Having given hugs and kisses after we went to the playground, I waved as my family headed south once again. I came home, made an omelet, snuggled back into pajamas and went to sleep. I blinked my eyes open around 3 and wandered downstairs, looking around curiously for the visiting mouse. I didn't see him and mentioned to a sleeping Sprout that it'd be good if he took care of that. We'll see what happens. I did some work, finding it oddly soothing to capture knowledge in graphs and bullet points and looking forward to showing off my work in a Big Meeting later this week.
At about 5, I went out to mow the lawn, clipping the grass close to the ground so that it would match the neighbors. While I shoved the roaring machine down neat rows parallel to the sidewalk that borders my property, I wondered if I should pay someone to do this - mow, rake, weed, sweep. I frowned at the clumps of grass the littered the lawn, compared it unfavorably to the others on my street and decided that I'd rather have clumps of grass than a McCain/Palin sign and, happily comforted, moved toward my fenced backyard to let Chienne know that we were a bit liberal for our subdivision.
I drank two glasses of water when I came inside, thinking there's little better about easing a need so sharp. No longer thirsty, I started to sip while I sent Mom photos from the weekend and updated my CV with recently published and accepted paper.
As I was copying and pasting, I saw an email arrive from my post-doctoral institution. They're applying for more funding and wanted to update the publication information. Since I had it in front of me and the work was completed there, I sent a few citations. Pausing before I hit send, I noted my new title and employer since it sounds reasonably impressive and I was anything but while I was there.
I watched the activity monitor as the email sent, settling into a thought that I'm glad I don't do that anymore. Given the choice, I'd rather make slides, take meetings and deal with spreadsheets than battle for grants and revise publications. I'm happy managing research and development and while I may go back to actually doing it, I think this step was a good one for me.
Feeling downright peppy compared to my attitude of late, I returned to my work laptop to catch up on email and update a few more documents. This week should be better - less crazy-busy, more focused and efficient. And while I don't like how some decisions are made, I'm not without resources to nudge things in the direction I want. I'm feeling a bit more powerful and smart and less overwhelmed and exhausted.
Which seems quite positive.
2 comments:
And while I don't like how some decisions are made, I'm not without resources to nudge things in the direction I want.
Yeah, I'm sure that's gonna hold up real well as the global economy continues to swirl down the shitter. How could you have possible thought that "industry" was gonna be some kind of Care Bears Motherfucking Tea Party where everyone loves you because you are so warm and friendly and communicative?
First, they do love me because I'm warm and friendly and communicative. I get compliments all the time, people do what I ask and progress is happily made. I'm not sure what it is you think I actually do, but nudging people in the right direction (and then talking about it endlessly to various people) pretty much sums up the work.
Second, it is all about money. For everyone. If we can't sell it - and do so with a nice margin and low-as-possible cost to us - we don't make it. When it comes to external vendors with whom we partner, the relationship should be mutually beneficial (skewed toward my giant company, of course). If the numbers work against me here, you're right - I'm screwed. My feeling is the situation is going to be iffy though. In that case, I have opinions and arguments for leaving things stable and steady.
Finally, what befuddles me about your continued needling is that you're controlled by funding as well. If you can't get somebody to pay for it, you don't get to study it. I assume any start-up funds are growing scarce and while I hope you're set with NIH funding, my guess is that squeezing money from the government will only get harder from here. I think it will eventually rebound, of course, but my research group was already waiting for that to happen a year ago. With things getting economically worse rather than better, I like my chances in industry (and what's up with the quotes? Here, let me try - "Thank you" for your comment.) better than most other places.
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