For the last two days I have been interviewing for a postdoc position with the Safeguards Science & Technology group in the Nuclear Nonproliferation division at the lab. I met with about 15 people for one-on-one interviews and then gave an hour-long talk about my research and some of my extra-curricular projects.

I was pretty nervous about the whole interview process because I wasn't sure what was involved in a postdoc interview. I assumed that they would be quizzing me to make sure I knew the basics of their work. Given that safeguards are not what my training is in, and that I am attempting to completely change fields by applying to N-1, this was disconcerting.

However, the one-on-one interviews ended up being entirely composed of talking about their work. I felt like they were pitching themselves to me, rather than what I was expecting - the opposite. This was great because it made most of the two days pretty relaxed. All of the various projects they have going look amazing and I liked all of the people I met.

This did leave me wondering what exactly they would base their decision on, and I could only assume that it would be my presentation. Of course, this only added to my stress over preparing the talk. Despite my fears, however, the talk went off without a hitch and they enjoyed hearing about the rocketry and railgun and robotics. Not sure if they cared too much about my thesis work, but then again neither do I.

Apparently the purpose of the interviews is really to judge my character and whether or not people feel like they would enjoy working with me.

After my last interview, I returned to the N-1 group leader's office to return the dosimeter I had been wearing and he made me an offer on the spot. He said "we would be foolish not to offer you a position here." So that's a pretty huge ego booster. In addition, apparently project leaders I had spoken to already were coming by his office to fight over who gets to have me on their project for my post-doctoral work.

The summary of all of this is that I have a post-doc all set up for whenever I finish my thesis work. It's in an awesome group doing really exciting work. I'll get to travel all over the world, get my hands dirty, design and build innovative stuff, and have considerable freedom over what I'm working on. It solves all of the problems I have with my current position. Oh, and I won't have to write any more thesis crap ever again.

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After returning home from the interview and getting out of my suit, I had to prepare for the caving grotto meeting at my house last night which was fun. We made burgers and brats on the grill and watched Mark's slide show from caving in Mexico.

Oh, and Katamari Damacy showed up. I didn't have time to play it before the meeting, so I let the kids play it while we conducted our business. It was hillarious to hear random screams of "PICK UP THE OTHER CROISSANT!!" and "YOU GOT THE TOAD!" coming from the other room during our otherwise dull meeting. Once I had cleaned up from the meeting I quickly played a few rounds of the game before crashing. I have not seen a more weird game ever. But it is addictive.

It was a good day.