Parting thoughts...

Welcome to our laboratory blog! I am writing this inaugural posting at the close of the 234th ACS National Meeting and Exposition in Boston. Overall, this was an excellent meeting for our group - 11 presentations! We all had a great time and learned some tremendous science.

Near the end of the meeting, we had a group dinner at Fire & Ice to celebrate our successes and to bid farewell to a number of group members.

• Sylvain has finished his post-doctoral stint and is returning to Paris to start a position at Pierre & Marie Curie University in Paris.
• Alyson has completed her M.S. and will be starting a position at Cabot Corporation in the coming weeks.
• Emily is returning to Gustavus Adolphus College (MN) after completing her NSF-REU experience.
• With my sabbatical at an end, I will be returning to teach at Merrimack College. (I will however continue my collaboration with the group and they will probably see me more than they want to in the coming months...)

Since this is the end of my sabbatical, I want to take a moment to reflect upon my time in the lab. During this year, I remembered many of the lessons that I learned during my graduate and post-doctoral years and I want to share them with everyone.

• It takes a lot of effort to do really good chemistry. There is a very fine line between being good and great - learn where is it and you will realize that not a lot of extra work is needed to do great chemistry.
• No one is more important than the lab - another way to say this is that there is no "I" in "team." You are all in this endeavor together. A lab group needs to work together for the common good - if one person does not do their fair share for the group, problems arise and bad feelings abound. You are working in a dangerous environment and you need to be able to count on the fact that someone will have your back when trouble arises. Cherish the relationships that you have with your colleagues - they will last a lifetime. (At the ACS meeting, I connected with very dear friends from my undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral days who I have not seen in a long time.
• Teaching and learning happen in many ways - not just in the classroom. You always need to be prepared to learn something.
• You need to have a thick skin. Criticism is the way in which people more experienced than you pass on wisdom and knowledge. Sometimes we may sound as if we are being mean or uncaring or unappreciative of your hard work when we criticize - you should not feel that it is a personal attack. We are trying to make you a better chemist.
• Pay attention to details (Part 1)! You usually do not have an accident the first you run a reaction, but the 100th time you run it. You need to treat the chemicals with respect each and every time you perform a reaction. You need to think through th logical consequences of every action in the lab. (We had a shocking reminder of this maxim earlier this summer when two of our lab mates were burned in a laboratory accident. Luckily they are both healing well.)
  
• Pay attention to details (Part 2)! The devil is in the details and you can miss a lot of information if you do not pay attention to seemingly insignificant information.
  
• Enjoy yourself! This is a wonderful time of life and even though it may be difficult, you will remember it fondly for the rest of your life.

Finally, I want to say that I learned just as much from all of you as you did from me. I will miss the daily interaction with all of you greatly.