What’s in it for me?

My PI got me involved in a collaboration with people who want to do something that I know how to do (and my PI doesn’t really). So I’m helping them as much as I can. Not only do I give them advice, I also help them with practical work because that lab currently consists of only the PI and a technician who works hir ass off for the PI. The PI is pretty pushy and often only asks things at the last minute, so this collaboration has been a good exercise in trying to protect my personal boundaries (read: I’ve been annoyed to no end by all the last-minute requests). 

What I’m not really sure about in these kinds of situations is when you ask what’s in it for you? I asked my PI and he was like:” Yeah of course you’ll be a co-author on their paper.” But so far, we’re gathering preliminary data for a grant, and with the current size of this PI’s lab it might take a while before this turns into a paper.

So how does one go about this? Do you trust that this PI will remember that I helped hir when ze writes the paper years from now? Or do you just ask (or even email so that you have it in writing):”What’s in it for me?”

Is the synapse too small?

A synapse is the connection between two neurons, and it is indeed very small. But that’s not why I ask this question.

Recently I talked to an Acquaintance from the Home country (AH) who is writing the same grant as I am writing. AH went to the US to learn Very Fancy Technique (VFT) and is now looking to go back to the home country. AH found a lab that has equipment to do VFT and is writing a grant with the professor* there. During AH’s post-doc in the US ze is working on how shit works in the synapse using VFT. In hir grant ze is proposing to study more about how shit works in the synapse using VFT and ze can use the stuff ze did here as preliminary data. However, now the professor told hir to maybe use VFT to work on something else, because “the synapse is too small and people reviewing your grant may get offended when they see that you want to work on shit in the synapse”.  

I have the feeling that Europeans are for some reason much more afraid of being scooped and working too close to someone else’s field than Americans. My grad PI never allowed us to go to meetings with data that weren't about to be published. But I recently walked into someone more senior than me at SfN who does almost exactly what I want to do (but in a different brain region) and instead of telling me to back off and work on something else, this person invited me into hir lab to do what I wanted to do in case I couldn’t get it to work myself. 

So where do you think this scare to work too close to someone else’s field come from? And what would your advice to AH be? Stay with hir own plan or move away from the synapse?

*So you may ask: why would someone who did a post-doc still write a grant with a professor? This is just the way it works in the home country (and some other European countries). There is a lot of hierarchy and there are no R01-like grants that give you enough money to do what you want. The grant I’m writing now will just cover my own salary and $10k for supplies. So you have to start working with someone else in order to be able to do something. Which is nice, because they have equipment and trained techs so from day 1 you can start doing experiments. But the downside is that for the first couple of years you will probably not be last author on your own papers.

Experiments I refuse to do

In a recent conversation with my PI and our collaborator we talked about a potentially very interesting experiment that would involve a pretty lengthy behavioral experiment followed by slice electrophysiology. It would mean that a certain person would have to come in every single day (so both days on the weekend) for months. Collaborator:”Yeah that’s what it’s like to be a post-doc”. I said that that certain person was not going to be me, and that I wasn’t going to do those experiments unless I was promised help. 

This is not the first time that I refuse to do an experiment because it means that I will be in the lab for an endless number of days, and the last time this happened I didn’t even have BlueEyes yet. I don’t think this sets me back; I just only do those ridiculous experiments when I feel that it is really worth it.

Bottom line is that we are going to put those experiments in the grant that we’re writing, and when push comes to shove we’ll see who is going to be running them… I just already made sure that that won’t be me entirely.