Postdoc Skit 2004: Orientation

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	Large -- Medium Question from audience: "As postdocs, what's our role when interacting with the faculty members?" Though you'll be doing some of your own research, you're also expected to help your professor on things that he wants done. We've found that postdoc shoe-shining has been particularly popular.
	Large -- Medium Instituted last year, more and more professors are taking advantage of faculty room service.
	Large -- Medium And the tips! As a postdoc, you'll find that every half-dollar counts.
	Large -- Medium So, how much do we get paid as starting postdocs? Good question. Contrary to the nasty rumor going around, you'll all be pleased to hear that you *DO* get paid as a postdoc. We've made this handy chart to show help put your new salary in perspective. While you only make half as much as an assistant professor, you'll find that garbage men and programmers make 3 to 4 times your salary.
	Large -- Medium What skills are useful to survive as an LPL postdoc? Well, as a postdoc your job is to publish as many papers as possible. To do this, you need to get as much data as possible. We've found that when it comes to 'taking data', it is much more efficient to take the expression literally by obtaining data from those that already have it, rather than producing it yourself.
	Large -- Medium Is there much interaction between postdocs and grad students? Postdocs, being intermediate in age between faculty members and grad students, function as go-betweens or interpreters frequently. For instance, when a professor wants to send a 'message' to one of her students, she might employ a postdoc to 'deliver' the message so as to maintain plausible deniability.
	Large -- Medium Postdocs relish their job as 'messengers' with gusto.
	Large -- Medium You'll also find that, in the hard, lonely life of a postdoc, graduate students can provide support for you in ways that other people around the lab just can't match.
	Large -- Medium What do you do for fun? Well, surely you know that there isn't much of that! However, we do occasionally manage to do some enjoyable things, like pranks. For instance, the old "mosquitoes in the grad students' offices" trick has been going on for years and never does get old.
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	Large -- Medium How do you find the energy/time to do all of this? Lets face it: the only way that you can meet expectations is to mortgage any semblance of a normal life for your job. In particular, we've found that chemical enhancements are a very effective way to increase your scientific output. Here's David O'Brien after submitting his third Nature paper this week, while only sleeping for 4 hours!
	Large -- Medium Working with the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, the same people that helped Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, we have developed a special high-impact and fast acting form of Caffeine that really helps give you that jolt you need to stay awake past about 36 straight hours.
	Large -- Medium Thanks for your time, and remember, if you have any questions call the indicated numbers. If you follow our advice and work hard, you'll get your just desserts from postdocdom: you'll get to leave.