Branching out

For the past eight years I've been active in particle physics research, but that hasn't been my only interest. As time has gone on I've found myself taking on more and more elaborate projects in my spare time that build on my experiences as an international particle physicist, without directly contributing to my physics research. During my time at SLAC I spent most of my spare time travelling and exploring the local (and not so local) world around me. As time passed I found I spent more and more time developing programming skills for fun, but always with an eye for what would be useful and transferable in the future. (At one point I wrote a content management system from scratch. It was rapid development and looking back I shudder to think of the security holes it had. Still, that was all part of the learning process!) On top of the normal work there were of course all the other burdens that go with being a student, such as writing a thesis, taking a lecture course, and helping with the then brand new series of student seminars. Add to that the tedious paperwork of being an expat in the US, and taking the time to react to the funding cuts on both sides of the Atlantic I had a full schedule. It was a brilliant experience, and one that left me exhausted.

Then I moved to Geneva to work at CERN and things changed quite radically. My new boss was an old colleague and friend of mine and we had high expectations of each other. The three years we spent working together were probably the most rewarding of my career so far. As well as all the usual work: taking part in two analyses (one of which I started and lead for a year), service work, software development, giving talks at international conferences, and mentoring students, I also took part in many extra curricular activities. I was one of the most prolific outreach bloggers in the field, making liveblogs and videos, including a 10 minute April 1st video. On top of this my programming and photography skills saw a huge improvement. I directed and gathered footage for a horror series (still to be edited and published, alas) and started a whole new set of blogs exploring life as physicist, life following bereavement and musings about life in general. One of the long term projects where I'm still active is the LGBT group at CERN. When I arrived there was no such group, which I thought was a gross oversight, so I aimed to fixed this. After negotiations with CERN management we got recognition and paved the way for other similar groups to join us, modernising CERN's approach to equal opportunities by (in my opinion) a couple of decades. Towards the end of my contract at CERN I was spend more of my time evangelising particle physics, first by reaching out to particle physicists in the field to advertise my new analysis (and to try to change the focus of the work from a bump hunt to a signal strength measurement, which was largely unsuccessful) and later to advertise the work of the whole experiment to the US funding agencies. This had style and flair that went beyond what is normally expected of physicists. Most talks we give are clinical and drab. Mine were bright and energetic, conveying emotion and wonder as well as information. I also spent a great deal of time socialising with my students and colleagues, often at my own expense, not only because it's a pleasant way to spend time, but because it's vital that people in a foreign country feel welcome, supported, and willing to come back in the future. As all this happened I tried to tie the different activities in together. I explored CERN for fun, taking photos as I did and getting the idea for the horror series. The photos I took I posted on my outreach blogs, and I would go with some people from the LGBT group to film more footage. I socialised with the people I knew the best, finding common ground between the Brits, the outreach bloggers, the analysis team, and the LGBT group, drawing on the strengths of each and making new connections when useful, building stronger social networks for everyone. In all this my boss helped with the outreach, the horror series, the evangelising, and, of course, the work itself. All the time this was documented with a "photo of a day" project, and highlighted with the discovery of the Higgs and some truly amazing conferences.

The point to all this is that the physics itself was not enough to keep my mind occupied. I needed a lot of other outlets for my creativity and to keep boredom at bay. It also gave a welcome break from the physics, allowing my subconscious to take over those problems for a while and quite often in the middle of doing something else entirely I'd come acros the answer to a physics related problem I'd been thinking over for days. I had to have distractions to keep my mind active and reach those parts of my brain that physics research didn't exercise often. This has become more and more important to me as I've become more experienced and competent as a physicist. Since moving to Brussels I've found myself taking on additional projects that are moving even further away from physics. This blog is one example, where I take a deep and long look at where my life is heading. It's been an exercise in clarity that has taken a great deal of thought and attention, and many people have praised me for my writing on here. Finding the right words takes practice, and I've been developing the necessary skills in many different guises over many years. This has included being a student activist and support officer (including writing hundreds of pages of literature and policy), the technical writings associated with physics, some teaching and mentoring experience, documenting software effectively, blogging in many styles and contexts from the frivolous to the poignant to the serious, to the LGBT activism at CERN, writing for audiences of different levels of knowledge and competence of English. I find I have an ongoing need to explore new and different styles to challenge myself in novel ways. I currently have a few long term software projects taking place that go far beyond anything I've attempted before, and have definite audience demographics with their own challenges. One is an educational game for pupils in high school, another is a point and click tool for creating physics diagrams (an interface which is woefully underused in our field) and another is an online tile based exploration game that tests the limits of what a browser is capable of delivering, in terms of scope and resource use.

However the project that surprised me the most and what I enjoyed the most was taking part in stand up comedy at CERN. Writing a comedy set and performing it on stage for a given audience is something I had never done before. It tapped into a whole set of skills I had only skirted around before and never used fully. It forced me to think about the differences between being funny to friends and being funny to an audience, between telling a joke and setting up a joke. During the whole process I received all kinds of positive and negative feedback (all constructive), learned that the creative process is largely about deciding what not to include, received praise for my performance on the night, and ultimately made something of which I very proud. It also opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities for me. I met all kinds of creative and funny people who were equally as excited about the evening as I was, each with their own acts. Again, it fed into the social life I had developed at CERN, drawing on my experiences as a physicist, as someone who takes part in outreach, as an LGBT physicist, meeting familiar faces in a new context, and realising that a lot of the talent was already there at CERN. If only I had known this four years ago instead of being more mercenary! I look back on the experience as one of the most impressive and "cool" things I've ever done, and note that on the one hand it would not have been possible if I was not a physicist, and on the other that it used skills which are mostly non-overlapping with those of the typical physicist. It was outside my comfort zone by just the right amount, and that's what I'm looking for in the next chapter of my life. Something that builds on my creative and social skills, not necessarily a distraction from my technical skills, but something complementary that makes me a more well rounded person, and fulfils me in a different way. At that point I'll find my goalposts moving again and who knows where that will lead in terms of my personal life. I have a few ideas for short stories, so perhaps I'll take up writing for a few years.

CERN people - The Shrinking Field

A friend of mine posted the following video, which sums up the situation in particle physics rather well. At times it can feel like exploitation.

Time to get serious...

At the end of this month I will have been in my current job for one year. It's a big milestone because it means I will start to have my name on the papers that the experiment produces and that I'll be more free to pursue my own research goals within in the collaboration. In principle I will have between 12 and 24 months after that to continue working, and the end date is not yet fixed because it depends on many factors some of which will be (by definition) unknown until next year. The biggest factor is whether or not our team make a significant discovery, which is mostly likely to happen in the first few weeks or months of data taking. If we get lucky I'll probably be convinced to stick around for a while longer to help out with analysis and organisation. I've led a fledgeling analysis that grew unexpectedly popular before and simply keeping the meetings going and introducing new analysts is a full time job that needs excellent communication and management skills, both of which are highly transferable. It's an exhilarating experience, and character building, although quite exhausting, and it would be an excellent legacy to leave behind.

Since this is the halfway point it makes more sense to talk about what kinds of opportunities are available and what I'd like to consider. I've spent about half a year discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the career I've had so far, and how my needs have changed, but in terms of career development this has been quite nebulous. (For those who read this blog you may be interested to see how some of the themes overlap with one of my other blogs, the Good Grief Project.) While it has been very useful to discuss these personal factors I should now start to focus more on what I want from the next stage in my career. I definitely want an opportunity for skill development and growth, which I find is lacking in my current job. It's not that a job in high energy physics does not give opportunities to develop new skills, it's just that I've already explored so many of them so enthusiastically already that my CV is already overflowing with skills that go beyond the minimal requirements of such a job. One of the biggest motivators is finding a job that challenges me and gives me a chance to contribute something new. It would also be helpful to have a job which will encourage me to confront my weaknesses as an employee in order to make me more desirable. Staying in a job that allows you to define your own working hours and (to an extent) your own working environment tends to lead to work habits that need ot be adapted when looking elsewhere.

While looking at was available I found some recruitment agencies dedicated to people with scientific backgrounds, although these do tend to focus more on students than on people who are leaving the field. Without further ado, and to ensure I never lose these links, here are a few that come recommended from the Institute of Physics. First, an article from Institue itself titled Working in physics: Next steps for physics graduates. There they recommend their own Bright Recruits service, the ever present Milkround which I've known of since I was an undergraduate, and Prospects, which seems to be run by a charity rather than a business. In addition I also came across ecm who specialise in high tech recruitment and seem to promise higher quality rather than a brute force approach.

Tiime to get recruited!

When "interesting" isn't enough

For the past few months I've been trying to find the right words for how I feel about my work and personal life and how they relate to each other. It seemed like an epiphany when used the word "outgrown" in January, and recently I've stumbled across another turn of phrase that sums up how I feel. Some people reading this blog have the impression that I hate my job, and this is not at all true. I quite enjoy the job, it's very interesting, it can be mentally stimulating, there is a lot of freedom and there are many things I'll miss when I move on to something new. I think the people who make this mistake have some confusion concerning the difference between a job and a career, because I can't see how else someone can come to that conclusion. Even the first post I ever wrote on this blog concluded with an image showing how much I've had being a physicist. That photo was taken during the preparations for the LHC running.

Spreading the physics joy in my spare time in my apartment.
At that time the job took my life, and it was great.

At the time there was a lot of excitement in the air about the upcoming data. We had access to fresh data at energies we'd never seen before and were eagerly awaiting more. There were discoveries to be made, old models to test, and it seemed to bring together young and old physicists. I made videos and wrote blogs about what was happening, I mentored students and often stayed up until 2am debating physical principles with people. I set up social groups and I frequently invited physicists over to my home. We were all excited, we were all part of something bigger than us, and we were all homesick and, to an extent, lonely. I found the job fascinating and it soon took over my whole life. My boss was one of my best friends and had been an inspiration to me for many years. We would often talk about physics in our spare time, over breakfast, on the tram to Geneva, or hikes in the nearby mountains, wherever we were. Shortly before that contract came to an end the wonder of it all had begun to fade and I already had a sense that it was time to move on, so I looked for another postdoc and found a position in Brussels.

Brussels is reason enough to live in Brussels.

So here I am now, in Brussels. It's a fine place to live, there's no doubt about that. The job is still interesting, and I still enjoy it. The problem now is that I only find the job interesting, and the job is determining nearly everything else about my life. I find myself single and living alone in a foreign country for a job I find interesting. That's not enough for me, if something is going to eclipse all other factors in my life, whether it's a job, a relationship, my family, some charity work, it must be fascinating. I've got to fall in love with whatever it is that's making me make compromises elsewhere. If I'm going to have a job that I find just interesting, I may as well relocate and find an interesting job closer to home.

That's the phrase I've been struggling to find for the past few months:

"I don't want to build the rest of my life around a job I find merely interesting."

I've either got to go out and find a job that's fresh and new that fascinates me, then build my life around that, or spend more time prioritising the rest of my life. Or another way to think about is that:

"I want my job to work for me, not have me work for my job"

because at the end of the day who really cares if I do this job or someone else does? Probably just me, and I could be just as happy, if not more so in a different job.

As a side note, I also get the impression that some people have a problem with the idea that I might, for once in my life, put my personal needs above my career. That's not a healthy attitude for anyone to have, and you can probably guess what my two word reply to that kind of attitude would be. I'm not about to stay in the field for the sake of meeting someone else's expectations, especially if that person doesn't understand what factors have motivated me to choose the path I have taken.

Educated, first world, young, white male privilege

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but I keep putting off in favour of other posts that address individual aspects of the career change instead of writing about myself.  Some people have praised me for my honesty and self awareness, and some people have mistaken my blog posts as complaints about my job.  I actually enjoy my job and find it a comfortable vocation.  What has happened is that my needs and abilities have changed and the jobs that have served me well in the past are no longer what I should be doing with my life.

At every stage in my life, for as long as I can remember, I've noticed the following patterns about my behaviour.  I've always had a need to be mentally stimulated and this is by far the greatest drive in my life.  Sometimes in my idle moments I've wondered what it would have been like to have lived in a different time or place where I didn't have the opportunity to go to university, own a computer or travel the world.  You will notice that these are all very much first world opportunities not avaiable to the majority of the world's population, and that is the point of this post.  I know am privileged to have these opportunities and I am extremely grateful to have them.  They have enriched my life in ways I can't even begin to describe (and probably in ways I don't even realise, let alone understand.)  I can't stand reading complaints from people with an over developed sense of entitlement, and hope to never be one of those people.

Once my need for mental stimulation is met I move onto the second biggest motivator in my life, and that is helping others.  If I don't take the opportunity to use the skills, knowledge and resources I have to help other people I am simply wasting my time here.  In the final year of my degree my first choice for my next career move was a PhD in physics, and this is was mainly because I felt a need to give something back.  The government had provided me with four years of free tuition at one of the best universities in the world, giving me a decent (although far from complete) understanding of the physical world.  I felt that the least I could do was to give something back so that I wasn't just a consumer of knowledge.  (Naturally when Dylan died this became not only an altruistic act, it was also one of personal self interest.)  For as long as I can remember I've tried to make a different people's lives.  From taking on extra curricular activities at school, to helping run the student union, to being an LGBT officer at university, to helping grieving friends talk, to setting up the LGBT CERN group, to taking part in physics outreach I have always wanted to give something back.  I have done all of this without ever expecting anything in return (with the exception of the student union, which provided a modest salary) and for the majority of the time without seeking recognition for my contributions.  I have no idea why, but I very rarely want to be centre of attention, and put on a façade of false modesty to avoid embarrassing myself a lot of the time.

My third strong motivation in life is being independent.  I grew up in a crowded house, sharing a tiny bedroom for the first 12 years of my life.  I'm naturally an introvert, so I internalised most of my thoughts and feelings until I had the freedom to move away from home.  Since then I've tried to do my best to be as independent as I can, although at times I've failed quite badly in this respect.  I don't want to be the person that needs constant emotional support or financial support.  I'm someone who needs solitude more than companionship, and for a very long time I've found the idea of "settling down" abhorrent.  When I've moved from one place to another I've found the change invigorating (although I think I've done enough moving at this stage that it will do little to make me a better person if I move again!)  It's with this sense of independence in mind that I keep trying to improve myself and see myself grow as a person.  Having demonstrated to myself that I can move across the world, make a new life for myself and invite my friends to share some of the local life I'm starting to feel restless.

I'm also very good at collecting large amounts of posessions, which is rather unusual for a physicst.  Many of my friends and colleagues consider it impractical to fill a moving van with posessions, preferring to live out of a few bags and boxes for years at a time. I don't understand this attitude at all, and this materialism is one of the reasons I want to leave the field.  To some people it would seem shallow to want to live in a nice apartment and work in a pleasant, modern office environment, but for me it's a sign of self esteem to want these kinds of luxuries.  It took about a year of counselling after Dylan's death to convince me that it was okay to want to be happy and to take the time and resources to look after my own desires.  Right now my job dominates my life and for a while I defined myself in terms of my job.  Once that attitude changes, as it has for me, the materialistic quality of life becomes important, and he days where "love of the job" was enough to get me through another contract are over.  Again, this is a sign of personal growth.  I've lived the life of a student, in poverty, in putting up with substandard accommodation, looking to the future when things will improve.  I'm now in my early thirties and I don't want to live my life as if I'm still my early twenties.  As with the other motivating factors in my life, my materialism isn't just about making myself happier, I see most of my possessions as tools to help me build better things and improve myself in new ways.  Despite the fact I love video games I hardly own any, because I usually feel that time spent playing videos games is time wasted.

So that's where I feel am in my life at the moment.  Behind me lies a huge trail of wonderful opportunities, some of which are due to being born in the right place, and some of which are due to my own choices.  It's been a pleasure to be a part of this and I've always been grateful.  As a person I've grown personally and professionally and now I feel I'm at the next stage of my life where I've outgrown a career in physics.  I've had a brilliant time and most of the time I have enjoyed the experience (with recurrent periods of intense frustration and resentment every few years.)  Looking back on what I've achieved and the experiences I've had, I have no regrets, but I do want the chance to do something different with my life in the future.  I can't think of anything else that I could give the particle physics community in the near future that another physicist couldn't also give, especially with my current job.  It's time I took my talents elsewhere, gave myself more opportunities to develop new skills and abilities, and allow me to maintain a higher quality of life than academia offers.

If you've been reading these blog posts thinking that I'm a spoilt white man complaining about his job then I hope this has cleared some things up.  I'm aware I have a lot of privilege and I am trying my best to not complain.  In fact all of my problems are first world problems, and that's my definition of happiness.  Instead of complaining I want to do more with my life and give something even bigger back to the world.  I want to keep growing my potential alongside developing my abilities, but I've found I've reached a plateau.  Any job has its downsides, and I've explained a few I've faced so far.  For as long as the job allows me to grow and feeds my need for mental stimulation I'll put up with those downsides with a smile.  The downsides haven't changed, I have, and I want to seek some new challenges somewhere else.

Academics anonymous

A while ago, the following article was doing the rounds:

Academic Anonymous: why I'm leaving academia

The article talks about the kinds of pressures that people face in the world of academia and the advantages and disadvantages of academia. One of the lines that stood out and got my attention was (my emphasis):

We put up with this in the hope that we will be rewarded with a permanent position at a university in a town or city we would actually like to live in.

That sums up how I feel quite well. Of course my career is very important to me, and my work is probably the most important thing in my life right now, but it's not so important that it eclipses everything else in my life. One of the main reasons I want to leave the field is that I want to spend more time and energy on the other parts of my life. I've never had a relationship that lasted more than a year. Since leaving home I've never lived a reasonably from either of my parents. It's been years since I was able to just go and have a picnic with some of my university friends without first getting on a plane (or more recently the Eurostar) at a huge cost in terms of time and money. See friends shouldn't be that difficult. I should be able to give my friend the attention they deserve. When we get together we have a lot of fun, and I try to spend the time in a way that isn't just enjoyable, but goes a little way to making us better people, whether that means learning some local history, exploring some esoteric museum, or just taking some beautiful photographs. I'd like to have time to spend a night in playing on an Xbox, but that just seems like a wasted opportunity.

From this point there are only two realistic options for me if I choose to stay in academia:

Get a faculty position

There are two possibilities here, either I get lucky and get a safe tenured position, or I get unlucky and have to pursue tenure (so I'd be facing pressure to work hard and compete for the position.) Now being a professor would not be bad at all. The working conditions and pay are generally better, and I'd get the opportunity to teach, which I love to do. However it would still mean putting my career ahead of everything else in my life and saying that it's more important, as if my life should suit my career rather than the other way around.

Get another postdoc position

This is not desirable because it really just pushes the real question back a few years, and time is precious. This is the decision after my previous postdoc position and it's helped me to realise that I want a change. Getting another postdoc position would mean moving to a new city again, making a new set of friends again and upheaving all my life again, and then doing that once more after the contract has finished. Doing all that just to delay a career decision would probably be a big mistake.

Some people have the impression that I hate my job, and this is untrue. I quite like my job, it's fairly easy, the hours are flexible and the working conditions are laid back. Since I choose not to devote all my waking hours to it's become quite comfortable, and for me that's a problem. If I'm comfortable at work then it feels as though I'm stagnating. So either I stagnate, pursue a goal I don't want, or choose a third option. I think I'll take the third option: the unknown! With friends!

More jobbortunities (and a couple of comics)

Recently I've come across a couple of job opportunities via family and friends. First of all, my step father suggested I look into the Lean Six Sigma program, which specialises in reducing waste in industries. It would require some training (at some cost) to pursue this as a career, as well as meaning a dramatic change in the line of work, but it does look rather attractive. I do like this kind of problem solving, and cutting out the inefficiencies from a process is very satisfying. It would also give quite a good variety of work, as once a problem is solved it's generally solved permanently, and attention must go elsewhere.

In the meantime I've also been contacted by a few friends involved in software engineering about possible jobs. This includes startup work, a permanent position solving combinatoric problems, and taking on some freelancing. One of my friends also suggested I take on some science policy work with a colleague. So there are plenty of leads to follow up where I would not have to create a new social life from scratch again.

Since these two paragraphs didn't warrant a post on their own, here are some comics that made me smile lately:

First of all, a Zen Pencils comic about have the artist, Gav, found his true calling. I can't help notice that the character in the comic spent a long time developing the skills he really loved all the time. It's not as though the time he spent not drawing for a living were wasted, as he was developing his real interest all along. I suppose that's the point of the comic.

And another comic that has been doing the rounds lately. This time it's about people going from the mundane to the amazing relatively late in life. Not that particle physics is mundane, far from it. It is, however, not hitting the spot anymore. I'm not lost either. I don't know where I'll be a couple of years from now, but I know the kinds of things I want and don't want.