This morning, I woke up in a panic with the realization that I only have about 15 more years to do all the experiments I want to do.
@Helical_Code I seem to adopt minions on a regular basis. I teach them a lot of curse words. Tell them about all the mistakes I've made in my life so they can follow in my footsteps. I try to get them up to some competent level of independent engineering. Then, I turn them loose on the world and watch them wreak havoc. I wanted to be a professor but it hasn't happened (yet). So this is honestly the best part of my job and my company humors me.
@Foxthorn
That sounds wonderful, in fact! The lab chief construes anyone in lab as his minions, and so the best I can do is co-adopting a minion. Also, anyone else who has a PhD generally considers themselves not to be minion material for anyone BUT the chief, reasonably so. The bottom line is that I need to be increasingly clever about what experiments are worth doing.
@Helical_Code LOL if there's a self cloning experiment in there somewhere, you should probably go ahead and add that that one to the prioritize list. Also...PhDs are so frustrating. We have very very specialized knowledge that so many of us feel places us above a certain level, and there's usually something to be learned from everyone, not just those we consider at or above our level. This week one of my minions taught me something new during our mentor meeting. She was so happy. I was thrilled.
@Foxthorn
I definitely have a list of people I would like to clone, but it never occurred to me to add myself (ok, just added).
The best PhDs are those who recognize that they have something to learn from experts all over the place, whether or not their field of expertise is the sort one earns a PhD in. That's the type I aim to be every day.
@Helical_Code Same. My company tends to limit the number of PhDs they hire because we're expensive, we turn everything into a research project, we lack logic and practicality, and we like to work without disruption which makes us terrible project managers and poor mentors (we being incredibly generalized here and I try very hard not be any of that). I spend 50% of my day saying "yes you could get a more accurate estimate of the outcome, but does it change the design?"
@Foxthorn
I have zero minions! I'm a senior staff scientist in an academic lab. From time to time, I've had a minion. Some are great, some are a net time sink.