I’d quibble with one or two minor items (primarily around the importance of befriending and/or becoming indispensable to a few key members of the senior faculty) in this otherwise fully superb article on academia and the insane work hours your “mentors” will advise you to undertake even though they, uh, didn’t actually. I will excerpt none of it in the hopes you actually go read it.

The-Awesomest-7-Year-Postdoc or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tenure-track-faculty-life