Goodbye Westmead, Hello Waterloo

My fellow lab rats, courtesy of the Parramatta Advertiser (27/11/2010)
So, as most of you already know, I've got a new job. After being with my current employer for just on nine years, I'm not only starting a new job, but a whole new career. No longer will I be a lab rat. I will now be selling product to other lab rats. It's all a bit daunting but a little exciting at the same time.

Suffice to say, someone else has to take my place within the ratty process. My poor collegue (we call her Svetty) is the sorry soul to be given the thankless tasks myself and former collegues (SarahFromWork and CoffeeBuddyJosh) used to undertake. There is so much for her to take in and no time to digest it. In short, she's swamped.

I never really appreciated how much I knew and understood about my job. Not just the routine processes but all the theory that goes behind said processes. Until I had to explain it all at a basic level to someone whose background is microscopy, not genetics, I had no idea how much I knew about DNA, genetic mutations and how I could really call myself a geneticist.

I don't reckon you can still call yourself a molecular geneticist when you stop researching in the lab and start selling molecular biology products to other people. Is there a fancy way of saying that you sell stuff for a living? Because let's face it, not a whole lot tops telling people your a molecular geneticist working in cancer research!