Sorry for the delayed response. The molecules I was making took up to a week to build. All-day and overnight reactions made me impatient. I'd spend a day resea

Sorry for the delayed response. The molecules I was making took up to a week to build. All-day and overnight reactions made me impatient. I'd spend a day researching the procedure, then a day setting up and getting the reaction started. I'd come in the next morning and might have sludge or nothing or what I wanted. Then I'd wait a few days to have access to the equipment I needed for analysis and, most of the time, would have to start over. One week of work and nothing to show. After a year of this, my research advisor kind of shrugged his shoulders and said "well, this isn't really going anywhere" and switched me over to help a grad student that was there. The lab notebook went on the shelf and they're probably still sitting there collection dust. No publications, no discoveries, no record of me even being there except the credits on my transcript. I got the sense that this was just par for the course and, working in the industry for a couple of years, that looked to be the case. Work as hard as you can, paying attention to every tiny detail, and if you get nowhere ... oh well, move on. Some people seemed perfectly fine with this cycle. Me? It drove me insane ... and out of chemistry!