Alone - this time it's professional.

I’ve realized lately that part of my problem in my current location is just that – location. In grad school, I chose a delightful office. I sat with 3 more senior students and we would throw around questions and ideas, and I had incredible sources when I needed to fix a mistake or design a project. So I started with the ideal set-up for me.

Then we moved – were kicked out of our shared offices – but got gorgeous new cubicles in blue and gray color schemes. I had a L-shaped desk, 2 filing cabinets and tons of shelves for books and journals. I brought in posters and little stuffed animals and created this cute little home for myself. I lived there happily – situated in my corner – until leaving to start my post-doc. I did have to walk a couple steps to ask questions, but my people were readily available.

I replaced a horrified frown with a pleasant smile as quickly as I could when viewing my work space upon arrival here. A tiny desk – no wider than 3 feet and reduced to nothing when my tiny laptop and a single text were placed upon it – along one of two walls with 15 other tiny desks just like it. Those little partitions were placed between each space, and as students arrived last fall, the room continued to get more populated. And I continued to grow more unhappy.

Post-docs, you see, were to have good space! Most of them had a small room with three other people! Like my ideal space! But no – I was stuck in a room with 15 undergraduates (or maybe grad students – I don’t know) who were doing more coursework than research. I’m not fond of crowds in general. Plus it was starting to smell questionable in there. I had nowhere to put all my books or journals or all the files I brought with me. And someone kept stealing my Ethernet cord when I’d take my laptop to a meeting. All 15-20 of us shared a phone. It was constantly loud - from the hum of many computers if not voices. I hated it with a passion.

“Enough.” I said to Jill, our secretary many months ago. “I keep asking for new space, but I’m dying in there. Can you talk to Boss too?”

So she did, and I continued to try to whine politely, then I started skipping meetings. Only the unimportant ones, but I wanted it to be known that I wasn’t coming in. That I was so distressed by my worst environment ever that I would work nearly exclusively from home. I soon got a desk. (This, by the way, is why I go with passive aggressive sometimes - it's darn effective.)

Now it’s a nice desk – I have room for all my books, files, and pretty items I require to distract me. There’s plenty of space to spread out files and papers and work. I like it. But I sit with administrative assistants. And while they’re delightful and we’re friendly, they don’t really know why my region of interest isn’t in the right spot. Or whether I should process using 5 or 6mm. If I should remove 2 files or 5. If Matlab is more efficient than coding in C. (It never is, by the way, but I like Matlab so much more.)

So I feel isolated – that’s my point. And my personality type lends itself well to casual communication that’s easily available, but in terms of seeking someone out just to talk? Not so much. I feel a certain pressure to fix problems on my own, first of all. I think that’s valid, and have seen a few grad students make rapid progress when their primary mentor graduates. In my experience, advisors play limited roles in daily work, so when your particular dissertator goes away, you’re faced with a new level of independence that’s overwhelmingly positive for most people. I know it worked for me when β left, and it seems to have worked for students I helped considerably as well.

There’s a difference, I’ve found, between being independent and being alone. I’ve long believed that the answers likely already exist. I laughed with a friend over his special database for publications. He wrote code and created a website and developed this special software, then said, “It’s like PubMed. Only not as cool. Or effective… It’s pretty much just a giant waste of time.” I’ve seen other students write random number generators – much worse than the ones already freely available online. I’ve never believed in recreating the wheel – even as a learning tool. I think I can learn effectively while making progress on novel applications.

But to make that progress, I need to understand what’s out there. And we all talk to different people, have software that could be tweaked to work for another purpose. We’ve read a paper that might illuminate this foggy section of research. Saw an abstract that might be applicable. So by being isolated – whether working at home or in my poorly located desk in the office – I’m lacking the resources to progress quickly. I sometimes waste time doing work that could be much more efficiently approached. I make mistakes that someone could glance over and easily correct. I don’t ask questions until I’m at a point where I can present in group meeting and have done a tremendous amount of work already. I miss my people – continue to contact graduate colleagues rather than finding new people here.

There are reasons this is difficult – it’s not just me being lazy (though yes, that's part of it). It is complicated, and I could get around it, but doing so would require consistent effort and overcoming a feeling that I’m seeking people out to use them for their expertise. Plus, I’ve seen people feel guilty when someone comes to them with a question they can’t answer. It’s just so much easier when it’s casual – a random “do you know?” tossed over my shoulder without turning from my computer screen. And I know stuff too! I could contribute if I wasn't tucked away in a little corner where nobody ever comes.

So I sigh and try to figure out what to do with myself. It’s actually going to get worse here shortly – departments are shifting office locations and some of the people with whom I’d like to interact daily are moving across campus. Others are beginning faculty positions that will take them out of the daily research realm. The clinicians I talk to most often are clueless as to what I do – having an exclusive reliance on what I present to form their opinions. Sometimes I don’t know exactly what I’m talking about. Other times I make a mistake that leads to some slight (or large – whichever) error that I eventually catch. But I'm becoming paranoid because I want to be sure I'm right, obviously. And if I don't catch it, nobody will.

So this complaining about how I’m alone? Now it works for my professional life as well as personal. And the fact that I alone can rectify the situations isn’t helping me out much.

Oh, but I'm meeting my blog-friend-turned-real-life-friend this weekend! I'm quite excited - she mentioned 3 or 4 activities that sounded delightful, and she already knew I had no desire to see V for Vendetta! This only proves my point that if some of you would just move here, I'd have many friends I adored. But I shall settle for one such friend, and it'll save you at least one post (perhaps on Saturday) about where I mope over my solitude. So a good time will be had by all. But for now? Please feel sorry for me. Thanks.