This is a sequel to the post I wrote a year ago, “Thoughts After One Year as an Assistant Professor”. Again, I’m writing this for people who are wondering what the early stages of a faculty position are like. As always, these are just my own opinions, shaped by my own experiences, and may not be universal.

In short, everything from from last year still applies.

Like I said before, this job is pretty sweet and definitely way better than being a postdoc. It’s awesome to have the freedom to study whatever I want and take projects in any direction. It’s nice that people actually care what I think, which I didn’t feel as a postdoc.

But like I said last year, there is no time. Like literally none. Like negative amounts of time. For every task I accomplish there are two more that arrive on my desk. It doesn’t matter how good at time management I am, there aren’t enough hours in the week to get all the work done. And I’m not trying to be an overachiever; I’m just trying to keep my lab running and teach my classes.

No matter how many evenings and weekends I work, I am never caught up. Lots of things have fallen by the wayside, like regularly reading papers or doing community outreach. I say no to lots of requests, but there’s still not enough time.

And no matter what I’m working on, it feels like the wrong thing. If I’m working on grants or papers, I feel guilty about not being in the lab fixing broken stuff or building setups that were supposed to be working a year ago. If I’m doing stuff in the lab, I feel guilty that I’m not working on grants and papers. Reading papers makes me feel bad for not doing something with a tangible output. Service work (e.g., reading grad applications, reviewing papers and grants, or committee work) makes me worry that I’m spending too much time on things that don’t support the lab.

So this is all basically the same as last year. Is anything actually different?

The biggest difference is that my lab is now full of people. At the end of my first year, I had no full-time people so I was doing lots of experiments myself, not to mention maintaining fly stocks, making reagents, managing our data backups, cleaning up after everyone, ordering everything and running around the building tracking down packages, etc. Now I have 4 full-time people, including 2 technicians who do an amazing job with basic lab maintenance.

Despite all this help, it feels like training and mentoring people takes as much time, if not more, as doing my own experiments. It’s certainly way more exhausting. Of course, having people in the lab makes it a much more vibrant and fun atmosphere than when it was just me and my flies. We work as a team, people bring diverse perspectives, and sometimes they take projects in directions I never imagined.

So to avoid further rambling, let me summarize my biggest takeaways from being a PI for 2 years:

1) Running a lab is as much about managing people as it is about the science. You are only as good as your people. It’s a challenge because most labs are populated by trainees who are still very new to scientific research, let alone your specific field. Some of them are still learning how to be independent adults. Before I became a PI I had no idea that this was most of the job. It’s super challenging, but also amazing to see trainees learn and grow and achieve their goals.

2) There is never going to be enough time. Even when my lab becomes self-sufficient and doesn’t need me to provide input and solve problems on a daily basis, I’m sure 40 hours/week still wouldn’t be enough to do everything I need to do to make the most of this job – which includes writing grants and papers, keeping up with the literature, brainstorming new ideas, attending meetings and giving seminars, fostering collaborations, teaching effectively, and doing meaningful service. (Heck, 40 hours/week is barely enough to catch up on emails!) So I believe all those PIs who say that it doesn’t get better and you just need to figure out what to prioritize and what to let slide. It sounds depressing, but maybe it’s empowering — just accept that it won’t all get done. I’m still working on that.

Lest you think I’m being overly whiny, yes I do know how lucky I am to have this job. In fact, that’s a big reason why I have trouble letting things slide and giving anything less than 100% at this job. I’m also lucky to have amazing mentors and colleagues at Emory and beyond. I can’t imagine how hard things would be without a supportive environment.

If you have other perspectives, feel free to comment below, although I haven’t been good about checking comments here – the best way to engage with me is through Twitter (@BrainsExplained) or Mastodon (@anitadevineni).

And if you want to know more about what our lab has actually done over the last year, check out this post at our lab website!