I've been at my new job an entire month now, and I'm definitely not in academia anymore.
My thoughts:
Week 1- I work in an office. I am not in academia anymore!
Week 2- How many different people am I working with?!
Week 3- I can't believe they hired me! I work here!
Week 4- I am getting the hang of this, but I need nicer shoes.
Research (i.e. publishing papers) is not an explicit part of my job description (I have a job description!). My first few weeks were overwhelming with hours and hours of meetings to get me up to speed. It overall feels much less isolating. I thanked dozens of people in my dissertation, but those were more people helping me out; very few people were actually invested in my research. In my new job, many more people have a stake in what I'm working on. It's fascinating to me.
The work culture is pretty 9-5 or 6ish. Dress is officially "casual", but I'm taking my cues from my colleagues, and my academic attire of 1 or 2 pairs of jeans with 20 different t-shirts isn't going to cut it. The upside is that I'm wearing more cute dresses and skirts that never get enough sunshine. The downside is that I have to shave my legs and wear makeup all the time. I am ok with this tradeoff.
So far so good. I can't believe my luck!
