Memorable or Unmemorable?

What makes a person memorable or unmemorable? Two recent encounters got me thinking about this:

In the first encounter, I was in a store shopping for clothing. The sales associate at the register, who appeared to be around my age, was chatty. As she was finishing the sale, she remarked: "You look familiar. Did you ever work at Such-and-Such Store in Georgetown?"

Me: "Why, yes, I did. But that was like 15 years ago! And I wasn't there for very long. Why do you ask?"

Sales Associate: "I was working at Blah-de-Blah Store, next door to Such-and Such. I remember you. You were always so bright and friendly with the customers. And you have an unforgettable face."

Me, somewhat dumbfounded: "Thank you, I think. I thought I was just doing my job!"

I wasn't quite sure how to take that last part, but it seemed like a compliment. But ... really ... I'm not sure what to make of it. One doesn't remember the proverbial "pretty face" for 15 years, and I don't have that kind of face, anyway. In the three-drinks-into-happy-hour game of "What celebrity do you most look like?" I have been told at different times by different people that I bear some resemblance to Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, and Anne Heche (Tilda is probably most similar, IMHO), but I do NOT have their movie star polish. And without that, what's memorable?

We chatted a little more. She said she wanted to get out of retail. I said, yeah, I was glad I had left years ago. And then she tried to get me to sign up for their customer mailing list, which I politely declined.

In the second encounter, the girlfriend of the drummer of the more or less defunct band I more or less no longer play with ran into me outside of the context in which I have typically interacted with her. Typically, I have interacted with her in social settings -- band happy hour hangout, band rehearsal, drinks at someone's house -- but she never talks much. She's always fallen into the role more of Drummer Boy's arm candy than anything else. But she also bears some resemblance to those same actresses (though more Anne than Tilda, IMO). So, I ran into her in a work-a-day office setting, and she walks over to me says, "Hi, recent Ph.D.! Nice to see you! Blah blah blah."

Me: "Hello ... um .... .... ...... um ... I'm sorry, help me out here! Where do I know you from?" For the life of me, I could not place her face or remember her name.

Her: "Really, you don't recognize me? I'm Drummer Boy's girlfriend!"

Me, totally embarrassed: "Doh! I'm so sorry! This is so embarrassing. I'm really bad with names and faces!!"

For the record, she had changed her hair color since the last time I'd seen her, which was probably two months ago at least, but still ... I should have recognized her and did genuinely feel bad.

What makes someone memorable or unmemorable for you?

Full Circle Redux

Not too long ago, I blogged about how things had come full circle in the professional sphere of my life, just as New Think Tank reaches its first birthday.

Seems it is the season for that sort of thing. Two old friends I ran into recently, whom I hadn't seen in ... well, we won't say exactly how long ... made me think of how things have come full circle in other ways as well.

Both of these people I knew as an undergrad but lost touch with soon after graduating. The first had been a peer (same year, same major) and roommate. Towards the end of the year that we shared an apartment, she started dating someone I thought was a total asshat. I couldn't stand this guy! He was spending more and more time at our apartment, and it drove me nuts. I couldn't even tell you exactly what it was that I didn't like. Possibly it was intuitive distrust? Possibly it had something to do with them fucking loudly and frequently on the living room couch when I was trying to study for finals?

Like I said, I don't know exactly what it was I didn't like, but when the lease ended, I moved out. A year later, my friend dropped out and ran off with Mr. Asshat, and I lost touch with her.

I won't get into the details of how we reconnected, but it turned out Mr. Asshat was an emotionally absuive ASSHAT who treated my friend like shit for years -- yet leaving her wanting more -- before they finally broke up when he left. Sounds familiar, in a weird sort of way ....

Approaching 30, she found herself broke and alone with no marketable skills and no college degree, so she took a job as a lowest-rung-on-the-ladder payroll assistant and discovered she liked working with numbers and was good at it. Over the next few years, she progressed slowly but steadily through bookkeeping and accounting positions with ever increasing responsibility and is now, today, the comptroller at a decent sized company. They fly her to London for meetings and what not.

Funny how things turn out. She was impressed with my Ph.D. but at the same time could relate to some of my post-ac employment frustrations -- from the opposite end. She said that not finishing her bachelor's was a sore point that has limited her options. Despite her current status, if she ever wanted to change jobs to something of similar status at another copmany, no one would give her a second look without the degree.

She said if she had it to do over again, she'd have majored in economics and gotten into policy work -- something more similar to what I'm doing now than what she does. But I wouldn't mind it if, at my next gig, they wanted to fly me to London now and again.

Funny how things turn out.

*     *     *     *     *

The other person I ran into had been a grad student when I was an undergrad. He had two master's degrees and was working on a PhD. In retrospect, I suppose, one should always be slightly suspicious of any graduate sstudent in their late 20s who spends over much time hanging around the undergrads. Where is that going to lead but backwards?

During my last year in college, I lived in a building called the Copycat. Despite the seeming coolness of this place having its own Wikipedia page, it was (and as far as I can tell still is) a shithole. Myself and two roommates shared a loft that rented for a grand total of $300 a month, which seems pretty great until you consider: the roaches (gah, they were everywhere!), the rodents (you could hear them at night even with the windows closed in the dumpsters three floors below), the sweatshop uniform factory upstairs (it released a steam vent every day at 3pm -- and that shit's fucken LOUD, especially if you're just waking up from the previous night's festivities), and the lack of hot water and ... oh, yes, the lack of a functional kitchen!

But when you're 22, I suppose, those are reasonable tradeoffs for some of the building's perks. We had us some KILLER parties!!

People would be spinning records, painting, dancing ... whatnot. In the morning, the view of Baltimore through those gigantic industrial windows -- the rundown rowhouses, the train yard, the city jail -- had a peculiarly postapocalyptic feel, as if the sunrise itself, shedding light on it all, was a perverse surprise.

Somehow (and I do not to this day know how) I made the dean's list the year I lived there, but my friend, Grad Student, apparently was headed in the opposite direction. 

Grad Student had attended one or two of those parties, but we (meaning my undergrad friends and myself) had initiated him into the madness and mayhem of those days, not the other way around, as you might expect between younger and older friends.

Long story short, sometime in the course of the intervening years, Grad Student, who is now well past 40, dropped out of his PhD program, joined a band, and has been, as they say, "living the life" for a while now. The band is actually pretty good, and it was at a show they were playing last weekend where Peaches and I ran into (Former) Grad Student afterwards.

(Former) Grad Student says: "Hey, I was just thinking about you guys! I tried to find you online but couldn't remember your last names. You remember the Copycat? I'm moving in there this month!"

Kerfuffle

I do love me a good blogosophere kerfuffle, like this one brewing over at The Chronicle. Er, I used to. I wouldn't even have known about this, given how infrequently I read that esteemed publication these days, if JC hadn't mentioned it and linked in her comments to an old post of mine.

A couple years ago, I would have been slinging mud with the best of them. These days, the pettiness and incivility just strikes me as sad. I think the author of that piece takes a reasonable stand, but readers don't have to agree with her in order to respect it, especially since it's a personal piece. That's what's the real turn-off for me -- the personal attacks against someone who courageously speaks up against what she has experienced as an illness-inducing, hopeless, and exploitative situation.

What gives? You expect it from opposite sides of the political divide, say, in the comments to a HuffPo piece on the climate wars. Even there, comments are more along the line of "You're a stupid commie shithead!" "No, YOU'RE a stupid right-wing douchewad shithead!" This is sad in its own way, but it isn't personal.

When it comes from inside academe to another academic, a postacademic, an altacademic -- or whatever -- it is both personal and unprofessional. It is a reflection of the toxic environment that, for a lot of us, is one of a host of factors that caused us to choose to leave. Frankly, I haven't encountered it in the workplace culture on the outside. You have your friends, your enemies, and your frenemies, but people basically treat each other with a degree of professional respect. It's refreshing.

Full Circle

Sorry about the relative silence lately -- and for totally going poof! for a couple days. Not that you missed anything, given how little I've been posting. I've been struggling with blogger identity issues (see my response to Physioprof in the previous post), and then, unthinkingly, I left a comment somewhere that linked one identity to the other in a place where they REALLY could not be linked. Fortunately, I don't think anyone saw, so I'm back. But ... this is becoming a problem. I like writing this blog and don't want to abandon it, but ......... I have this thing about treading too close to the edge.

My worlds have a way of colliding but in such odd and entertaining ways I can't resist sharing.

*     *     *     *     *

A little over a year ago, An Incident happened at Think Tank. I didn't say a whole lot about it on the blog, surprisingly little as I look back on it now. You could read back around some of the spring 2012 posts, like this one, if you forgot or you're curious. The thing is, it started a chain reaction that led to Another Incident and, ultimately, to the formation of New Think Tank and my landing on my feet here at the Petting Zoo, when all was said and done.

Now things have come full circle. The Villain of the original Incident -- the Villain or the Hero, depending on whose side you're on -- is going to be a featured speaker at a big PZ showcase later in the summer.

I wonder if I should tell the Villain/Hero of the role ze indirectly played in my fate. But ze is one of those people who would probably throw their drink in my face if they knew my history at Think Tank.

If you recognize him, the more power to you. It's only the tip of the iceberg.

If I do disappear for good and close up shop here, I will still be reachable at the recentphd [at] gmail address. Write me there and I'll let you know where I've reinvented.

R2-D2 says "hi"

I'm at a conference this weekend. Ran into Artoo in the exhibit hall ...

Snowing ... speakers are starting now ... Hope you all are enjoying your weekend, wherever you are! More later ...

You know you've left academe for good when ...

... your former students start showing up in your LinkedIn network.

And now they're all grown up and doing "real world" jobs. Some of them are doing jobs you would have NEVER expected based on your experience with them in your class as college freshmen -- like the totally disorganized kid who was always stoned and yet still always needing to be the center of attention now working as a government bureaucrat.

Ah, well, everybody has to grow up sooner or later.

Hello, World!

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted. Didja miss me?

Really, it's just that things have been busy. Getting a report at the PZ through internal review and the comms (that's "communications") and pubs ( "publications" -- and, yes, they're ALL separate yet ill-defined processes) is a pain in the motherfucking A$$. All the other analysts hate it, too. Really, some streamlining here would be helpful.

You'll have to wait for another post for me to fully explain why. But, for starters, I'm actually even OK with the part the other analysts hate most, which is the nitpicky copyediting. We have two very good copyeditors who pick up on even the most miniscule flaws, like the extra space you left in between the end of a word and a comma because fifteen bazillion people made changes to the sentence since the last time you saw it . Some of the other analysts are baffled, in a bad way , by this level of attention to gramatical detail (didja catch those two extra spaces?). Why would anyone CARE about a motherfucking COMMA when the world is burdened with so many REAL problems? But I genuinely appreciate it. If more people cared about commas, maybe fewer would care about -- oh, I dunno -- holding onto their assault weapons?

So, awesome! Two full-time, paid staff members who have very little else to do besides copyedit. Why am I stuck copyediting my own shit? Iz itte teh PhD in teh Englishit, because that ain't a requirement for being a good copyeditor ...

It isn't really that I would mind so much if I had the time, but I have other research/writing tasks piling up. I have the same amount of that type of work the other analysts do and the same expectations for getting it done. But copyediting is time-consuming to do well. And the PZ has its own byzantine style guidelines I haven't fully internalized yet. And I really just don't want my shit up on the web (well, excepting for this blog) unless it has been properly copyedited.

You know, it makes me think about how poorly valued the humanities are, even when that sort of education is applied in a practical setting. The PZ copyeditors have undergrad degrees in communications and English and a lot of experience doing what they do, and, like I said, they're really good at it. Copyediting is tedious, certainly not something I'd want to do full-time. Yet, it's necessary. I think my colleagues here at the PZ would acknowledge that, but I also think they don't really value or appreciate what goes into it. Frankly, they get irritated with the ample turnaround time the copyeditors, quite reasonably, request. Why the hell should it take so much time to correct a couple commas?

And, yet , that is exactly why I am now stuck copyediting my own shit -- because the copyeditors rightly grumbled about too short a turnaround time. Why didn't we anticipate and give them more time? Why , because of the chaos of the internal peer-review process, of course! But you'll have to wait for another post to hear about that. Heh, I used to think dealing with academic journals was a pain ...