Are you struggling with the work/life balance as a new professor or graduate student? Have the demands of life on the tenure track left you gasping for air or unwittingly running into walls? What about your citation program, are you in the market for a new way to organize your books, articles and websites? On this, the first ever episode of Critical Distance, I am including a set of interviews on tools, tips, and reflections from the first and second years on the job. In the first interview, which is a Mutual Mentoring segment, I sat down with Nat Turner, professor of Education at UMass Amherst. During our first summer break, Nat and I discussed how we handled the ups and downs of the workplace during that first year as new professors. The second interview, a digital humanities and news segment, was recorded at the beginning of year 2 on the job. In this interview, the members of the Digital Humanities Project—which included myself, Jon Olsen from History and Janine Solberg from English—review the bibliographic software Zotero and discuss whether or not it works as a viable organizational tool. Throughout this episode, you will also hear five tips for how to make the most out of a career in academia; these tips are a collection of ideas that were shared with me during the first years on the job.