not long after the move home, I got an outstanding opportunity at a new production laboratory. No longer as a mold analyst, but as an Account Coordinator. Freedom! At last I could say goodbye to 8 hours of looking through a microscope and say hello to actual human interaction! The new company was phenomenal, not only did they care about their employees and compensate them generously, but the work they did was meaningful, and everyone who worked there was witty and clever. Everyone seemed to really know what they were talking about, and I felt such overwhelming optimism. It wouldn't be long before I, too, sounded like a smart science person.
I had forgotten all of the things I'd known during the intervening years, despite earning my Masters degree (of Arts again, ugh) and teaching graduate level classes. I felt stupid nearly every day because not only had I left behind my dreams of becoming a botanist, but I had also forgotten how to speak with technical confidence. But that was all going to change at the new lab! There was training for me, and mentoring, and opportunity!
Now the one constant between the three different production laboratories I worked for was L.I.M.S., or Laboratory Information Management System. (I will from now on refer to it as LIMS out of laziness and unwillingness to use periods.) The LIMS is what keeps a laboratory running. Think of it as asset and data management, logistics, and quality control all rolled into one. The computer system keeps track of the work that has come into the laboratory, captures the raw data, controls the information and peer review, and produces deliverables for the client.
I have never met a LIMS that I truly liked, but some of them are more tolerable than others. As it turns out the LIMS at the new shiny wonderful new job was the one that was least user-friendly.
But back to summer of 2018, where I was restless with my life. One of the areas that I thought needed improvement was my relationship with my boyfriend (still with me even after the fiasco in Maine, bless him). I wanted us to have more hobbies in common, so I decided to play Fantasy Football, since it was something he was enthusiastic about each fall.
I may know nothing about current players, and only have a passing interest in the games which is mostly limited to when players get tackled by own their long hair, but I do know a thing or two about witty trash talk. It all starts with the team name. I joined my work league and needed something clever that would impress all the science types while still demonstrating my love of violence. Sadly, my boyfriend is the one who actually thought of the clever name, so I can't even take all the credit.
The team became known as Broken LIMS.
Two weeks later at work, all the computers went down and LIMS was not just broken, it was dead. Forever. The ensuing chaos of switching an entire laboratory back to a paper system until everything came back online, lasted for months. It was traumatic for the whole organization, and we all came out a little tougher, a little meaner, a little less sparkly than we went in.
It was during this cataclysm that I had an epiphany. 10 years ago when I graduated from college, I chose to go a certain direction, but maybe it's not too late to change, and I can try again.
Behold: a blog written for my own edification which will serve to uplift me as I pursue a long abandoned dream... my PhD.
Thanks for reading.
When I used to picture myself as a 32 year old woman, I saw someone with a lucrative career, working as a scientist and making the world a better place. She had it all, the beautiful home, the nice car, the handsome husband and maybe a kid or two (maybe). She was in good condition physically, and somehow always managed to have her nails neatly manicured, and her hairstyle carelessly elegant - perhaps in a side braid with diamond earrings flashing modestly from behind artfully arranged tendrils.
You can probably guess that the image in my head does not match reality. I graduated from college during the Great Recession of 2008 with a Biology degree... a Bachelor of Arts. Needless to say, I was not immediately launched into a rewarding career or making boatloads of science cash. Instead I moved back home and worked at a gas station for a couple of years, wondering what on Earth I could do with a degree that I considered useless and $40k of student loans from my private liberal arts college.
Finally I found a real grown up job in 2011, working at an actual laboratory in Metro Detroit, looking at mold spores. Not research, but air quality. I learned quickly and I came to feel very adult. I stayed with that company for five years before defecting to a competitor who promised me $15k a year more in salary, and a relocation package to an exciting new city, Portland, Maine!
Uprooted my life and my boyfriend and headed East to the land of the 3:30 PM winter sunset. I built a laboratory there for microbiology before being summarily let go and replaced by an entry-level technician who cost less. For the first time in my life, I was unemployed, and I both loved and hated it. The awful stress from the job was gone, but replaced with stress of not being able to pay the bills. We moved back to Michigan as soon as we could in 2017.
Not long after the move home, I got an outstanding opportunity at a new production laboratory. No longer as a mold analyst, but as an Account Coordinator. Freedom! At last I could say goodbye to 8 hours of looking through a microscope and say hello to actual human interaction! The new company was phenomenal, not only did they care about their employees and compensate them generously, but the work they did was meaningful, and everyone who worked there was witty and clever. Everyone seemed to really know what they were talking about, and I felt such overwhelming optimism. It wouldn't be long before I, too, sounded like a smart science person.
I had forgotten all of the things I'd known during the intervening years, despite earning my Masters degree (of Arts again, ugh) and teaching graduate level classes. I felt stupid nearly every day because not only had I left behind my dreams of becoming a botanist, but I had also forgotten how to speak with technical confidence. But that was all going to change at the new lab! There was training for me, and mentoring, and opportunity!
Now the one constant between the three different production laboratories I worked for was L.I.M.S., or Laboratory Information Management System. (I will from now on refer to it as LIMS out of laziness and unwillingness to use periods.) The LIMS is what keeps a laboratory running. Think of it as asset and data management, logistics, and quality control all rolled into one. The computer system keeps track of the work that has come into the laboratory, captures the raw data, controls the information and peer review, and produces deliverables for the client.
I have never met a LIMS that I truly liked, but some of them are more tolerable than others. As it turns out the LIMS at the new shiny wonderful new job was the one that was least user-friendly.
But back to summer of 2018, where I was restless with my life. One of the areas that I thought needed improvement was my relationship with my boyfriend (still with me even after the fiasco in Maine, bless him). I wanted us to have more hobbies in common, so I decided to play Fantasy Football, since it was something he was enthusiastic about each fall.
I may know nothing about current players, and only have a passing interest in the games which is mostly limited to when players get tackled by own their long hair, but I do know a thing or two about witty trash talk. It all starts with the team name. I joined my work league and needed something clever that would impress all the science types while still demonstrating my love of violence. Sadly, my boyfriend is the one who actually thought of the clever name, so I can't even take all the credit.
The team became known as Broken LIMS.
Two weeks later at work, all the computers went down and LIMS was not just broken, it was dead. Forever. The ensuing chaos of switching an entire laboratory back to a paper system until everything came back online, lasted for months. It was traumatic for the whole organization, and we all came out a little tougher, a little meaner, a little less sparkly than we went in.
It was during this cataclysm that I had an epiphany. 10 years ago when I graduated from college, I chose to go a certain direction, but maybe it's not too late to change, and I can try again.
Behold: a blog written for my own edification which will serve to uplift me as I pursue a long abandoned dream... my PhD.
Thanks for reading.
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