Kate runs the lab in which I’m a senior post-doc. Over the last three years she’s managed to work herself into a role where, basically, she runs the place. Me, I just tinker with things of which man was not meant to wot, and drink coffee from Azzuri’s (double shot espresso, one sugar). Oh, and I run the post-doc support group, although seeing the Royal is being refurbished I’m going to have to be a bit more creative about it.
Anyway, when I told the boss I’d be leaving at the end of February, there was a mad panic as he realized he’d have to replace Kate. Good post-docs are two a penny but lab managers who can keep things ticking over smoothly (and in the process save thousands of a year—remind me to blog that some time) are highly sought after.
So yesterday, when we presented him with a copy of this weeks Nature, he read it, giggled, laughed, and kept giggling for a while after that.
I think it was easier than crying. (And thanks to Maxine for the PDF. It’s going to be a poster at our leaving do.)
It is a very timely cover. Even I giggled a bit when I saw it on the Nature page, and your moving is totally irrelevant to my daily work.
Lovely post. And nice to see the distaff side fully appreciated. 😉
(The cover was actually made by the incomparable Charles Wenz, together with Art Editor Martin Harrison. Charles is Nature’s father- he of the teaching of en rules – and the longest-serving member of the editorial staff. He is the one who makes up those words on the cover, and writes the summaries of the papers that occur immediately inside.)
Har, har! Let’s hope the Grant application for entry into the UK goes without a hitch…!
Yes, sorry I didn’t make clear that Maxine just sent me the PDF.
Stephen, British passports don’t seem to carry as much weight as once they did (_Her Britannic Majesty’s_ &c. &c.) but at least they make getting into the country easy.
Stephen: our travel wallet contains seven passports as the girls and I have two each (UK and NZ). Considering the hoops Richard has had to jump through here we guard them jealously. Just have to remember to present the correct ones at immigration…
…which reminds me I should renew my long-expired UK one, so that I can swoop through the EU line next time I’m over there.
Good luck with the move. And yes, that cover is perfect.
…as a follow-on comment, what happened to Nature covers with scientific discoveries on them? Where are the never-before-described rainforest ungulates? The extinct aardwolf fossils? The deep-space phenomena with names like Bilstein KX-46B/2? All this moaning about grants and lab closings smacks of The Scientist (the magazine, not this blog).
Just wondering.
I want my sun-drenched, wind-swept Ingrid Bergman kiss. Not in the next life. I want it in this.
Richard W; I agree, but as I work there I daren’t say anything. So it’s just between you and me, right? Don’t tell a soul.
My new copy of Nature got delivered onto the floor next to The Scientist and I also was momentarily confused. But then, I enjoy reading that sort of stuff better than the research when I’m off-duty, so I don’t mind if Nature gets more ‘profession-y’.
Your secret is safe with me, gents.
@Jenny, do you think any relevant science gets published in Nature anyway?
Oh Richard, go and ask that on Friend Feed, they’ll love it 😉
(Kate, don’t suppose there is any chance you could leave him behind with all his incorrect passports, visas and work permits, is there?)
And there I was thinking that I’d be routed from Nature Network for that comment. Glad to hear that certain anonymous Norfolkians (or should that be “coots”?) agree with me.
(Tries again)
Maxine, I fight your corner on FF. And you know it 🙂
Too true, Richard – I do know. (Though still wondering why you started that particular thread in the first place 😉 ). I was joking among friends. It is, actually, rather interesting to see some people’s rather different stated positions on, say, Nature Network, Friend Feed, and Science Blogs. Makes me smile. You are most admirably consistent, and I hope that you take my comments here in the friendly spirit in which they were intended.
Of course I do, Maxine. And I might have been just a tad deliberately provocative on FF.
(Shut up, Wintle).
Maxine: Kate, don’t suppose there is any chance you could leave him behind with all his incorrect passports, visas and work permits, is there?
What? and deny all you lot his wondrous supply of
bloodyawfuljokesincredibly inciteful witticisms?Did I say anything?
Kate – as an alternative plan, you could ship him off to blighty, passports and all, and stay in Oz. That would let you avoid the
incredibly inciteful witticismsbloddyawfuljokes, although our UK-based NN friends might not thank you for it.Full of good ideas, me.
Brimming, Richard.
Post-doc support group?
Is that just me and you?
We’d better have this final beer before it’s too late.
Did someone say ‘beer’?
Restraint was exercised in the face of beer.
Go us.
Yebbut, we found pints.
Unlike good scientists we didn’t actually check the pintiness of the alleged pints though. Could have been another 540ml shocker.
Good point.
Do volumetric flasks even come in pints?
How the hell should I know? The last time I was in what you’d recognise as a laboratory was 6th form.
˙ǝʌɐɥ op ǝʍ sɔıɹʇǝɯnloʌ ǝɥʇ sǝsn oɥʍ ǝuoʎuɐ ʍouʞ uǝʌǝ ʇ,uop ı ˙ʎlsnoıʌqo ‘llǝʍ
Hmmm. Flight of the Conchords song lyric perhaps?
The binary solo from the Robots rule the earth song?
Um, no: turn your monitor upside down.