What would you say is the hardest part of the job?

Getting through record-keeping. You'll notice that I'm not saying "documentation" because I actually enjoy writing documentation and conveying to others a bit of the thrill I get from solving problems. But record-keeping -- updating databases, filling out forms, checkboxes, stuff like that -- it's drudgery and so far away from the thrill of problem-solving it's dreadful and dreaded. I even went so far as to write a computer program that would fill out a sort of timesheet form report we had -- a real-life version of "Officespace"'s TPS report -- automatically based on notes I'd made during lab sessions. I had someone compliment me during a meeting by saying, "Well, you all complain about these reports, but Mark here fills them out faithfully every time and HE doesn't complain!" I had to turn off that program out of feeling guilty after that. So keep it to yourself :-) . But seriously, as a manager, I later was confronted with the reality of just how important it is to keep good records. A bit of suffering with the drudgery in the short term saves us all a lot more drudgery figuring out that stuff for other people after the fact when the thrill of "eureka" has subsided.