Busy, busy day

I was all over the place at work today. I learned to do the cryofills for the NMR superconducting magnets, a job that requires some dexterity and hands of steel if you don’t wear gloves. The man who trained me how to do this didn’t wear gloves, and he never does, and he’s one of the safety officers in the department. Do what I do, not as I say. Cryofills aren’t a big deal, and I’ve certainly handled lots of liquid nitrogen before, but the ladder-climbing and the burning cold and the mild danger of the job make it more interesting that your everyday ordinary cryo maneuver.

After that I trained someone how to use our “starter magnet”, someone who is a former graduate student in our department but who doesn’t know the new software. She also doesn’t understand why we have so many safety rules now, and she made as many attempts as anyone could to find out if she could get around them. The answer to all of her questions was no, but after a while even I can get worn down by a fast-talking postdoc and I think I might have caved on one small thing. I made up for it by being militant about something else so it balanced out.

Then it was down to the X-ray lab for a bit to chat with the boss and take a look at the sample I had on the diffractometer, which turned out to be what it was supposed to be. Woohoo. Not quite finished collecting data so I went and ate some fruit and salad in the hope that the sudden appearance of the “summer belly” … you know, the one you get from sitting around drinking too many wine spritzers and eating chips and ice cream and not gardening enough or riding the bike enough or doing enough situps (gawd how I loathe situps, they are so stupid), that one? well, I’m hoping that its disappearance will be as sudden as its appearance, because I am just not prepared to be middle-aged with its accompanying spread, thank you.

Okay, back to the day. More training, but this time with two new graduate students. One was great, one was agh, from the U of T and wearing his attitude plastered all over himself. Darling, until you’re doing my job, don’t ask dopey questions. If you don’t exactly know how the NMR experiment works, this is not my fault. You’re the one who went to U of T, didn’t anyone teach you how NMR works there, at that fine, fine institution?

Later, one of my colleagues commented that we’d better get Mr. U of T his login info as soon as possible so that we’re not standing in the way of his pending Nobel prize. I want a share in that million, buddy.

It’s a tough go, working in two facilities. No matter where I am, I feel like I should be somewhere else. It argues against my philosophy of being in the moment, existing fully within every experience lest I lose my concentration and perhaps get hit by a blast of liquid nitrogen. Not that I’m constantly threatened by liquefied gases or X-ray beams, or crazy egotistical students (the U of T man wasn’t my only experience today) who are, by the way, legion this term, but you never know what can happen to you if your mind is wandering.

On the bright side, I got news from FFS that he received an unexpected but very welcome award yesterday from his current department. It’s great to be reminded that you’ve done something right in trying to convince someone to do research, especially when you know full well that they’re suited to it.

We Only Talk about the Weather Anymore

I don’t like that title sentence, not because all we do is talk about the weather, because that’s quite true, but because of the use of “anymore” at the end of it. I have heard people speak this way, and it always annoys me and wants me to rewind the Tape of Life and get them to say the sentence correctly.

Sadly, there is no rewind button, otherwise I might have corrected a few other things.

Last weekend we got wacked by snow, and even though it’s been four days since it all fell, it wasn’t the first or the last storm of the season, and today it was supposed to snow and rain and that just makes your skin crawl, you know? There might be more snow. Or if it rains, then the eight foot (2.4384m) snowbanks at the end of the driveways might slither off down the storm drains….if the storm drains aren’t covered by eight foot snowbanks. If they are then we’ll just have a nice flood and comment that maybe we should grab the children on their way by. Good thing they’re strong swimmers.

It only took Hub about an hour to find the Corolla on Sunday:

It’s March Break and today I’m home with the Darlings. Hub has been home with them the rest of the week, but today he’s got a course in project management to take, so I’m home instead. Just as well because work is beginning to make my head explode. I realize that I said that I would do a lot of the things that people normally don’t want to do, but I couldn’t have predicted the mind-numbing boredom that awaited me. Let’s just say that by about 3:00 every afternoon I start to pray that the clocks stop their evil tricks and start to move a little more quickly, lest I end up face-planted on the keyboard, snoring. Naturally I would wake up with the alphabet in qwerty all imprinted on my pretty face and then I’d have to stop all the raging nerds I work (and live) with from plugging my head into their computers because really, wouldn’t it be so totally cool to have a human keyboard? Really? While this might make for more exciting times in my temporary job, I’d be happier with maybe getting to puzzle out some data once in a while, or hey, maybe it would be good if I just got to actually collect some data. Or maybe if I was allowed to finish a calibration, and figure out why it went the way it did without having some NMR jockster hang over me and say, “Oh, use the Magic Shim file that D- wrote, because it always works for him,” even though he knows full well it doesn’t. And if I show up in the X-ray lab one more time and get told, “The structure is finished, you just have to clean up the disorder and the solvent and the……..” in other words, the crap part. I don’t get to tell the student/prof what the structure is because they already know that. I get to make it pretty and number the atoms and deconvolute the messy bits. While this is important, it isn’t the part of the story that gets the pat on the back.

Here, look at Katie in the snow. It's a nice diversion.

On the other hand, yesterday I did have an interesting conversation about a Pd(0)-catalyzed reaction that resulted in a Zwitterionic ligand. That was cool.

Okay, you see that? That was the coolest part of the last two weeks. Now I know that Hub reads this thing and that he’s sitting there thinking of things for me to do where I don’t have to interact with/be told what to do by the other boys in the lab. I don’t mind the other boys, and they don’t mind me. We get along fine, as long as they get to do their little things, and I get to do…..well, whatever it is that girls do. Maybe instead of doing anything that has to do with spectrometers tomorrow I can write a manual instead, and hang out in the X-ray lab because that boss is off to get some synchrotron beamtime and I can pretend I run the place, which mostly means that I get to tell everyone who comes in there that no, J- isn’t here and he won’t be here.

I know that I’m blaming work for the ennui. If I figure out the real problem I’ll let you know. Or maybe these guys know what's bugging me:

In an interesting twist of fate, the following is the Dictionary.com word of the day:

rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun: Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant.

Stop the world, I need to get off and get a drink

So you know, if I write a bunch of garbage about completing structural analyses and tuning probes and whatever else it was I wrote about in that last post (except the kids, because they were cute) then you know that life is going faster than I'd like it to go, and I don't exactly have the words to explain what the devil is going on. Plus it's February, the cruellest month, even if it had a most excellent lunar eclipse. That is not enough to pull one out of the giant blue funkorama that February is. I am positive that I am not the only person to talk about this, so I'm going to leave it be, although I had a rather down day and I'm sort of half-drunk now so if this turns into a blathering self-indulgent fest feel free to leave your computer for the mindlessness of HNIC. If it's still Saturday night and you're in Canada. If not, then the CBC is not in your reach and the internet will have to do you and I'm sorry because you won't be able to listen to the song, and the song is the thing that rings in Saturday night. If you're young, then it's sort of time to get ready once you hear the song, and if you're older then it's either time to put the kids to bed or else it's time to get some beer or it's time for tea or it's time for bed.....or it's time for that Saturday night thang, because by the way, you're older.

Okay, so this week bit those brass monkey balls. This week my dad almost died, but not quite, because he's my dad who's been cheating death for years now, and he's done it again. By Sunday, he'd not peed for three days.

That's sunk in, right? Three days? If it had been even 24 hours, would you not be begging everyone around you to take you to the hospital absolutely right now because something somewhere is not working and all the liquid in your body is pooling...in your body? Of course you would. But if you're my dad then you deny that this is happening. "I'm fine, this will clear itself up." Never mind that you only have one kidney. 72 hours and one kidney and no pee? Panic, and maybe a tiny bit of frustration. Perhaps you're feeling bloated? Oh no, not my dad, who says that he's seeing his own GP on Monday anyway, let's just wait and see what she says. Can I just remind you that my dad is a trained EMT? this helps everyone else, except him, because he will ignore every symptom in the book and then lie about the rest of them. Anyway, when he did see his doc on Monday, she sent him off to Emerg, and he went there, barely with the world.

He has apparently cheated Death again as I said, in that they've figured out that heart failure, not kidney failure, is his problem, but that the fluid that would have normally gone to his lungs and drowned him has instead just sat in his body, because he takes drugs to clear his lungs. Drugs that are apparently no good for the kidneys. Or kidney, as in his case. So now he's in the hospital still, and things are clearing up a bit, but he's confused and saying unusual things, which is new, and his body is mad because it's all screwed up, and my sister the ICU nurse is mad because his nurses are useless in her estimation, and my stepmother is doing what she does, which is coping.

We'll go and visit when he's home, March break I think, and with luck he'll last another six months or so before this entire mortal coil gives up its fight and we have to go for a funeral. I just want the kids to see him when he's up and available for a conversation.....they've lost two family members already in the last six months, they're getting used to the fact that people die. Still, they should see him.

Speaking of my dad and his one kidney, I have a new audiologist who is totally awesome and who is fitting me with hearing aids that are going to break the bank (real cost, $3100 each...but with extended health and OHIP, we cut that total number by $2K, i.e. $4200 for the pair.) but with luck I will be able to hear way more clearly. It turns out that the embryonic tissue that makes the heart and kidneys and the like also make the auditory bits. It turns out that it is very possibly an hereditary problem. Yea. Or yuck, since there's nothing I can do about it. I did surprise the audiologist, however, because during my tympanic test my results were not normal. I can take noise with masking into an ear, but the same noise blasted into the opposite ear is very bad and I get angry and rip the earphone out of my head. Same thing on both sides, which is apparently not normal and she'd never seen it before. I make no claim on normalcy and in fact, perhaps this indicates that my problem is not my hearing but my brain. This is no consolation by the way, because knowing that your brain is wacky just isn't a source of comfort, you know? Another weird thing is, and I have asked several people about this, and it turns out that being able to unfocus your hearing is not in the normal realm. What I mean is that I can be half-listening to something and let my brain shift it a bit, so that it sounds sort of like a foreign language even if it's English. I thought everyone could do this, like unfocussing their eyes. Apparently no, people do not "unfocus" their ears. Well, people don't. I do.

On top of the (full cost) $6200 ear things, I also will pick up my new glasses on Monday. These have "progressive" lenses.....those unlined bifocals. I don't really really need glasses, but I've been having a slight problem with seeing lately. Very slight. I can see in the distance, but I have an astigmatism and so I sort of don't focus well on anything in the distance, and then of course I have those "old eyes" that would prefer to have reading glasses, thank you very much. Progressive lenses are the two in one kind that take care of the distance and the reading in one. Oh happy day. Cost prior to extended health benefit: $500.

Welcome to my $6700 head, not counting dental benefits, which if I'd had braces as a kid would of course up the ante, but we will just not go there. As an adult, I should not need to spend so much money just to function day to day like a regular person.

Okay? We're up to speed now? My dad didn't die and I need all this expensive headgear. Other things too, spiritual and religious things did and didn't happen, but these are things I need to keep to myself for now. Regular life is a bag of dirt.

Oh, and I went to work too and people are saying remarkably good things about me. I mean, amazing things, where experts in their fields are coming to me in the hallways and introducing themselves and saying how pleased they are that I've joined the staff, that they're happy we'll finally get some real work done now. Yeesh. Guess I'd better figure out what it is that I do.

You're Not the Boss of Me

On Monday morning while Hub and I were walking along to work, it occurred to me, and I made the observation, “I am not the boss.”

For those of you who don’t know me, this might seem like an innocuous enough statement, since most of us actually aren’t the boss. There’s usually a higher-up who’s going to turn around and tell you what to do and when it’s due and how they want it done.

My last nine years of work, I told me what to do and when it was due and how I wanted it done. And I told other people the same thing, a lot. I was the boss. I made the decisions. I ran the place to my liking, and I made the standards. I hired, and I fired, albeit the latter happened only once.

Well, now I’m not the boss, and that’s half okay. On the half where I don’t know as much as everyone else, it’s fine not to be the boss because I don’t want to make any wacky decisions that will send people’s research into a massive unforgiving tailspin. I have a lot to learn, a lot of training to do, and so not running the place is great with me. I spend a lot of time around big expensive superconducting magnets, and the software to run these things has changed since I last did any of this work. One of the magnets is older and isn’t shielded as well as the others, so the stray magnetic field is strong and it extends out further. (If you know anything about magnetism, when I’m underneath the thing I’m getting hundreds of gauss, according to Hub.) It’s enough to magnetize a quarter so that it will attract another quarter. It’s also enough to knock out my hearing aids, which is kind of funny unless you’re me and you have to keep replacing the batteries every time you get out from under the magnet. It is the scene of much amusement…..reaching underneath to adjust the shims on the magnet, suddenly my hearing is gone. Look up to check the computer screen to see if I’m getting close to the shims, hearing good. Hearing gone, hearing good, hearing….gone…because batteries can’t take that too often. So I spent the rest of the morning asking people to repeat themselves and making up my own jokes out of what I thought they’d said because I couldn’t hear anything. Tres amusent.

That lab, I don’t mind not bossing. In the other lab, I mind it very much. I used to run a lab very similar to that one, and I made the rules…but the person who runs this lab lets other people come in and dictate his time, and thus, they think that they’ll also dictate mine. The lab has to run completely differently because it’s an X-ray crystallography lab, and most people don’t know very much about crystallography except that they want the structures of their molecules and they want them now, because now is when they’re used to getting their data. Sadly, things do not work this way, even if the boss has made it seem as though this might happen. People have been fooled, or they’ve been coddled into thinking that they can make demands on our time.

For example, when it is time to eat lunch, it is time to eat lunch. It is not any other time, because if it were another time, it would not be time to eat lunch. Lunch is a very important time of the day, and there is really nothing that should stand in the way of lunch. Lunch should not be delayed by profs who want their four year-old data, no matter how much you like said profs and no matter if they are friendly and funny. They are neither of those things when they are standing in the way of lunch, and unless they are offering to buy lunch and are talking to you on the way to the place that provides lunch, they are in the way, and that is bad. It is bad enough that after five minutes of assuring them that you will dig up their data and re-solve it and get it into a publishable form before the end of the week, you have had enough of their friendliness and either want them gone from your sight or would like to see them carving up an arm or something for you to snack on while the conversation continues. And continue it will, until you finally just tell them that they have to leave because all the boys have gone for lunch and now I am late and at lunch you have to tell one or both of your new bosses that they cannot allow this any more and that when it is time to eat, it is time to eat and it is not time for consultation or talking on the phone or reading email or answering email or anything else.

Lunch, or eating time in general, is one issue. My other issue is with students. I do remember being a student, and I remember the supervisor who wants the data yesterday, when you’re so hung over that you don’t even know what yesterday was made of, never mind where the data is, and could you please please stop talking to me all the time? I also remember being panicked because I didn’t have new data that week because nothing had worked and I’d spent the week regenerating solvent stills and cleaning out a glove box and a fridge and a fume hood, so data wasn’t forthcoming from the cleaning but might be next week, COULD YOU PLEASE STOP BUGGING ME….but that was me as a student. There are other students who do their work one piece at a time, and so when there’s a slowdown in the data, there’s nothing to do except wait, impatiently, for the data to come. So this week, when Student A and I were setting up an experiment and we did it wrongly because neither of us knows the software very well and we screwed up Student B’s data integration, “Oh Well,” is what I thought, because B must have something else to do while A collects his data….the computer can’t be rebooted during A’s data collection, which is what needed to happen. This did not deter the mighty B, who was in the lab for most of the day, wanting his data. The re-integration didn’t work because the thing hung up right at the spot where A and I jumped in with the wrong command. So there’s nothing you can do, you have to wait until A’s data collection is finished. I said, “B, this is not happening today,” whereupon he replied, “Okay then. Tomorrow,” and walked out of the lab.

Two things: 1) B left before I could reply, but no, Tomorrow is not when A’s data collection will be finished. Day after tomorrow, too bad so sad. 2) I didn’t work on the “tomorrow” that B meant, so I couldn’t tell him to get lost.

See, if I were the boss, people would not be allowed to bug me like this. If I were the boss, I’d not spend my time in that lab, and I’d hide in my office. If I were the boss, I’d tell people that when I’m meeting with someone to work on some interesting experiments we’re performing, you do not get to join us and bug me about your data, because your data is not my concern when I’m meeting with someone else, and your rudenss is overwhelming me.

Sigh. I am not the boss.

Ooooh, Scary Boys and Girls, Very Scary

Remember Monster Chiller Horror Theatre from SCTV? Remember Joe Flaherty playing Count Floyd? If you don't then you are very young or you didn't pay any attention to the greatest show on television. Count Floyd used to try really hard to convince us that a particular Bergman film (for example) was terrifying.....usually with no success.

So Happy Halloween, now that you've got an old tv show in your head.

I knit a little earwarmer, akin to a headband but it's got a button closure. The pattern and yarn are from a kit sold over at Redlipstick, but you'll notice that Staceyjoy's button is much closer to the end of the earwarmer than mine is. This is because I apparently have a freakishly small head, and so in order for the thing to fit me I had to move it in a ways. I'm going to move it back out and it and the accompanying bracelet will be a little holiday gift, possibly to one of the children's teachers.



I am attempting to find my place in the universe, and this is a difficult thing, to attempt to figure out where you belong when you no longer belong where you used to. That's a bit of a convoluted sentence, but since I'm not a practicing scientist any more, what the heck am I? Still analytical and scientific in my approach, but I don't get paid for it. Finding my way I suppose, and it's hard to put it all into words because right now there aren't any. I could change careers but I don't feel any real motivation to do that. It's possible that I'm depressed although I don't feel badly at all, I sleep well and eat well and don't do anything to extreme. I get some exercise but I'm slightly lazy in that regard and don't try very hard to get a lot of exercise.

I must sound very boring, and perhaps I'm depressing you with my normalness. I'm actually not boring at all, I'm just trying to indicate that depression is not my reason for not talking about what I'm thinking. What I'm thinking is that I have no great desire to do paid work. At all. I love volunteering. I love helping people out, and I love the freedom of saying no if I need to do that. I do not love obligation, in fact it's a burden I have no desire to carry.

Important reading material added: you'll see a link to What is Stephen Harper Reading, a blog kept by Yann Martel. Go there.

Resistance is Futile

Within the next 24 hours or so, I will find out whether or not academic (albeit staff academic, not faculty) employment is in my future or not. On one hand, of course I'd like the job and its associated paycheque, and I'd like to be among the land of the living (read: thinking) again, and I'd like to take a research centre that desperately needs a facelift, and give it one. On the other hand, I like being at home and doing whatever I want to do, almost all of the time. There are other hands that are in between these two extremes, i.e. employment and non, but I'm only one person and two hands are all I have.

If I don't get the job, I need to evaluate my skills and see where they'd be best applied. So let's see...what am I good at?

1) I am excellent at assessing a situation, considering all opinions brought forth by other people, and coming to conclusions that are well thought-out, articulate and intriguing. Sadly, I am able to do these things after removing myself from the situation: replaying all of the conversations and nuances of body language, and synthesizing all the verbal and non-verbal information into a cohesive conclusion. It usually takes a good four or five hours for me to do this, and sometimes it takes a lot longer.

In other words, while I'm very good at observing and analyzing, I am terrible at thinking on my feet. I'm pretty good at thinking on my ass, which is handy if I only communicate with people via the written word.

This is a major contributor to the fact that I interview like a brick.

2) I am really excellent at telling people what to do, especially when I've got legislation or some other kind of regulation behind me. I have all the confidence in the world as long as I know that I'm right, and as long as I can back up my directives with rules made by other people, or even rules made by me. Unfortunately, learning the legislation and/or rules is mind-bogglingly boring. All the same, I can usually pick it up in one read-through; for example, I read the collective agreement at my former employer in one evening, and was able to pull some of the more obscure articles from it without hesitation during negotiation discussions.

3) I don't waste any time with small talk, so if I need something from you, I knock on your door and ask for it. I do this even if you've been away for three weeks on the vacation of a lifetime, and you want to tell me all about it but won't until I ask, which I won't, because I need to do what I need to do, and I need to do it now, but you have the only Philips screwdriver in the department, and after you give it to me and I finish my task, then I might ask you about your vacation if I don't have something else to do. In other words, smalltalk is on my terms and I'm usually too busy to bother with it. While this is a good trait for assembly-line work, it gets less useful as one climbs up the ladder, since managers tend to have far less to do than assembly-line workers. In the business world I'd be seen as a bit squirrelly, but in science I'm normal. I'm even outgoing.

4) I am fair, and I can't be bought. Or, well, I can, but I'm very expensive and not really worth it, so mostly I can't be bought. Need that analysis done yesterday? Very interesting. Maybe you should have brought me your sample yesterday.

5) I will tell you what I think, especially if you ask.

6) I am not ambitious, I will not steal your job out from under you or make myself look better than you so that I can get ahead. I work hard because I like to work hard, not to show anyone else up.

7) I'm pretty smart, and I learn new tasks fast. And then I make them better. I can improvise if I don't have the tools I need.

There are other things, but these are what came to me this morning as I was putting wood filler into the cracks of the bathroom door this morning, in preparation for painting the thing. I am ridiculously direct, forthright, and pushy, while at the same time appearing (in the physical sense) to be sweet and easily manipulated. I find that people are always looking for my "soft side" as though I'm faking all the rest, and really I'm just a sweet darling. Truly people, I'm not a sweet darling, and I really am pushy and direct and I'll do what I can to get what I want, short of lying or deceiving, because those are not available options in my repertoire of Things I'm Good At.

For three years I worked for a chemical company, and after the first three months it was the most stultifying job I have ever held. My brain was totally on hold as I tried to work past the sales people and the marketing nutjobs, and past my own boss who had an unhealthy obsession with me. Product development was an oxymoron, and research amounted to putting old products in new packages with an updated MSDS. I felt insecure and stupid all the time, because I couldn't get a handle on what was really going on at the company, and yet I was slated for a promotion out of technical development and into management before I left to go back to school. Insanity!

Soon though, as I said probably within the next 24hours, I'll learn my fate. Am I to return to the hallowed halls of doing whatever the hell I want for a paycheque, or will I remain a sahm and will we eat a whole lot of rice and beans while subsisting on one paycheque brought home by hub? Stay tuned.....

Update (14:07): The pfo letter was in my mailbox. C'est dommage.

Procrastination Nation

I have been feeling terribly unsettled, and it should come as no surprise to anyone, especially me, that I'm procrastinating. I don't have much opportunity for procrastination any more, seeing as I don't have to report to an employer and nobody puts constraints on my time but me, but lately, I have been putting something off.

Remember the last post ended with, "And now I will figure out exactly what it is I do"? (or something like that). Well, I've not been figuring out what it is that I do very much. I did take a glance at a book and realized that all of that science-y stuff is still in my head, so that part isn't a problem. What I've not been doing however, is talking science. It would be handy if on Wednesday I don't talk like a complete idiot when I'm being interviewed. It would be good if I sounded as though I actually cared about getting this job. Which I do, don't get me wrong.

There's a lot of other stuff going on of course, and I don't know how to divide my time. I used to know how to do this. When I had no time at all to spare two years ago, I used every minute and everything got done. Now that I have lots of spare time, I don't want to do anything.

I don't think this is atypical.

Rather than spend a lot of time lamenting my fate though, I'd prefer to talk about something that pops into my head every once in a while, and which I find amusing.

I often think about what it would be like to live in a different era, to "time travel" back and, knowing everything I know now, live for a few days with the regular people of that time. The other day when I was walking up the hill to get the kids from school (1.2km, up) I was thinking about what it would be like to be transferred back to 1950-something. In the movies, women from this time are portrayed as poufy dress-wearing, wasp-thin waist types, who did nothing but keep house and wait for their man to get home from work, and look after the children. I'm thinking of the middle-class here, seeing as that's my station more or less. So if I get to live in the early 50's, with my little housedress and my current cooking skills, and some husband-guy who refers to women as "dames" and expects his shirts pressed and a spotless house...well, already the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end. Firstly, I think of dresses as dressing up, so I'd be looking for some pants, pronto. Secondly, I am not demure and I tend to swear like a sailor if I can't get what I want. Thirdly, if all I could get at the grocery store were various cuts of meat, "steak spice" and potatoes, dinner would get darn boring really fast. Finally, the whole relationship equality discussion would probably get out of hand.

Usually, what happens in these scenarios is I get arrested after getting into massive arguments with people of the time. Or I get tossed into a psychiatric hospital because my futuristic outlook is frightening. Unfortunately, I never end up with people who might be looking to the future, or looking beyond their dinner plates. I don't transport myself to living with Hollywood types or Beatniks (and even then, the chauvinism was appalling), or the scientists of the time. I put myself in the middle of the middle class, cooking dinner for hubby and raising the children and wiping down every speck of dust before I go completely barking mad from the boredom.

This selection from the Spiegel catalog comes with a funny little commentary (if you ignore the typos) about dressing in the 50's. The person who added the commentary indicated at one point that if we think models are thin now, just look at these girls, they have to hold each other up! and it's true. The 19-inch waist? I don't know how you get that, I've certainly never had one.

Where does one go to eat? Supper Clubs? Why on earth would I go out to eat food that I can make myself ... only better? I'd have to drop that idea really fast if I ever wanted to go out for dinner again though.

Making Oneself Sound Like a Superhero

I am applying for a position that is non-academic, because I saw the ad and thought, "Whoa. I can do that!" What I am stymied by, however, is the amount of work it takes to reorganize my CV to make it into a resume, and to write a one-page cover letter that's all buzzwords and catchy phrases.

I can submit a CV and cover letter as arid as the desert and still get an academic interview. Since the Canadian scientific community is a small one, everyone who's got any interest in the fact knows full well that I'm not working, that I didn't get the other position I applied for and was expected to get, and that the other position at another nearby university is also perfect for me. That doesn't mean that I'm the only candidate who's suitable for the job, it only means that many people know that I've applied for the job and could fit in well, even though the department is known to be difficult.

Applying for a non-academic position (in this case it's with the provincial government, which is as close to academic as you can get....except for maybe the federal government) is a completely different hairball of wax. The position itself doesn't indicate that you need any special degrees, so I moved the education part of my newly-created resume to the end of the document. No need to frighten the masses with my degrees, although quite frankly I'm not so impressed by them. That's my own self-deprecation talking, and it talks loudly. Do I put a placating sentence in the cover letter, asking them to not be threatened by the fact that I have a PhD? That probably sounds condescending, but people without a PhD think that a big degree is a big deal. Quite frankly, I completed that degree because there was no choice for me, I was driven to do it and I loved my work. It's just something I did, just like there are some people who skydive or spend weeks on a boat; I wouldn't go near these things. Obtaining a PhD doesn't make one freakishly smart, and when talking to me you wouldn't necessarily know that I have one unless you happened upon my area of expertise. I don't think it should be an issue for this job, but I suspect it will be.

I am also having a great deal of difficulty making myself sound fantastic in one page. I use too many words ... yes, I know, this is a surprise. I have a ton of experience that indicates that I can do this job, and yet picking one thing to illustrate that has become a chore. How does one show that they can solve all the inherent problems in a governmental department (it's a management position)? For example, prove that you can work with people from many different levels and get them on the same page for a particular issue so that you can move forward. I've done that more than once. Prove that you've done curriculum development and implemented training strategies, you know a lot about adult learners although you won't be doing the teaching, you'll be implementing the teaching, prove prove prove, and yet do it in a short amount of space and then make your resume fill in the blanks. It's not as easy as it seems, and I've coached other people on these issues but applying them to my own situation is much more difficult.

Why is it difficult for me? It's not like I don't know the answer to that: I hate making myself sound amazing. I think we're all amazing and that I'm not more amazing than anyone else. While this equitable thinking is great for day-to-day existence, it sucks when you're trying to get a job where no one knows you.

I have until Monday to put this thing together, and I've already been slogging on it for a couple of days now. I tend to think a lot and then write in bursts, rather than sit and agonize over every word. I'm waiting for some kind of divine intervention perhaps, although I don't believe in that kind of thing and mostly just wait until the words come together in a perfect way in my head. They usually do this, but often at the eleventh hour. Without the increasing pressure of a deadline, I'm a blank, and as the deadline approaches I am more and more motivated to eloquence. I hope.

More Nonwork Angst

Yes, I could post more often, but no, I haven't felt like it. The weather has been too good, or too violent, or there haven't been enough things happening or there's been too much happening, or other excuses...make some up for me, they'll probably be accurate.

Tomorrow I go to an EI seminar where they're going to nag me about getting a job. Don't get me wrong, getting a job is high on my priority list, but I don't need help with getting a job, and I don't need the condescending attitude of people who are trained civil servant and are trying to get rid of all their "charges" so that the unemployment statistics go down and the gov't thumps everyone on the back. I realize that when I read, "This session starts at 9:00 a.m. sharp, anyone who arrives after that time will not be admitted," that this has been written for people who maybe aren't so good in the morning or who can't be bothered to be in a specific place at a specific time, or maybe for people who are, you know, truant for a living. That it's not written for the professional-type (or someone who can actually tell time) or someone with an analytical mind or someone who can read or someone who loved school, but for people who are working the system. Maybe. It didn't occur to me that being at a conference would preclude me from working, or make me unavailable for work, in fact, just the opposite, but I'll have to explain that because I didn't realize that there was provision for being absent on the claim form.

That probably sounds stupid on my part, and I'll admit that it is. If one is not sitting by the phone waiting for The Manager from SmartSet to call, how then is one available for work? You cannot be available if you're in another city, whooping it up at the Bruker Mixer, except for when you're chatting it up with the President of Bruker and having to admit that no, travelling 80% of the time cannot fit into my lifestyle.

Clearly, I am working myself up into a frenzy over this, which is likely nothing. I have been applying for jobs, but not more than one a week because if there were that many jobs available in my field I'd be doing backflips all the way to work. I am to some extent, not particularly employable in the general working world; I could go back to industry if there was something that caught my fancy, but my industrial experience is many years old and prospective employers aren't necessarily interested in it. My academic experience is somewhat esoteric, and not widely applicable, although I am capable of thinking and moving beyond my direct experience and applying my ability to problem-solve to another area. Thing is, how to prove that? It would turn out that my particular scientific talents are more useful to an engineering environment rather than, say, a pharmaceutical one (I wouldn't even bother applying for a job at a pharmaceutical company. I am not an organic chemist, and I have no interest in anything they do. Oh, and I think that about 60% of the industry is morally reprehensible, and I'm probably being really really conservative in that estimate.) but I'm not an engineer and I don't have the "papers".

My bigger problem with industry isn't the job-finding because I'm sure that at some point I could become employed. My problem, and yes, this is only going to prove that I am a total intellectual snob, is the stupidity. I cannot work with stupid people. I don't mean the "guys (gender non-specific guys) in the plant/on the floor/wherever they are" because these people generally know their jobs, know their machines, know exactly what can and can't go wrong, and know it better than any techhie or management type. I have total respect for the guys in the plant, just as I have total respect for administrative assistants (formerly secretaries) because they facilitate my professional career by doing the things that I have no time or capacity to do. I write a report, they make the report readable, and I bow before their particular skills and pay homage to their ability to turn my convoluted explanations into "excellent written communication" (which I always say I have by the way, whether it's true or not.)

No, it's the marketing people. The sales people. Management. It's the people with their heads so far up their asses they're actually inside-out. They lie to customers and then expect the people in the back room to be able to comply with their lies. "So Hilary, you know that AX401 lubricant formulation that we've been working on? Well, the customer had a problem with the odour when the product was heated up to 4000 degrees. Apparently there was a bit of smoking too, does that always happen? They've decided they want to use it with nylon, not polyethylene, that might make a difference. I said you could take care of all of this by Wednesday next week, and write up a full report. You can do that, right? Because I'm going on holidays and I said you could do it. I'll give you the contact information too. And Manager W says that she's sure you can handle this, it's just a few minor changes." naturally this is a voice-mail message, and an email. No direct contact has been made with me because Salesperson knows full well that they've just dumped a year of work on my desk, and that I am the one who has to go back and tell Manager W and the customer that they're on crack and this isn't happening any time soon and what the hell is anyone thinking here and as it is that formulation took two years to perfect and yes, nylon, polyethylene, it makes a bloody great difference ......... well, you get the idea.

Maybe by now the idea that you get is that I'm easily worked into a frenzy over small things, rather than getting the idea that I'm right. In my opinion both are correct. Without too many things to do, I do turn into a freak show about the smallstuff. And I am right about how things work in industry, where someone ignorant of a particular situation and yet who's in charge of that situation, makes promises that cannot possibly be kept. It's not just industry of course, that's just my experience. Hell, I've made academic promises that can't possibly be kept, just to get people to quit bloody bugging me. The difference there is that I'm saying that I can do something that I have no intention of doing, not that someone else will do what I know to be impossible.

So you see? Writing about all of this is a bit of a waste of space and air and your time, but this is what's going on. I will be very interested to see what happens in the little seminar tomorrow, and to discuss my case with an employment facilitator or whatever they call themselves (enabler perhaps). If I go in as the Objective Observer to study the behaviours of the people in the room, then maybe I won't break down and cry in frustration when they try to patiently explain to me that I should very much be waiting for that special call from The Manager rather than tripping off to high-tech and highly specialized conferences.

The only manager I want a call from right now is The Manager at Holt Renfrew, saying that I've been randomly chosen from a list of highly-qualified and underemployed and absolutely fabulous people (and how long a list do you think that is, really?) for a $20K shopping spree in their new flagship store in Vancouver, all expenses paid and you can stay for a week and never mind those pesky EI people, it's all worked out.

Professor Nomore

So I'm jobless. Another candidate was offered the position and has accepted it. I don't know who the person is or their background, and in fact I don't know anything about them. It could be anyone, someone who wanted to come home from the U.S. maybe. I will always have to compete with grad students from my PhD supervisor's lab, and from another lab in Calgary. I always knew that I wasn't the only person in the world that could do the job, even if several people told me that. I've had a number of comments along the lines of "they've made a very grave error" but there's no telling what they've done, until I know who they've chosen that wasn't me. The only question I have is in regard to the CFI application, because it's pretty clear that the particular grant they're after is for established researchers who have moved to a new department and need a particular piece of equipment that the department doesn't have. The established part is that which is important there, and one of the criteria that CFI lists is number of publications...now granted a new PhD could have as many as 10 papers, but I have over 50. It will just be interesting to see who it is. Hub says that if they strayed too far from the ad that I should talk to our lawyer, but I don't know if I could do anything like that. Well, I could certainly talk to the lawyer but I don't know if I would take it any further than that.

I found out about my pending unemployment on Tuesday, and while I needed to know something, I was still so shocked at not getting an offer....it was like having the wind knocked out of me and like I couldn't feel anything at the same time. I was certainly deeply upset, and I still am, although as of today (Thursday) it's not so much that I don't have that job, but that I don't have any job. I don't know what I am if I'm not a chemistry professor. I think I've written about this; I will have to figure out what I am, if not an academic. There are no jobs available right now within driving distance, even if there are five universities within driving distance. I could teach part-time at any of them (except the one at which I applied for a job, because that would be embarrassing) but that's not really what I want to do. I like teaching, but I don't like teaching exclusively.

Another twist of the knife is having to turn down my NSERC grant. Who the hell turns down research money? Oh, yeah, people who don't have a job.

My former employer is about to advertise my former job also. They weren't going to, because they would have had a UFA to replace me (University Faculty Award, for women or aboriginals) but the woman they chose was not successful in this regard. I can't face the commute back and forth between the east coast and "central" Canada, so I wouldn't consider going back there. Former Student says that the department there is hollow and mean now too; things have changed and not for the better.

A lot of things are going through my head, but for now I'm going to paint the bathroom and Little One's room, and rearrange the kitchen. And maybe dig up the back yard and build a new shed. And search Workopolis.com and Monster.ca for every job that might be marginally appealing, and look for courses to take that might make me employable.

It Ends with Little Fanfare

Or at least, thus far it is ending with little fanfare. Stay tuned, because tomorrow it really ends. "It" being the last of classes. I am trying to make a lecture for tomorrow, and I have thus far been slogging for three hours, with nothing to show for it. It's supposed to be an overview, and these are the easiest lectures to make, because I'm just summarizing everything we've done. Hmph. Not so easy for me when it's organic chemistry and when I'm changing the format to lump everything under slightly different headings. I should really be working on it, but I am distracted and anxious. It's Tuesday of the week after Things Should Be Decided at the academic institution at which I applied. It's been just over a month, could we please make a decision people? My life is hanging in the balance here and I need to know if I should apply for the job at the bakery up the road.

Quite frankly, there are days that I think that kneading dough all day would be the most fantastic thing ever. No big decisions, no grant proposals, no panic. Just yummy dough.

Last week I found out that my NSERC grant was renewed, so I'm safe there. I let the people at the possible new job place know that I'd secured my funding. This may or may not make a difference. Who the hell knows. It actually should, because then I can focus on the other huge proposal that has to go in this fall for the instrumentation necessary for me to do my work (and to help out with the work of others in the department).

Really. Should I worry? I should be far more confident than I am. I already have grant money (not a lot, but enough to get started), I know how to teach well, I have been on oodles of committees, I've graduated lots of students. On paper, and when I say all this, it looks like I should be a shoe-in, right? So how come I don't feel that way?

Maybe because I interviewed like a brick. Granted, a lighter brick than usual, but still, brick. Sinking to the bottom of the river, fast.

So, in order to focus on the lecture for tomorrow (which I am clearly doing as I write the blog entry) I have decided that beer is the best aid. In the last 10 minutes, I have gulped one of these darlings, (Tankhouse Ale) and I am soon to open another. I think that will be enough, as one has to be careful to maintain the fine line between focussed and loaded. I don't have to cook supper because I went to the poultry market and picked up one of their chicken pies, which are better than any chicken pie I could make (and I make fantastic pies. That bakery idea? It's not half-baked.) and besides, cooking tonight would be a waste of an hour. Not that it matters because I can't think to save my life tonight.

In other news, I am attempting a more local diet. This means buying food as close to home as possible, within 100km if it can be done. Obviously vanilla won't be within the radius, and if you think I'm giving up vanilla you are on crack...it is the most necessary baking flavour ever extracted. Spices all around are a bit of a problem, except for those we can grow, which right now we can't especially because it's supposed to snow all weekend. Hello! Easter here! Easter Bunny would rather not hop through the snow to deliver the baskets! but whatever. I won't care, I'll be done classes and note-making. Dear Sweet Christ Upon The Cross I am so glad I will not have to do this any more.

At least, until the next time I have to do it.

I shouldn't even be thinking about hearing about the job this week anyway. Once the dept makes the decision, it has to be okay'd by the dean, and that won't happen immediately...especially if it's me and the dean says, "Why are you picking the person I didn't meet? I liked the other one better." .... and in the interest of my sanity, we will not go there.

OH! it's also the week of course evaluations, my most very favourite time. Actually, it's not so painful as first term, and we just got those evaluations a week ago. What a farce. This term we're making the students do paper evaluations rather than the online fiasco they did first term, and so the secretary types up the comments and I get them same day. So let's see, from the grab bag: "She's totally unapproachable for questions, doesn't welcome them at all." "She's so helpful and always answers every question." "Excellent prof." "I can't stand her."

The class is bonkers? No, this is typical, especially of first year. In upper-year classes I get excellent reviews because by then they realize how lucky they are to have me as their prof. That's not ego talking (see fourth paragraph. I don't suffer from egocentricity.) because it's true. Mostly, I will answer all of the questions put to me, even the stupid ones that show me you slept through the entire term. "Mostly" because there are some questions that are so insane that I get offended. Apparently when I am offended, you don't need to be told how I feel, it comes off of me in waves. Even if you are useless at reading people, even if you can't understand body language to save your life, you will understand me. Instantaneously.

So this is where I am: anxiously waiting to hear whether I am still a prof or not. Anxious about tomorrow being the last day of class, and at 5:08p.m. I still have nothing to talk about tomorrow. Thus, we shall pour another beer and see if all this shite can be brought together to a coherent whole. If not, well, what the hell. They've already evaluated me.

It has come and gone

Time flies when you're having fun.

Yesterday was the academic job interview, and I didn't interview like crap like I usually do, I actually did okay for most of the day. Could be the cold drugs, that kept me happy and energized and ready to answer any and all questions....could be that I just loved the department and all the people in it that I'd do almost anything to work there. No, I wouldn't slide naked through the ice outside yelling "yeehaw!" but, well, almost anything. It's an excellent place, I'd love it.

I did do a few things that kept me awake all night thinking, "Why the hell did I say that?"....or maybe I was awake all night because my cold immediately tripled in intensity when I got home last night, so I nearly fell in the door in the evening.

Things started like this: I got up, and felt the full intensity of a headcold gone mad. Eyes gushing tears, head clogged up, disorientation. I don't do over the counter medication very well, but I gobbled down two Advil Cold & Sinus (lets you function without making you feel like you're wallowing in a drug-induced cloud) and hoped for the best. Tried vainly to apply makeup, gave that up completely and figured well, fuck it if they need me with makeup on, it's not happening today. Wore the prescribed black pants and turtleneck, and ended up with LaCanadienne ankle boots, because the weather forecast for yesterday said heavy snow, ice pellets, turning to freezing rain. Fantastic. Dropped off Big One at her friend's house so they could walk to school together, and indicating to the mum that if Hub couldn't get back in time, that she should bring Big One home with her. No problemo.

I made it to the U on time, and in fact got to to the Chair's Office with eight minutes to spare, which meant not going in of course, but going to find a washroom to hang around for five minutes (apply mascara? nah. by this point, I'd given up on that part of the day.) and then went back to the office. Quick chat with him, then with another faculty member who was so nice I just wanted to give him a warm hug (I didn't, come on now). Then gave my seminar, which went fine...I'm so used to talking in front of groups I don't get nervous about these things at all. Then a tour of the X-ray facilities in Physics, then lunch at the Faculty Club (not a pretentious place) then more visits, then the university closed for inclement weather.

Yeesh. We think. What the hell do we do now? So while they didn't have to, everyone on the selection committee stayed for the round-table discussion/grilling session.

I'd popped more advil after lunch, but was starting to show a little wear and tear around the edges by this point. My day was totally packed with visiting people, there was no break at all for me, and I'd been talking a lot all day. We started this round table thing at about 3:00, and by 3:30 my voice started to cut out. Not completely, I held on to the squeak until the end of that part, then went to talk to the grad studies advisor in the dept while they talked about me. Back for a last debriefing with the chair 30 minutes later, and after another 45 minutes with him, I was baked. It was 6:00p.m. and we weren't quite the only people on campus, but almost. He had cancelled dinner because I wasn't doing that well and because of the weather, so we walked out to the parking lot through the snow, both on the ground and the blowing icy/snow/crap that was blowing horizontally into our eyes. Luckily, I didn't quite have to dig out my car, just brush off a lot of the same crap (I told him as we were parting ways that this is east coast weather) then drive home through more of it, because the streets weren't plowed yet.

Got home, Hub took my coat, I tried to say hi to the darlings but all that came out was a squeak. Big One said, "Oh Mumma, you don't sound very good at all. You're very sick, you should go to bed." Which was true, but instead I put on my pajamas, tried to eat something and drank a nice big martini. At this point Hub told me that Big One got left at school until 3:45, and that the school had closed early. Turns out that they had tried to call me during the day but I didn't have my phone on during the interview so didn't know about that. Hub had called the mum (mentioned above) but she hadn't picked up her daughter, someone else had, and they didn't bring Big One. So the darling was left at the school with the principal until Hub got there, and he was late because it took two hours to drive the normal 45 minute route from work. I listened to this very carefully, and then I passed out on the couch.

I woke up at about 10:00 or so, emailed the chair to thank him for the interview and for the fact that the faculty stayed on to finish the interview even in the face of the university closure. I emailed another faculty member that I had called a pain in the ass during the round table (I do know him and he was being a pain, but generally, when trying to impress a group of people? you don't revert to swearing. In fact I'm pretty sure I swore four or five times during the course of the day, and let's blame it on the cold drugs, shall we? sure.) to apologize for my lack of grace under fire. He replied this morning with a don't worry about it, I figured you were just comfortable enough to say whatever you wanted. Whew. Did I mention loving this department?

Conversely, there is one guy who is a patented asshole, and while I'm pretty sure that I let on that he was putting me on edge (I don't cover up those feelings. I figure that people should get a good bead on the fact that they're dipshits, which he was. I don't think that he cared much though, he seemed pretty self-concerned.) I didn't call him anything other than his name. I did get to tell him that he couldn't mumble and that he had to speak directly to me to ask a question, however, and then I stopped him because while he was speaking more loudly, he put his hand in front of his mouth. You can't do that to a deaf person who relies heavily on lip-reading, and so I shook him up being very pointed in my directions. He needed the shaking. And his questions were bogus anyway.

Every single person that I met with separately said that they loved being in the department because everyone, without exception, is supportive of everyone else. It's like one big fuzzy group hug all the time. Quelle difference from my previous department, where all those big fish in small seas spent so much time trying to show up everyone else. This place has 19 (I'd be #20) independent faculty members, all of whom work on different areas of chemistry research, but all of whom rely on each other. They seem to get along remarkably well, better than any group I've seen.

I won't know anything until the beginning of April. I don't know what will happen with my NSERC grant in the meantime, because those results come out near the end of March. I'll hold tight, not worry about it because there's nothing I can do. I only fret about things that I could have done better, or about things I will do, but not about things where I have no control. They will interview three more people, and with any luck, the chair will reschedule dinner for us so I'll have another sort of "kick at the can" before the final decision is made.

And that's about it. I'm not teaching today because I can't talk. The kids did go to school, and Hub did drive down the road to work. Haven't heard from anyone so I assume all is well. It's 9:48 a.m. and I could go and lounge on the couch and watch tv, wait for the cold medication to start working, maybe clean myself up a bit. The other guys have to teach for me today because I'm sick......and at least I lasted the whole day yesterday. I couldn't have gone for dinner even if the weather had been good, but at least there was that excuse to cancel it. So now we wait.