Weekend Reading: The More Problems Than Solutions Edition

This week's links are mostly about problems that I don't really know how to solve. That's sort of depressing, isn't it? But they're all interesting.

First: the problem of having to cook dinner every night. I used to like to cook, but I don't enjoy cooking in the incarnation in which it currently exists in my life: crammed into 30 minutes after a long day at work and a walk across Pumpkin's school in which I probably asked Petunia to please keep going at least 5 times, and with the knowledge that either it will be one of the same boring things I usually cook or two of the four people at the table will have a 90% probability of wrinkling their noses and refusing to eat it. (But oh, that 10% of the time when I make something new and one of them eats it! That's awesome.)

Let's just say that I don't find cooking for my family to be the fulfilling experience celebrated in our current cultural narrative. For me, right now, cooking is a chore that needs to be done, and not much more. So I rather enjoyed Maggie Koerth-Baker's short post "You Don't Have a Moral Obligation to Cook" and the podcast that it references, particularly this line from the podcast: "Dysfunction doesn't disappear if you cook."

Second: the problem of being judgy and/or being on the receiving end of judgy. I've made an uneasy peace with the judgmental streak that runs through our public discourse. I think that sometimes judgement is warranted, useful, and perhaps even necessary, and other times it is obviously harmful. The problem lies in the vast middle ground. I prefer to err on the side of not judging, at least partially because of the reasons Liz describes in this post about The Prada Moms and the judgment she used to aim at them.

Next: the problem of emerging diseases. I came across a story about superspreaders and their role in the SARS outbreak. It was fascinating, if it a little scary. I once worked on a biodefense project and found myself immersed in the world of emerging diseases and early detection of outbreaks. That was also fascinating and a little scary.

And then there is the problem of how to price drugs. My friend Stevil had a good "what would you do?" post on the question of drug pricing awhile back, when there was an uproar about the pricing of a new drug for multiple sclerosis. Like me, Steve works in drug discovery, and so knows something about the things that make drug discovery so expensive. Unlike me, he is the founder of a small start up, so he has even more direct experience with the expense- part of his job is to raise the funds to keep his company in business. I am also very sympathetic to the concerns of patients, so I can understand the outrage. But I think the public in general has no idea how complicated and risky drug discovery and development is, and how many aspects of it are basically never done anywhere except for at a company. Heck, even some highly educated academics think that drug companies are just doing the easy bit after public funded research does the hard part (this is not even remotely close to being true- but that is a rant for another day).

Of course, I am also a bit biased by my status as a drug company insider and the fact that this industry pays my salary. I don't really want to get into all of that (see, more problems than solutions), but I will just mention that I could probably increase my salary by ~50% if I switched to working in eCommerce and used my data management and analysis skills to help maximize your shopping experience.

The next problem is also in the drug industry, but I don't know how to label it. The problem of unfettered greed and callousness? The Fortune article about the fraud at Ranbaxy, a large generic drugs manufacturer, is so sickening that it took me three tries to actually read the entire thing. Like a lot of people in the industry, I'd heard that Ranbaxy had some problems and was under FDA supervision. But I had no idea how blatant and extensive the fraud was. If the allegations in this article are true, I think executives at Ranbaxy should go to jail. Fabricating data for FDA applications is reprehensible.

Also, I think I'll choose not to take any Ranbaxy generics.

This is a telling quote from the article:

"It is not a tale of cutting corners or lax manufacturing practices but one of outright fraud, in which the company knowingly sold substandard drugs around the world -- including in the U.S. -- while working to deceive regulators."

But even more sickening is the quote from one of the whistleblowers about how executives didn't care about selling substandard AIDS drugs in South Africa because "it was just blacks dying." That was the part where I had to stop on my second attempt to read the article.

Speaking of the problem of racism, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good article up about the social construction of race. The article was precipitated by the recent discussions about race and IQ.  I am so tired of earnest white researchers claiming that the data shows IQ differences based on race, so there must be in born race-based differences in intelligence. First of all, IQ is not a perfect measure of intelligence. Second, any measure that depends on test-taking is highly susceptible to stereotype threat effects. Third, the estimates I've seen by people who study brain development indicate that intelligence is probably only about 50% genetic.

All of this means that I think this is just the wrong conversation to be having about race. Let's talk about the structural things that are holding back people who aren't white in America. That is far more important than a questionable difference in a questionable measure of a complex trait that is probably only half-controlled by genetics.

This reminds me of a tweet I thought was great:

@zunguzungu I learn more about privilege from what I get wrong about misogyny than what I get right about racism.
— Teju Cole (@tejucole) May 14, 2013

Since I'm a white woman, I am the inverse, of course. And this realization is why I'm fairly willing to forgive people who get it wrong, as long as I think they're trying to learn and get better. None of us controls the situation of our birth, and recognizing the structural things that benefit you is hard. It is hard to see past the way things have always been for you.

Let's end the links with a solution- or a partial one. I want to see more diversity in STEM fields. How to make that happen? I don't know, but I suspect that supporting all sorts of kids who want to go to science camp is a good start. I can't send every interested kid to camp, but this fundraiser for a kid in New Jersey came across my Twitter stream, and I could help him. Maybe you want to, too?

And finally, some shameless self promotion: Taming the Work Week, my short ebook on productivity, is now available for pre-order! It will be out next week.

Happy weekend, everyone!

Dear Cloud: Handling Salary Negotiations

It is time for the next installment of my occasional "Ask Cloud" series.  This question is about a tough issue that I struggle with as well, so I really hope you guys weigh in with more advice for my correspondent.

Here is the question:

"Many people in industry, including the people with whom I did the contract work, and some family members, have told me that I should "always ask for more money". What is your perspective on this? And if you agree, do you have advice about how to do this? Does asking for more money impact your working relationship with the manager? And does one have to have a competing offer in order for asking for a higher salary?

I got my PhD in December and I just accepted a position as an industry postdoc. I didn't end up asking for more money, but immediately after pushing accept I felt like a bit of a sucker and thinking that maybe I should have. "

As I said, I struggle with this. It is very, very tangled up in gender- women in general don't ask for more money or ask for less than the men do. We are conditioned to try to make people happy, etc., etc. But- as I discuss (OK, rant about) in this old post- this is not an area in which women can just "be more like men" and expect to get the same results. We are penalized when we are seen as too aggressive.

But it is also true that the fact that we don't negotiate as much on our starting salaries contributes to the pay gap. Raises are almost uniformly given as a percentage of your pay, so if you start at a lower number than a male peer, you'll still end up making less money even if you get the exact same merit increases. Also, it is true that everyone expects people to negotiate when they are being hired, so it is your best opportunity to try to directly maximize your pay.

What to do? Well, I haven't really figured that one out. One piece of advice I picked up in Lean In was to frame the negotiation as a problem you need to work together to solve, thereby neatly sidestepping the perception of being aggressive. That strikes me as a good strategy, but I have not yet had the opportunity to try it out. 

Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, by Lois Frankel, also has some good tips on handling negotiations- along with a lot of other good tips and things to think about for ambitious women, so it is definitely worth a read.

But... you've already accepted the position, without negotiating. Stop feeling bad about that. There are lots of reasons you didn't negotiate, some good, some probably not so good. But it is done. You can read resources and do some role playing practice with a friend to get ready for next time, but for now, just let it go and concentrate on getting the most out of your postdoc. An industry postdoc is a great way to break into industry, but only if at the end of it, your more established colleagues will say things like "she really understands how industry works" and "she made useful contributions to projects." I know someone who contacted a friend or an informal reference on a postdoc who had worked with him, and heard "he's smart enough, but he treated this postdoc like an extension of his academic career." That candidate did not get the job. I'm not 100% sure what constituted treating the industry postdoc as an extension of the academic career, but I suspect it was focusing too much on getting publications and not enough on helping to advance the company's goals.

On the flip side, I know someone else who was hired on the strength of the fact that the colleagues she worked with during her industry postdoc thought she brought unique skills to their projects and really helped to advance them.

So, I say stop worrying about your salary in this postdoc. No one gets these tough gender minefields right every time, and you actually picked a pretty good one to flub. Everyone knows that postdocs are paid less than equivalent regular positions, so you essentially get to "reset" your salary when you land your first non-postdoc position.  Switch your focus now to learning as much as you can about how your chosen industry works and finding ways to help contribute to projects, so that people will see you as someone who "gets it." Also read Frankel's book and try to stamp out a bad habit or two. As Frankel says in her book, you don't have to be perfect at overcoming the detrimental conditioning we get as girls to benefit. Every little bit helps. The book is a quick read, and is divided into short sections, so you can squeeze it in when you have the time. Some of the advice isn't all that relevant for my particular industry, but most of it is fairly universal.

OK, readers- what other advice do you have for our correspondent? Any stellar negotiators out there want to give us all some advice? Anyone do an industrial postdoc and have words of wisdom on how to get the most out of it?

--------------------------
On rereading my post I realized I failed to directly answer the questions. Sorry- it has been that sort of week and I am apparently having some sort of bad karma with this post. Earlier I posted an incomplete version without realizing it. Here are the direct answers that are hiding in the rest of the post:

1. Yes, you should generally negotiate a job offer. It doesn't have to be on salary- if you're thrilled with the salary but want more time off, you can try to negotiate that, although a lot of companies have policies they won't change in that area.

2. Yes, it can impact how your manager views you, and research shows that this is more problematic for women (see the linked post in the post). That is why it is such a tricky area. And here's the really sucky thing- it can impact how your manager views you if you DON'T negotiate, too. This is a true minefield.

3. You don't have to have a competing offer, although that gives you a stronger negotiating position. You just have to have a reason you're asking for more money (or whatever) and a knowledge of what you'll accept and what you'll walk away from.  Also- be careful playing two companies off of each other. It really, really pisses people off to think they are just being used to get more money from your current company. That creates bad will, and can come back to bite you, particularly if you are working in an industry with a small world vibe- like drug discovery.

And in case it isn't clear from my main answer, I have personally flubbed this many times, so much so that I have a pattern of getting hired in and then getting a big raise in my first review. My current job is the first time this hasn't happened- this may be because if I compare my salary to what my HR contacts tell me is average for my sort of position, I'm a little above. So don't sweat it. You can recover from this one.

Readers- rescue me and give some good advice!

Not Quiet, Not Loud

I just finished reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. I initially decided to read it because I have a couple of classic introverts working for me, and I wanted to better understand their style of work.

I have always considered myself an extrovert, so I didn't expect the book to tell me much about myself. I was wrong. As I read the book, I was surprised to recognize myself in some of Cain's descriptions. It turns out, I have two attributes of extroversion: I don't mind meeting new people or speaking in public. I certainly would not strike anyone who met me as an introvert. However, I have several characteristics that Cain identifies as being part of introversion or as often coexpressing with introversion: I dislike conflict. I dislike small talk and prefer conversation about weighty topics, even with people I've only just met. And most importantly, I find being in large groups and public speaking to be draining, not energizing. If asked what I want to do for relaxation, I certainly would not say "go to a large party" or anything like that. I like parties (in moderation!) but I usually want some downtime afterwards.

I thought a little bit more about that last part, and I realized that I find the following parts of my job the most tiring: running meetings, negotiating agreements with other groups, and handling disagreements and conflict. I find the following parts of my job the most energizing: breaking down a problem and brainstorming possible solutions, analyzing options and deciding which one to implement, implementing solutions. Hmmm. So the people-oriented parts of my job are tiring, and the analytical and problem-solving parts of my job are energizing. This shouldn't surprise me. If I'm asked to say what motivates me in my work, I will invariably answer that I like learning new things and solving hard problems. I have never once answered that I like working through competing viewpoints to find a path forward that is acceptable to all parties or monitoring/gatekeeping other people's work loads so that they can get their most important tasks done somewhat on time.

And yet, as I've advanced in my career, my jobs have gotten more and more people-oriented and less and less analytical. I spend the majority of my time on the negotiating and gatekeeing and have to work hard to protect time for analysis and problem-solving. Oops.

I feel a bit unmoored by this discovery. It casts a new light on my recent career concerns. If I steered my career to such a serious mismatch between my job requirements and the things I find most energizing, what is to say I won't do it again with any changes I make?

I am unsure of what to make of this new realization about my personality. Obviously, personalities are more complex than a simple introvert-extrovert scale, and Cain makes that clear. She also mentions ambiverts (people who are in between extroversion and introversion) and discusses pseudo-extroverts (introverts who are able to act like extroverts despite the drain on their energy this causes). So what am I? An ambivert? A pseudo-extrovert who fooled even herself? Something else entirely? The correct label for me doesn't really matter, of course- but having an accurate label would at least give me something to go research as I attempt to figure out what to do next.

As it is, I'm in a muddle. How much of my current churn is due to a mismatch between my job and my personality, how much is the from the collateral damage from 15+ years of dealing with sexism (for instance, today I discovered that my recent misstep in the labyrinth continues to cause damage), and how much is just a garden variety midlife crisis?

I've also found myself surprisingly short-tempered with my family lately, and I wonder if some of that is just too much energy-draining people stuff at work colliding with having a mommy-centric 3.5 year old and a delightful, energetic but sensitive 6 year old at home. Maybe my reserves are just depleted. It makes me sick to think I'm wasting all my patience on coworkers behaving like 3.5 year olds and yelling at my sweet, wonderful, and frustrating actual 3.5 year old. I have to fix this.

So I looked at the complexity of this ball of issues, and decided I need some help. I found a counselor in my work area whose areas of expertise seemed to match my issues, and I've reached out to set up an appointment. I'll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, I can wholeheartedly recommend Quiet as a very thought-provoking book, even if you think you're an extrovert!

Weekend Reading: The It Has Been a Tough Week So Here's Some Random Links Edition

So, sitting out two days in the middle of the week makes you behind on things. What a surprise!

Petunia is almost all better now, but not completely. And- this is fun!- it seems that when she's sick she wets her bed. Wheee! Mr. Snarky and I are both still trying to kick this cold, too. Probably the getting up at 1 a.m. to change Petunia's pajamas and strip the sheets off her bed isn't helping.

And then I had the sort of day at work today where my to do list was ambushed by my inbox.

But I don't want to deprive you of your links! I'll just deprive you of any organizing principle to the links whatsoever.

First, this is a really good open letter to white male comics. The main point of the piece is to explain why rape jokes aren't such a good idea, but it also explains part of why I don't watch much comedy anymore. Instead of being edgy and thought-provoking, so much of it is just mean.

Tressiemc had a really good post about why being able to enter and exit and re-enter the educational system is a strength, not a weakness, of our system.

Speaking of higher education, Nicoleandmaggie had some thoughts on Harvard, and Grad Lurker posted a link to the return on investment of various undergraduate colleges. It is an interesting, but an incomplete way of looking at things. For one thing, I strongly suspect that the ROI differs for different groups (race, gender, etc- see this earlier Tressiemc post for thoughts on that with respect to the "don't go to grad school" advice that is popular these days. Tressiemc has interesting things to say about higher education. If you're interested in that topic, a stroll through her archives is likely to be a bit of a time sink.) Also, Harvey Mudd is the top of the list, but since Mudd is focused on STEM, it benefits from the fact that a large number of Mudd grads are likely to go into STEM fields, which tend to make more money, particularly at the BS/BA level that the list examines. Finally, I don't think getting a high paying job is the sole purpose of higher education. I realize that is easy for me to say from my comfortable status possessing a high paying job, and I don't think getting a high paying job is a bad thing to hope for from your higher education, I just think that it isn't the only thing you might hope for.  I still had to look up my alma mater and generally waste a fair amount of time examining the list.

On a completely different topic, Laura Vanderkam had a good post about the latest incarnation of the false dichotomy between working and enjoying your life/kids/whatever. 

I found ThinReads, a site dedicated to short eBooks, via Laura's twitter feed, since they interviewed her. I haven't had time to explore it much yet, but I like the idea of a site to help me find short eBooks- as you know, I'm a fan of them.

I really liked this Salon article from Bill Moyers and Michael Winship about the gun regulation debate, and how mind-blowing it is that almost 3 in 10 Americans think they will need to take up arms in the next few years to defend their liberties. WTF, people?!?!?!?! Way to give up on democracy and the Constitution!

Let's end on a far more lighthearted note. I loved this tweet:

I have Instagrammedthe plumsthat were inthe iceboxand which you were probablysavingfor tumblr
— Ian Bogost (@ibogost) May 10, 2013

And these photos of London are cool, if a bit creepy.

I hope you are all healthier than we are at Chez Cloud. Happy weekend!

Sick Kids, Productivity, and the Importance of Prioritization

I was home with a sick girl today- Petunia's been running a fever for two days. Mr. Snarky stayed home with her yesterday, and today was my turn. To be honest, neither of us really minded our turn, because we're both sort of sick, too. We have an annoying low grade cold that includes a headache and a cough. And my voice is doing that thing it does when I get sick and it decides that by the end of the day I should sound like a cross between a frog and Kathleen Turner playing a role in which she is only allowed to whisper.

When she is sick, Petunia mostly wants to sit on the sofa and snuggle while we watch shows. I was able to piece together roughly 1.5 hours of work today, but that came in bits and pieces, mostly spent sending emails that would help keep my various projects on track. And of course, I had plenty of time to think about both my work and home projects while I sat on the sofa and snuggled.

I think it is interesting to look at what I do when my work time is severely compressed like this. Today, I focused on three projects. We have a big upgrade scheduled for this weekend, and I am "quarterbacking" it (tracking the tasks and making sure everyone knows when to do their part). I sent emails to make sure we were ready to go, and then sent out the email notifying the rest of the company of the outages that would be required. We have another project that is trying to get started. I read the technical specification so that the kickoff wasn't held up waiting for my input. And we have a third project that is struggling to finish, so I sent a couple of emails trying to get it over the latest hurdles. The rest of my time was spent clearing out administrative emails, so that they wouldn't consume too much time when I get back to work.

There is nothing surprising in that list- it is just an intensified version of my standard prioritization process. Every weekday morning, I write a to do list of the three to six things I want to accomplish that day. Sometimes, I'll jot down items for the next day's list towards the end of a day, but for the most part, I write the list while I drink my morning tea. It contains the most urgent and high value things that I can do that day: things in which I am holding up a project, or things that I can do that will help a project along. There is a bit of an art to writing that list- sometimes the items are obvious, sometimes they aren't. It is similar to what I said in a Twitter exchange with @creakyvoice after my kanban post-  with any project management technique, there is skill in figuring out how to structure the work, and that skill is something that gets better with practice.

Given my approach to to do lists, it is not surprising that the section about to do lists was one of the many parts of Laura Vanderkam's latest eBook, What the Most Successful People Do at Work, that really resonated with me. One of the women she profiles limits her to do list to 6 items: 3 "must dos" for the day and 3 small tasks towards bigger goals. I am not that rigid in how I structure my daily list. Some days my list skews more towards immediate deadlines, and some days my list skews more towards longer term goals. But I have always had a short daily list.

For awhile, I started letting my daily list get longer, and it crept into a two or three day list. I realized that was decreasing the utility of the list, but wasn't sure what to do about it. Then I started reading about kanban, and realized I needed a list to explicitly acknowledge the tasks that are in progress, even if they aren't on that day's to do list. I created a personal work kanban board with my backlog and in progress tasks, and switched back to true daily lists, and I have felt my days get more productive.

Maybe the years of practice in identifying the three or four top priority items makes days like today easier, or maybe it doesn't. I obviously can't do the controlled experiment. Certainly, knowing my top priority tasks (at work and at home) helps me to make the most of small pockets of time, and that is one of the things that eases the inevitable stress points in my life as a relatively ambitious and career-focused mother of small children. Kids get sick, and they rarely consult your work schedule before doing so. Petunia doesn't really care about my work deadlines, and I don't want her to. If she wants snuggles when she is sick, she mostly gets them. But even with a full day of snuggles and the fact that I also napped through half of her nap, I was able to get enough work done to keep things on track. I didn't really make any progress, but I didn't lose ground, either.

The idea of "quality time" has been so overused in the parenting realm that it has become a semi-ironic cliche, but for me, applying the same idea to work can really pay off.

What do you do when you or your kids get sick? Do you try to work, or do you let it slide?