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[overthinker]

O, I love this possibility, and this lethargy.
Lovely. :)

I will probably spoil the effect by admitting that the lethargy is in between bouts of hard work. A bit like Sherlock Holmes, who just lazed around the flat playing his violin or fiddling with his retorts when there were no cases....

At least in history, if you don't write a diss that might catch a publisher's eye, you have a hard time getting a job.

Do publishers regularly read or check up on dissertations? Surely not. You have to write it into a book first, don't you? And then perhaps shop it around to publishers, or whatever one does. My main concern there is that (aside from how worthy your addressing of current issues might be) is that shouldn't it be better to break new ground rather than rehashing your thesis and perhaps when you actually have the chance of writing a book that will be interesting for its breadth and its depth and make an impact. Otherwise it's little more than yet another hoop to jump through for the job market - you write the book to get a job, not because the contents are significant. Is this really the case?

[flyguy]

I'm in the sciences, and doing a post doc right now (well, I'm typing right now, but you get the point). Anyway, I have approached this experience with the idea that this phase of my life is about product.  In my field that means peer-reviewed journal articles.  To address your point, I think a post doc who did a really good doctorate and had gobs of data can use the post doc to write those projects up and get those published, giving them the illusion of a good CV.  What smurfette (hi smurfette) eluded to was the part that can bite someone in the old backside:  you need a letter from your post doctoral advisor if you hope to land a tt job.  So if that's all your advisor can say is that you were able to get you doctoral dissertation chapters published, well, it's going to be a long time before you see the inside of your own faculty office.  What one hopes to do is to use the post doctoral time to write up those loose ends AND do new and exciting work.  I don't even know if you need to have lots of projects published from your post doc, but at least you need to give your advisor some ammunition to write a good solid letter.  So back to your original question:  no, I don't think you can be lazy and have a successful post doc.  I also second the point about not spending a lot of time on job applications.  I spend very little time (compared to about a year ago) preparing an application. Hell, most of the tough stuff is done.

[eugenides]

Thanks for wonderful suggestions from all of you.
So I see:
(1) A good postdoc should secure a good letter from her/his postdoc mentor (***Importnat!!!)
(2) A good postdoc cannot be lazy, cannot date, cannot have affairs.
(3) A good postdoc cannot spend much time on job applications--well, I undersand the logic here. But it is so difficult..... I have known that many Humanities postdocs send out more than 30 or 40 or 50 job applications. If I were one of them, I would do the same. I know this is really time-consuming, but it seems unavoidable. :-(

[eugenides]

Hi, I do want to be as smart and as lazy as Holmes.

Somehow I sense you imply that we in humanities and social sciences should invest time writing new books independent from our dry diss.

Or, at least new books not too dependent on the old diss.
Do I interpret your implication right?

I am all for this strategy-- as long as my time management is as good as that of Holmes.

[flyguy]

Thanks for wonderful suggestions from all of you.
So I see:
(1) A good postdoc should secure a good letter from her/his postdoc mentor (***Importnat!!!)
(2) A good postdoc cannot be lazy, cannot date, cannot have affairs.
(3) A good postdoc cannot spend much time on job applications--well, I undersand the logic here. But it is so difficult..... I have known that many Humanities postdocs send out more than 30 or 40 or 50 job applications. If I were one of them, I would do the same. I know this is really time-consuming, but it seems unavoidable. :-(

I also will add:

(4)  A good postdoc will potentially write grants, to either further the post doc funding, or to impress SCs
(5)  Network at conferences or meetings
(6) Colloborate with new people, who are not necessarily friends/colleagues of ones doctoral or post doc advisor (shows you can play well with strangers)
(7)  Mentor undergraduates and graduate students (latter is a little more difficult, but if you can help to shoulder the burden your post doctoral advisor will thank you)
(8)  Did I mention publish?

[eugenides]

Thanks for the list.
They are good suggestions.
I would love to take care of all listed obligations.....


But I wonder:
(1) Are current Postdocs (in humanities, sciences, etc) capable to acommplish so many things as hoped?
(2) If some postdocs are not competent enough, or even worse than not competent, what will happen to them?
 
* I know they will not get strong letters from mentors. But I observe that in some postdoc programs in humanities, the postdoc fellows are loosely associated with the mentors. The mentors assigned to the fellows, and the fellows themsleves, can work on totally different national literatures (acording to what I observe at one Ivy)
I guess in such (imagined) bad scenarios, the postdoc fellows at worst (maybe, at best too) get lukewarm letters from mentors.



---
Yes, I know publishing is always important!!!

[trabb]

One thing that I'm surprised no-one has mentioned yet is that in the humanities, there are postdocs and then there are postdocs.  From browsing through advertisements, there seem to be a fairly small number of prestigious post-doctoral fellowships available, most of which include minimal (or no) teaching responsibilities.  These are the types of post-docs that should allow someone in the humanities to crank out a book in a year or so or to revise the dissertation into a book.  One of these post-docs should do all the things that eugenides and flyguy have listed.  One of the catches here, however, is that these more prestigious post-docs are not seen as providing a year or two for those who haven't managed to secure tenure-track jobs.  Indeed, many of these post-docs are open to assistant profs so long as they meet the requirement of being fewer than X years past the conferral of the degree.  Because of this, the competition for these post-docs may be as fierce as for many tenure-track jobs.

Then there are the post-docs that, roughly translated, comes out to something like this:  "We don't want to call you an adjunct professor because too much adjunct labor might skew our rankings on some websites.  Therefore, we will give you an important-sounding title and a tiny stipend, and in return you will teach 8 (or more!) classes per year."  Obviously, this kind of postdoc is much easier to come by.  The good news is that if you can crank out a book while holding this kind of postdoc, you certainly will impress search committees...