cosmicnemo

I'm about 6 months away from submitting my (astrophysics) thesis, and having a difficult time deciding which path to go down (i.e. post-doc vs. industry). I have a few questions that I don't feel entirely comfortable asking my advisors, hoping somebody has some insight. My advisors have been encouraging me to apply for post-doc's and think that I would have a good shot of finding a position. My main hesitation is mainly around an uncertainty of the expectations for a post-doc. To put it plainly, my ideal scenario would be to drop all of the "extra" activities, and just focus on research and publishing. For example, I avoid giving talks of any kind, I avoid networking and visiting other institutions, I avoid attending conferences and workshops. I'm happy when I can just show up every day and do science, write code and analyse results. I guess my question basically is, how much is expected of a post-doc in addition to producing scientific results and publishing papers? As long as I am producing results, do I have complete freedom to set my own schedule in terms of travel, giving talks, etc? Will it create friction/cause problems if I'm not interested in any of the "extra" activities? To be clear, I'm friendly and well-liked around the office, and don't mind attending perhaps one conference per year (without presenting). I just don't like feeling obligated/forced to be involved. I suspect that maybe the answer depends on my potential future employer/research group, and that expectations vary. If that's the case, is it very common/rare to be given complete freedom as a post-doc (aside from the science aspect)? I hope that's decipherable, I'm having trouble formulating my question/uncertainty. Any advice or input would be very much appreciated.