RBOC

(Random Bullets of Crazy-Making)

• Increasingly shrill emails from GrAdvisor re: all the paperwork bullshit that I have to submit to ask for permission.
• Yes, yes, I am aware of it. I am waiting to include information from the ManuBeast draft which has been sitting on his desk for over a week.
• Deep breaths. Respond to content, not tone.
• Previously agreed upon criteria for permission-asking=ManuBeast submission. Did I mention that it's been sitting on his desk for over a week?
• One of the myriad check-boxes (which must be marked "yes" in order to grant permission) on one of the myriad forms that committee must sign says, "Is student taking responsibility for the project?"
• Where is the one that says, "Is advisor meeting commitments and responsibilities for the project?"
• I can't find that box.
• I might write one in.
• I don't think they'd notice.
• There is no way I will have time to finish edits, send draft to co-authors, wait for it's return and then submit the manuscript before this meeting.
• Did I mention that submission was the criterion for getting permission?
• Did I also mention that I didn't want to schedule this meeting so early?
• GrAdvisor will most likely step up to the plate on this one (he has done so before) and convince my committee to go ahead and give me the go ahead since we're just in the final text-editing phase anyway, but FUCK! I hate it when I can't meet the commitments I've made because of someone's else's actions which are beyond my control. I hate hate HATE looking like I'm the one who has dropped the ball.
• This is fucking hazing. It reminds me of being in bootcamp or something and being punished by the drill sargeant for not having something done yesterday that I was only told to do today. Completely illogical and non-sensical, but my fault nonetheless. Because redefining people's reality for them is what keeps them subservient.
  

Is this a bad sign?

Whenever I start thinking about any one of the following:

1. ManuBeast*
   
2. Dissertation**
   
3. Status report***

one of the little voices in my head**** pipes up with "HATE!HATE!HATE!STAB!STAB!STAB!"***** before I even get a chance to congeal my thoughts into something productive. It doesn't ever say anything more helpful than that. I wouldn't mind so much if it could offer something constructive. The interjection without any followup though is a little disconcerting.

*which is lingering in draft form on GrAdvisor's desk
**which I will request permission to begin writing very very soon
*** and other bullshit that I need to submit to grad school in order to schedule a defense date
****Yes, there is more than one. This particular voice sounds like a deranged Fraggle.
*****I am so not making this up.

Please sir, may I have another?

Holy crap! Do you guys have any idea how much extra time-sucking bullshit paperwork you have to submit just to *ask* for permission to write your dissertation!?!?

I did not. It's a lot!! It's taken me most of yesterday (and probably today too) to write and compile it all. My committee will be getting about 20+ pages of stuff (think they'll read it?) before the dreaded "ask for permission" meeting.

(On a side note, how infantilizing is it that one has to *ask for permission* to write one's dissertation? I mean, I understand the principle - it's good to have everyone on board that you're ready to be done some time before the defense, but couldn't they come up with a better way to phrase it? I passed candidacy years ago, I've worked my ass off and put up with a whole truck full of unbloggable bullshit and now I have to ask for permission to embark on this most heinous task?)

On the other hand, writing up a 6-page status report, plus timeline and a separate dissertation outline is making it clear that I *am* ready. We have previously agreed upon what needs to be done before asking for permission - check! - and what needs to be done before defending - on track! - so it looks (on paper at least) as if I might pull this off after all. The stupid checkboxes on the grad school forms still freak me out: "Are all essential experiments completed and all results known?" - Answer must be "yes" for permission to be granted. This is a new form and I think my committee will also be going "WTF is this shit anyway?" so yeah, here's hoping. Not all the results are known. But of the results that are not known, we will get a second paper out of them regardless of the outcome of the experiments - the results are interesting either way. So there.

Also, can you keep a secret? I haven't asked for or got permission to write yet...but I already started. Shhhh!

Today was a good day...

...and that's all I'm going to say about it for now. It's about time.

Epiphany!!!!

Ha! I totally got that breakthrough of original thought that needs to go in the discussion of the ManuBeast. It's about a week late already but I'll take it. I might need to go over some of my old data to see if I can't answer some of the questions this brings up but in short:

Fuck Yeah! I got this!

It goes to eleven

...but my anxietiometer is now pegged out at 12.

Here's why:

1. Advisory committee told me at my last meeting that I can have permission to write once the ManuBeast is submitted.
2. GrAdvisor and I are currently passing drafts of it back and forth.
3. I am also saddled with a whole lot of time-eating bullshit that is making it difficult to give the ManuBeast my undivided attention.
4. We plan on submitting it soon. Like now, soon, but given all the hiccups in the past year or so with this thing I am loathe to be counting unhatched chickens at the moment.
5. GrAdvisor wants me to schedule my ask-for-permission meeting now so we don't run into scheduling conflicts.
6. What if the ManuBeast isn't submitted by then?
7. I am supposed to schedule my defense ASAP after the next meeting so we can avoid scheduling conflicts.
   
8. What if they give me the "we want to see this accepted before you defend" ultimatum?
9. What if it's still in review at that time?
10. *Twitch*

Before everyone chimes in with the "your fears are irrational" chorus (yeah, they might be, but maybe not either) let me remind you that the decision to have me defend by the end of this year was precipitated by the dwindling funding situation in our lab. GrAdvisor doesn't want to pay me any more. Fine. I'd like to move on now too. But the fact that this event was impetus to say "OK, AA, you can be done now" is not exactly inspiring confidence in the idea that they are really ready to say, "Yeah, you've earned it." Instead it feels as if the primary reason for shoving me out the door now is to do GrAdvisor's bottom line a favor. *I* know I've earned it. But I've seen enough screwball decision-making around here in the last 5 years to have my trust in this system eroded more than a bit. Yes, I am terrified that this still might not work out as well as everyone seems to think it will in the end. There. I said it.

Motivation: What works and what doesn't

I was having an interesting discussion the other day with a friend (over beers of course) about why we're in science.

GrAdvisor is fond of saying, "Nobody gets into this field for the money."

He's right, but he's also in a position where it's pretty easy to say that money doesn't matter. He's a well-established tenured PI who owns a very nice house and a very nice car and makes enough to continue living this rather comfortable lifestyle. Not to mention that his salary is secure.

It's a different view from where my friend and I are at. We both really love doing science (or we wouldn't be here), but it's not so easy to be flippant about the pay. I'm starting to get kind of anxious about the next few years as a post-doc. It will certainly be a pay raise from my student stipend, but most or all of that increase will go towards paying off my (rather sizable) student loans. Our stipends here are under the estimated cost of living and I have no savings as a result. This doesn't keep me from wanting to continue in science, it just makes it pragmatically more difficult. I worry about how this is going to impact my future career (will I be able to afford to move to a new position? will I have the financial freedom to take a job that I like better over one that offers a higher salary?), and my life (like will I by able to buy a house before I'm 50? will I be able to save for retirement or will I have to work til I'm dead?), and just general stability (pre-tenure there's really not much in the way of job security - without any savings I can't afford a gap in employment).

My friend just started a new post-doc. She's loving it. Her new PI is the polar opposite of the former one, and the difference in management styles and people skills has had a marked impact on her happiness in the lab and most importantly her motivation. We were talking about how some PIs subscribe to the idea of competitive motivation - let people compete within the lab and you will encourage better faster work by offering authorship to the one who gets the results first. I've seen this backfire. Sometimes it results in fraud. Sure, falsifying data is a decision that the individual makes and that individual should be held accountable, but it just doesn't make any sense to me to foster an environment where falsification might appear to be a valid option. PIs who employ this "competition" management technique seem to believe that they are incentivizing hard work. That might work for some people (probably those that "win" the race), but what about those who lose? Seems to me that if you pit three post-docs against one another in a race for data, you're establishing a gamesmanship dynamic. Personally, I'm not interested in playing under those conditions and I suspect I'm not alone.

Other incentivizing techniques I've seen are less carrot and more stick. "If you don't get this paper/fellowship application/data set submitted by [arbitrary deadline] I won't let you attend conference/keep your job." Now, sometimes those are just the real life constraints and when that's the case them's the breaks, but I've also seen examples of people employing these kinds of threats just because they think it will make their trainees work harder.

It's these sorts that make me want to beat them over their heads with a clue-by-four. Most of us are not here because we're offered awesome material rewards - if that's what we wanted we wouldn't be doing trained monkey tasks for peanuts. We're here in the lab because we're curious. We want to figure things out. We want to make a career of figuring things out, so we're willing to make material sacrifices now to give ourselves the best possible chance of letting that happen in the future. In short, we're intrinsically motivated. Which is why sticks don't work any better than a competition for carrots. Personally, I find it rather insulting if someone implies that I'm not working hard enough, and even more insulting if they believe that chasing me around will make me want to work harder. I'm not a donkey. I'm too smart to be happy being a pack animal. I like to work for and with people who get this and who appreciate that this is why I'm here. If those people want to throw me a carrot from time to time I certainly won't complain. But I'm doing this job for myself, my future, and my own curiosity, not for the peanuts, the cookies or the carrots, or to escape punishiment.

I think that this video sums it all up rather nicely. Have a look - you won't be sorry.

Dan Pink makes the point that the best way to motivate people who perform creative problem-solving tasks under poorly defined or unknown rules towards a non-specified outcome (gee, sound like experimentation at all?) is to foster autonomy, mastery of skills, and a sense of purpose. This is in stark contrast to what motivates people to perform well on mechanical (non-thinking) tasks with narrowly defined rules towards a "right answer" type of outcome. Carrots and sticks work rather well in those cases, but very little of what we do actually centers on these kinds of tasks. This is all backed up by robust empirical data. (Squeee! Data!) I think it's something that most of us "know" intrinsically, but when so much of our managerial experience (from either the manager's or the managee's position) relies on the carrot-and-stick model it's hard for people to break out of the pattern.

It's also worth noting that relying on intrinsic motivators to inspire good work requires that the conventional extrinsic motivators (like pay) be "taken off the table". This does not mean that we shouldn't worry about paying people. It means that the people we're paying should adequately and fairly compensated for their work. If you are paid fairly and adequately then you're not spending your time worrying about making the rent or competing for the next big bonus, and you can focus that time and energy on (wait for it...) YOUR SCIENCE. Not only that, but once you're relieved of those pesky distractions like crap/unequal/unfair pay and inane competitions for worthless payoffs and pacifying the makers of obtuse demands or else!...you're more likely produce some really pretty good and innovative science.

Revolutionary!

You'd think I would have a grip on this by now...

I met with my FavoriteCommitteeMember (FCM) recently to discuss my post-doc options. I prefer to meet with FCM to discuss this because FCM is far more forthcoming with useful advice and observations than GrAdvisor in general, and in particular on this issue. FCM knows one of my PotentialPostdocPIs (P3) quite well, and I know that FCM could give me a more holistic answer to my question because of this.

I am really quite pleased that FCM was able to lay to rest some of my (admittedly very minor) concerns about this particular P3. I am feeling better and better about the possibility of joining this lab.

But a funny thing also happened during this meeting. FCM was reiterating all the reasons that ze thought I should join this lab. I'd heard most of them before since FCM recommended that I apply here in the first place. They are all true and demonstrate FCM's superior powers of observation wrt my career goals, as well as FCM's genuine interest in promoting *my* best interests. This is why FCM is my Favorite. But there is some self-sabotaging part of me that twists all of these observations into a destructive commentary on all of my (real or imagined) faults.

FCM says that this lab would be "good for me" because the P3 is still directly involved in the research, because my skill set would give me a very highly valued niche in this lab, because the P3 is an excellent communicator and treats lab people like people and team members, because the P3 has offered me a leadership role right off the bat, because the lab is small and I won't have any trouble getting the P3's attention when I need it...the list goes on. These things are all very complementary (and complimentary) to myself and/or the P3, and in my interactions with this person definitely hold true. All good things.

So why is it that when FCM says, "this would be really good for you because...", what I hear is, "you're not good enough to be able to hack it somewhere else"? This is patently ridiculous as this lab FCM is recommending is an excellent lab.

When FCM points out all of these things that will contribute to a really healthy working environment for me, why do I hear, "I know that you need all these things to be successful because it's so obvious that *you suck* in the situation that you are in now, without all these bastions of support"?

Why do I hear, "you really need someone who will be available/attentive/interested because..."? Because what? Because I need someone to hold my hand? Because I'm not independent yet? Um, no, I'm not. That's the whole point of doing a post-doc - to gain some more independence, and demonstrate this to future hiring committees. And when I look around I see that because of my rather distant relationship with GrAdvisor I have become a whole helluva lot more independent than most grad students I know. It is not unreasonable to expect that I will develop this independence much further as a post-doc and it makes sense to find an environment and a mentor that will foster this rather than throw up obstacles. That's all that FCM is saying. FCM knows me and knows P3 and sees that this might be a really good match for both of us.

So STFU Impostor Syndrome. I really don't need this shit right now.

List of Grrrrrr

I had a most relaxing weekend of awesomeness precipitated by the fact that I sent a draft of the dreaded ManuBeast to GrAdvisor at some late hour on Friday evening, freeing my weekend from the chains of editing. Now I am back at work, and decidedly cranky for a number of reasons:

1. I overslept, delaying my "Get My Ass Back In Shape By Running the 2.5 Miles to Work in the Early AM Program" by yet another day.
2. I arrived to find that GrAdvisor returned a mark-up of my draft already. I was hoping for a few more days respite.
3. I opened said markup to find that GrAdvisor has not commented on the problematic Discussion section, providing me with zero feedback where I need it most.
4. GrAdvisor has requested figure edits which include changing the font to one which is not supported by my figure creation software. WTF?
   
5. Also he wants to change numerous gene notations to completely non-sensical and non-standard notations that he seems to have just made up himself over the weekend. Wut?
6. Favorite post-doc candidate lab is no longer an option due to administrative bullshit at their institution. They still want me but higher-up crap slingers are making it impossible for this to happen on a reasonable time scale with respect to when GrAdvisor wants to get rid of me. This is extremely irritating.
7. Another post-doc candidate lab seems unable to come up with funding on the same reasonable time scale. Shit happens and this wasn't my first choice anyway, but it removes another option from the deck here.
8. Default front runner post-doc candidate lab is a good option still but has been a bit quiet of late so I'm not exactly sure where we stand. I would be happy there but I would like to be making a choice between this lab and at least one other, rather than taking it because it's the only viable option. In order to do this now, I must go on more interviews and get other offers. I am sick to death of going on interviews and I feel as if I have exhausted interesting/available labs in the area (constrained by Two Body Problem) with the exception of some labs at Clusterfuck University...which are not really very attractive options for eponymous reasons. Grah.
9. GrAdvisor is either unable or unwilling to offer any kind of advice or encouragement on the post-doc front other than "you need to get this sorted out soon." Thanks man, that's exceedingly helpful.
   
10. After three whole days of feeling like a "normal" person doing "normal" weekend things then returning to the the lab and associated feelings of stress and frustration that are "normal" for me, I am realizing that my current situation is a rather large contributer to my bad attitude and general pissed-offishness. I don't have to be like this all the time. Turns out I'm not actually a cranky bitch by nature (I know, I know, I'm utterly shocked by this too!). The devil lab made me do it. I need to get the fuck out of here.

For your amusement

Headline: The Faithful Ask Atheists to Take Care of Their Pets After the Rapture

I wish I'd thought of this.

Inexplicable

It is written, minus the couple of panels that are results pending. Today is D-Day. I will give a draft to GrAdvisor before I go home.

All I have left is one measly section of the discussion. This section (will) discuss the most important finding of the paper. The elusive finding that people in our little sub-sub-sub-sub field have been speculating wildly about for decades. I have found it.

And I seem to be incapable of writing about it. WTF? I can wax poetic about all the other (slightly less) interesting stuff. Several pages of discussion on that. But I have nothing to say about the MostImportantFinding. What's wrong with me?

Really, I think that the finding is just so blindingly elegant that it speaks for itself. You see the data and there it is. The conclusion is so bleeding obvious that I don't have to analyze/discuss the hell out of it in order for you to see it. It will jump off the page and hit you over the head with a baseball bat. So what the fuck is there to discuss? I hypothesized that I might get this result which will tell us X. I got that result; ergo, X.

But this will not do. I have to discuss this result because it is the MostImportantFinding. To say nothing further about it would mean that the reader might forget about the MIF while reading my discussion on the other findings. Usually I write a discussion section to answer the "what does it mean?" question. In this case it means "we always wondered about X, and now we know". This does not seem very interesting. I can't think of any further implications or speculations. (I'm sure there are some, but they are eluding me at the moment.) I think I'm getting myopic about this finding.

Ugh. I hate writer's block.