{"id":235,"date":"2019-04-01T09:57:16","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T07:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/?p=235"},"modified":"2019-08-14T08:03:39","modified_gmt":"2019-08-14T06:03:39","slug":"sharing-the-caring-head-of-the-nanosims-lab-dr-angela-vogts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/2019\/04\/01\/sharing-the-caring-head-of-the-nanosims-lab-dr-angela-vogts\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharing the caring: head of the NanoSIMS lab Dr. Angela Vogts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What\nis the nature of your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am the head of the NanoSIMS lab at the\nLeibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research. The NanoSIMS facility is open to all\nscientists and thus I am in contact with different working groups of the\ninstitute as well with national and international scientists. I supervise a\ntechnician doing the routine operation, run the instrument on the difficult\ntasks and maintenance issues, organise the measurements and provide advice for\nthe scientist who want to employ the instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Career\nas a researcher.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finished my PhD in 2011 at the Institute\nfor Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) of the\nCarl-von-Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany. My thesis was about the\nanalysis of alkanes as proxy for climatic changes in Africa. Luckily at the end\nof my PhD time an advertisement for the lab manager position occurred. I was\nalways aiming for a job where instrumental analysis would be an essential part.\nThus, the chance of being responsible for such a scarce high-end analysis\ninstrument was a lucky incident. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started my job, the instrument was\nnot yet there. Thus, I took care of the lab construction, instrument installation\nand the establishment of the procedures. In 2014 the instrument had to move and\nI was back to taking care of lab construction. In parallel a lot of projects\nwere run at the instrument including not only marine science but e.g. also soil\nscience and medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My position was funded by project money on\nthe first years. Then, I got a permanent contract for 50% of the position for\ntaking care of the instrument. When the scientific output increased and I\ncontributed to several publications I got a full permanent position at the\nbeginning of 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please\ndescribe briefly your family commitments. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I live together with my husband and my son, who was born in April 2017. My husband has a non-scientific job and is working in shifts. We moved to Rostock because I got the job here. Our families are more than 300 km away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dr. Angela Vogts’ husband with their son. Photo from Dr Vogts\u2019 personal archive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

How\ndo you balance your work and family commitments?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband is working full time (40h) and\nhis free days differ from week to week. I am working 32.5 h\/week. Our son is at\nchildcare from 07:45 to 16:00. Depending of the shift plan of my husband we\nshare bringing\/getting the little one from childcare. If my husband gets him in\nthe afternoon, I am able to work longer. We try to arrange our lives in a way\nthat the toddler has a stable schedule. Household chores are shared between me\nand my husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If scientific things are not finished on a working day and\/or need to be done urgently I use the evenings, when the little one is in bed. Weekends are dedicated to the family but in urgent cases working at the weekends can be arranged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 What has helped you? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flexible working\ntime as a scientist is a huge advantage. In addition, I am very thankful for\nthe acceptance of childcare issues by all colleagues and I am still astonished\nhow understanding all people are. In my special position the possibility for\nremote desktop operation from home is also useful to solve small issues.\nFurthermore, we have a flexible, reliable babysitter which is of immense\nimportance as no family members are around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first 1.5 years\nwith the little one, the flexibility of the German system of parental leave and\nparental allowance was helpful. With this, I was able to establish a family\nroutine slowly and stay in contact with science at the same time. After\nmaternity leave (2 months after birth) I returned to work for 2 hours a day and\nmy son accompanied me. I have my own office in a quiet area of the institute\nand this worked quite well until he started getting mobile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming to the institute\nfor 2 hours gave me the change to keep track the ongoing work and offer advice\non measurement and maintenance issues. If there were meetings at the institute\nthe little one accompanied me or the colleagues came to my office. The\ncolleagues were very flexible if I had to schedule the meeting due to the\ntiming of the little ones feeding\/sleeping. This was of course possible because\nour son is what people call, a \u201cbeginners\u2019 child\u201d: friendly and mostly\neven-tempered and nicely falling asleep during skype calls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my son got more\nmobile my husband took 6 months of parental leave and I was working full time\nfor 4 months when he was taking care of our son. In this time, we also did some\ntravelling, partly according to my scientific interests. In this way, I was\nable to give a lecture in a seminar of a cooperation partner. In addition, I\nattended the Baltic Gender workshop in Lund. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When my husband returned\nto work, I reduced my work to 50% and got 50% of parental allowance for some\nmore moths. In this time the toddler turned 1 and started day-care for some\nhours. Luckily, we got a place in the close by child care we wanted at the date\nwe applied for. At the end of 2018 the parental allowance money was used up, my\nson was adapted to full time day-care and I returned to a close to fulltime\njob. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to mention\nthat there was no pressure on me to return to work quickly. I was always\nencouraged to organize the parental leave and the working time afterwards\naccording to my and my family\u2019s needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has hindered you? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband gets his shift plan only 1 week\nin advance. On the other hand, his vacations have to be scheduled 1 year in\nadvance. This makes planning a bit tricky. During part time work attending\npresentations, meetings in the afternoon was hardly possible. Now attending\npresentation at the university in the late afternoon or having a dinner with\nvisiting scientist is not possible in every case. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nhave been the most difficult moments in your career considering family and\nwork-life balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every illness of the child or a parent puts\nyour plans upside down and draws attention from work quickly. Things need to be\npostponed and schedules reworked. For me, juggling around with several projects\nin different states, it is essential, to put down notes on the state of\nprojects and duties to be able to keep track of the proceeding. Otherwise, I\nwould spend a lot of time at work reconstructing at what state projects are.\nInformation gets lost astonishing quickly if you are off work for e.g. 2 days\nto take care of a child with fever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our families are from a rural area in\nWestern Germany it was very unusual among our families to put the little one in\nday-care so early. While it is normal in Eastern Germany it is not so common in\nWestern Germany and mostly mothers stay at home longer. Our close relatives\naccepted our plans but an uncle stated \u201cif you are not able to stay at home,\nyou should not get a child\u201d. We agreed that we have different opinions about\nthis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A difficult task is also to keep time to be\ntogether as couple or to have a personal time off. In the first months I missed\nhaving time to read a book. Having time for such things is essential to\nrecharge your batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nis your experience of sharing family-care: (a) in your everyday life and (b) during\nfield works?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Due to the shifts of my husband we need to be\nflexible and arrange task new every week. It was great, that my husband took 6\nmonths off for parental leave. This gave him an insight how demanding a small\nchild and taking care of household issues can be. <\/li>
  • I do not go out for field works. But I attended\nconferences and workshops. I arrange the travelling according to the needs of\nchildcare and skipped some parts of the meetings. <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What is the nature of your work? I am the head of the NanoSIMS lab at the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research. The NanoSIMS facility is open to all scientists and thus I am in contact with different working groups of the institute as well with national and international scientists. I supervise a technician […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":173,"featured_media":238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-work-and-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/173"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oceanblogs.org\/balticgender\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}