How do I cope with becoming a lab supervisor and missing the bench work?

You loved the bench. The precision of it, the quiet certainty of a result done right by your own hands. Now you manage staff and regulators, and the pipette sits in someone else's grip. Supervising can feel like being pulled away from the very thing you were good at. That love of precision has not vanished; it has changed shape. The care you gave a single sample, you now give a whole lab. When your standards live in every technologist you train, your precision runs through more results than your two hands ever could. That is a quieter craft, but it is craft. Keep one foot at the bench when you can. Run a hard sample yourself now and then. It keeps your hands honest and reminds your team that you still know the work you ask of them. You have not left the science. You have widened it.