Airborne Pumpkins

Well, my trip was cancelled. Both the event and the flights. Good thing I ended up NOT going up Sunday. Now what I'm most looking forward to are airborne pumpkins! NPR (my local station anyway) was warning people about taking in Halloween decorations before the Frankenstorm's full force hit, particularly pumpkins, because "they could become airborne." I cannot get the image of flying pumpkins out of my head and I really really want to see one!

Impending Frankenstorm: Readers, do you have any travel advice?

What is with this monster Frankenstorm? It's supposed to make landfall somewhere along the mid-Atlantic early in the morning on Tuesday. I'm supposed to fly from DC to Boston around 7:00 AM, but I have a pretty strong sense that flight will be cancelled. Regardles of where Sandy comes ashore, travel all along the East Coast is going to be a mess Tuesday and probably for most of the day Monday, too. I can't decide whether (no pun intended) to just wait and see, which could mean missing the work thingie in Boston scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, or to be proactive and change my flight to, like, Sunday to get in ahead of the weather.

For the work thingie, it isn't absolutely crucial that I be there, but it's a once-a-year thingie and the powers-that-be have said it would be good for me to go -- not so much because I'd contribute anything but because I'd learn a lot about some Petting Zoo people, plans, dynamics, operations, and such. The Petting Zoo covers my travel, but they do request that we keep expenses "within reason." If I change my flight to Sunday, there's going to be a change fee and two extra nights in a hotel, which gets expensive in Boston, plus all the extra meals. It goes from being a $350 trip to closer to $1000 trip.

I'm sure the Big Dolphin would approve the extra expense, but I have the misfortune of having a conscience about such things. I really want to go, but since it's not crucial that I go, can I really justify the extra expense and the hassle to myself?

Meh. Stupid Frankenstorm! Readers, what would you do?

A Day in the Life

In the last few weeks and months, a number of you post-ac bloggers have been posting about what it's like in the 9-5, nonacademic work-a-day world -- notably, reassuring would-be leavers that there is a pretty decent world out here and it's not nearly as bad as the cultish culture inside academe would have you believe. These posts illuminate how, yes, there's more free time and money but also plenty of interesting and likable coworkers with whom to interact and not-half-bad-at-all tasks and challenges with which to fill your days.

Along the same lines, very little about my "next NEXT job" these days resembles the boring, cubicled-in, quiet-life-of-desperation imagined by many inside academe, nor does it much resemble the alternative universe of the secretary job that first got me out of academe and which the first year and a half of this blog chronicles.

So, in the interest of sharing and motivating, I'd like to contribute to the growing body of stories from post-acs that tell a story about the very decent kind of work you can do once you grant yourself permission to leave and, time permitting for those difficult first steps (which might take a few years -- took me a year and a half to just get this far!!), you get on your feet and inside the nonacademic front door.

*     *     *     *     *

Before I tell you what "a day in the life of recent Ph.D." looks like, I should first give you a little background so you can compare the different stories we are telling about rather different types of jobs and work environments.

So ... I work at this place I've been calling the Petting Zoo. Don't read too much into that -- it's just a name I figured I could riff on. The PZ is a well-established nonprofit with about 65 people in our DC office. Despite being located along the infamous K Street corridor, the PZ, like many other nonprofits also situated around here, is not filled with evil, money-driven lobbyists eager to sell off themselves and Congress to the highest bidder. While there are a few lobbyists who work for the PZ, most of the "policy" work done by staff, myself included, isn't lobbying and doesn't involve any sort of messing around on the Hill.

So, what do we do? Well, that depends on one's job title. My job falls within the category known as "analyst." There are research analysts, which is sort of an oxymoron given that what all analysts spend their time doing is researching and writing reports, and there are policy analysts, science analysts, and so on. I have an interesting and probably unique adjective preceding the "analyst" part of my job title, but you get the idea. A fair chunk of my time involves researching and putting together reports -- or, as we've been calling them lately because "report" is somewhat limiting in scope, audience, and content, "analytical products."

Does that sound too frighteningly like academe? Think again!!

While being an analyst is a good job for a recent Ph.D., the job itself doesn't require one. Most of the analysts at the PZ do have Ph.D.s, mostly in the sciences, but a lot of analysts around the nonprofit world, generally, gained their expertise in other ways, either through working their way up through other, related positions (e.g. research assistant or associate) or some type of professional master's degree.

The last thing to note, before I tell you about "a day in the life," is that Expanding Habitats, the PZ program I work on, is very new and very different from anything else here. There's a fair amount of creativity and flexibility, as well as a certain amount of instability -- I don't know if the program or my position will be funded after the first two years, which, coming from the precariousness of academe, is a little scary, but whatever ... It's not something I'm choosing to worry about right now. The salary is decent in the meatnime, and after two years, I'll have a better resume and more prospects ...

For right now, there's an energy to the way days go that I like. Expanding Habitats inherited a number of incomplete research projects from a program, Surviving in Captivity, it absorbed. We are just now finishing those up and, finally (after the 3 months I've been here!!), looking ahead to what's next.

*     *     *     *     *

So, here goes today, "a day in the life of recent Ph.D.":

6:30 AM - 7:00 AM

Evil Fluffy Orange Cat wakes me up by jumping on my chest, head-butting my chin, and purring loudly in my ear. I shoo away Evil Fluffy Orange Cat and put a pillow over my head. Evil Stripeyy Orange Cat promptly also jumps on the bed and attacks Evil Fluffy Orange Cat. They battle for a while. The winner is the one that finally does something evil enough to get me out of bed. For some strange reason, they ignore Peaches.

7:00 AM - 7:30 AM

I feel a claw in my thigh and rouse myself to find EFOC has ESOC in a headlock. They both jump off the bed and race each other downstairs as I follow groggily behind. I feed them, make coffee, drink the coffee, listen to NPR, and make my way back upstairs to the shower.

7:30 AM - 8:00 AM

Shower, get dressed (nothing too special as we have a business causal office environment -- not a suit and not jeans but somewhere in between), wake up Peaches (who gets to leave a little later), and say good-bye.

8:00 AM - 9:00 AM

My usual route to work is to take the bus, which I catch 2 blocks from my house, ride about a mile and a half, and then walk another 6 blocks to my office. Sometimes I walk the whole way -- it doesn't require leaving that much earlier and I'd like to get in the habit of it -- but today I took the bus.

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

I get to my building right around 9, take the elevator up to the 8th floor, drop my bag off in my office, turn my computer on, and go down the hall to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee. Back at my desk, appropriately caffeinated, I read through my email, finding a message from Enviro Shark, another analyst (with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering, as I think I mentioned before), with a link to a 45-minute documentary ze recommends because of the way it frames a particular issue. Expanding Habitats is considering similar ways of framing issues in our analysis. I decide the documentary is work-related enough to justify watching it, and I spend the rest of the hour doing so.

10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

At 12:30, Enviro Shark, Skeletor (a research assistant with an M.S. in neuroscience), and I have a phone conference with the Expanding Habitats program manager, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology (though no more works as a micorbiologist than I do as a literary scholar) and works from the Petting Zoo's Office in Other City. The three of us - Enviro Shark, Skeletor, and myself -- are the core of the Expanding Habitats analysis team, and we are talking with Program Manager today to flesh out some ideas for one of our upcoming, more time sensitive projects. Before that call happens, I need to spiffy up a template I created the other day (the larger project involves a series of smaller ones that would all have to conform to a set structure and framewrok for analysis), read through an archive of possible topics, and comment on some comments Enviro Shark and Skeletor made on an earlier draft of the template. Also during this time, Enviro Shark, Skeletor, and I exchange some emails regarding possible topics. We haggle and argue a bit, each pushing for the topics we think would be best. At 12:25, I send around a list of the things I think we need to talk about during the conference call.

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM

The conference call with Program Manager takes place in my office. My office is decent sized and has two windows, albeit ones looking out on other buildings. Everybody has their own office here, mostly with windows, except interns and assistants, who have cubicles nicer than most of the office space I had use of as an adjunct. The main reaosn we're in here today is that I'm taking the lead on this particular project and we had a similar conference call in Enviro Shark's office yesterday regarding the project ze is taking the lead on. The call goes well. All of us get along with each other and with Program Manager, and we share with hir what our ideas are and ze fills us in on what ze has been thinking. We talk about the template and possible topics. We're all more or less on the same page, having clarified a few things, and we end the call with a to-do list for the next two weeks or so.

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

Lunchtime! I head downstairs, past the K Street construction, to an Indian place I like. I eat and then take a walk, mulling over project ideas, because I'm not ready to sit back down at my desk yet.

2:30 - 5:00 PM

The rest of today is spent at my desk. I have more email to read and respond to. I get distracted for a bit eavesdropping on Senior Pink Elephant, who occupies the office next door, and is on an annoyingly loud call but regarding a topic of interest. Then I review some data I had collected for one of the Surviving in Captivity carryover projects we'll be finishing up in the next few weeks (data about a particular type of policy government agencies subject their employees to that we're analyzing). I look over a scorecard I've been keeping in Excel and double-check my scoring on the agency I did a little over-hastily at the end of the day yesterday and make sure I didn't miss anything. After that, it's getting on towards 4:00, and I search for a hotel room in Other City, where I'll be traveling next week. PZ has a travel service that's great for air but sucks for hotels. I have my plane tickets but still have to book a hotel. When I traveled last week, I used Hotwire, which worked out great. Nothing good today, but I suspect I'll find something before I leave town Tuesday morning. By the time I get done scoping travel, it's after 4:30. Since there's nothing pressing I need to finish this afternoon ... well, why not write a blog post about what I did today?

*     *     *     *     *

And, well, here it is 5:30, and I am itching to go home! I think I will walk, at least part way, pick up a bottle of wine and maybe dinner. Not sure I feel like cooking, but we'll see. The nice thing about walking is that I pass TWO grocery stores and multiple wine shops. Then again, sometimes I just want to get home ...

So, there you have it. A day in the life of a post-ac. I will go home, reconnect with Peaches, Evil Fluffy Orange Cat, and Evil Stripey Orange Cat, probably watch Survivor or some other bullshit TV, relax, maybe do a little yoga, and go to bed somewhere around 10 or 11.

Not bad, eh? No anything like what the cultists in academe would have you believe. My evenings vary a little. Sometimes Peaches and I go out to dinner. Yesterday I went to a yoga class before heading home. Sometimes I might read for a bit instead of watching TV. But you get the idea: no pressure to do more work like grading papers or revising some stupid chapter that just can't wait until tomorrow, no anxiety about planning what to do in class the next day, no worries about whether I'll get assigned that extra class next semester and have more than $50 in my checking account, no nightmares about meeting with advisors or committees ...

Just a normal, work-a-day life.

Wetlands and Dogs

From the retreat earlier this week:

Wetlands ...

Dogs ...

Wetlands AND dogs ...

Today is the all-day meeting about holding effective meetings

We're on a break right now. I cannot believe this is going to go on until 5:00!!!

And at lunch, the omnivores ate all the fucken vegetarian sandwiches while I was out of the room for 5 minutes trying to answer the bazillion emails I had.

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

This is way worse than the normal, terrible, inefficient, stupid meetings we usually have. Because those, mercifully, hardly ever last more than an hour.

*headdesk*

*     *     *     *     *

UPDATE: 5:02 PM

Let's just say, it's a good thing there weren't any sharp objects in the room! Time to go home now ...

From Somewhere in Essex County, MA

I've never been on a workplace "retreat" before -- or any kind for that matter. New concept. But Expanding Habitats, being a new program and all and having more than a few internal and external tensions, the powers that be decided it was worth the effort and expense to get everybody together outside of civilization for a few days. I think the general idea is to brainstorm and bond.

So, here we are. It's raining lightly, and the air coming through my open window smells like pine and fall leaves and the bonfire we just put out.

I actually got into Boston yesterday -- spent the night in Cambridge, somewhere between MIT and Harvard. And then everyone met up for lunch today and drove out here to Essex.

We spent the afternoon talking in-house work stuff -- how to get Expanding Habitats to play better with the other programs at the Petting Zoo. And then we had dinner and drank a bunch of wine and strategized about how we're going to approach the absolutely immense task we've set for ourselves of getting the public and policymakers to take science more seriously.

The problem isn't more or better information communicated in more or better ways. That's been the communications failure of the past. The challenge is engaging the public on its learning curve more effectively, getting them to discuss and consider the choices --  a specific set of them -- for action with their consequences and implications clearly set forth.

That's Dan Yankelovich, liberally borrowed from. Go read him if this problem interests you.

Tomorrow morning, some of us are getting up early to meet up with the Big Dolphin, who will be taking hir dogs for a walk out by the water. The Big Dolphin knows a lot about the water and the creatures that inhabit it -- and the ecosystem it's part of and the people who live within it and influence it. Ze has promised to tell us more about these things as the sun rises and the dogs do what dogs do.

Then we will return and eat breakfast and reconvene our discussions of strategy ... and maybe we'll all have a better idea what we're doing for the next 6 months to a year when it's done.

I guess this is how retreats go.

I fly back to DC tomorrow evening - just as the debate is getting underway.

Well, that went over like a lead balloon ...

Team Science over here at the Petting Zoo is trying to get some work done on Spaceship Landing Recognizance.

In fact, Outreach Lynx is going to be in Southern State all next week trying to garner support for SLR but doesn't really know how to get it from conservatives and has explicitly ASKED me if I knew anyone that might help with these efforts.

As it happens, SLR is actually something my old friends at conservative New Think Tank are somewhat interested in. They're interested in it for completely different reasons than the Petting Zoo's Team Science, but they're more or less on the same page when it comes to getting policymakers and the public to pay attention to it.

Now, this therefore strikes me as an opportunity for some sort of right-left collaboration -- something along the lines of "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine." You give Team Science some credibility for talking with conservatives in Southern State's legislature, and Team Science gives your free-market ideas as a means for dealing with SLR more credibility with liberal audiences. However, unfortunately, while these free-market solutions to SLR are more or less supported by environmentalist groups, they aren't something the general population at the Petting Zoo is familiar with.

So, long story short, I talk to Former Colleagues at New Think Tank today and tell them about the Petting Zoo's SLR efforts in Southern State. After some silly but predictable jabs at the cover art on the SLR memo I show them, they agree that, with a little reframing, they could support the Petting Zoo's efforts -- or at least arrange some sort of meeting between Outreach Lynx and the person that works for them in Southern State.

But what happens when I propose this to Outreach Lynx? In fact, all I proposed was, "Do you want me to introduce you to these people I used to work with so that you can talk with them about how you might work together to accomplish mutual goals in Southern State?"

What happens when I send this email? Initially, I just told Outreach Lynx that I had some ideas and would ze want to hear about them. Outreach Lyunx replies enthusiastically, "Why yes!! Tell me of your ideas!!!" When OL hears WHERE my ideas are coming from and who ze would have to talk to, ze stops talking to me. Suddenly, after a few happy, perky, interested emails, there's no reply. Nothing. Nada.

Radio. Fucking. Slience.

 

Why? Because didn't you know that People Who Think Differently are EVIL.

It is sad, but, unfortunately, there are more than a few crustaceans here at the Petting Zoo who want conservatives to support Science with a captial "S" -- can't understand why anyone would be against Science -- just so long as they don't have to TALK to them, to "those people."  Eeeeeeewwwwww!!!!!

Harrrrrruuuuuuumpphh.

Now do you understand what's difficult about my program, Expanding Habitats? There are dangers and risks associated with Expansion beyond our standard zones of captivity. Expansion is scary. Not everybody here is ready to leave the cages of their fears and prejudices. It's true that those cages were originally built for self-protection, but now they're barring progress.

*     *     *     *     *

Did I mention that Passionate Public Interest Lobbyist also came to me the other day in a fury because I had merely TALKED to someone inside the Lions' Den? PPIL says, "How dare you! Who do you think you are? The Lions do eeeeeeevil things on the Hill. Terrible, just terrible things!! Don't you know how risky it is for you to go there and say you work for the Petting Zoo? They will twist everything you say and turn it against all of us. You haven't worked long enough at the Petting Zoo to fully appreciate how dangerous it is. And you don't even care because you aren't PASSIONATE. You are disrespecting boundaries the Petting Zoo has worked a long time to protect because that's the only way we get to preserve the illusion that we're right about everything!"

OK, so that last part isn't quite what PPIL said, but it's true enough.

*     *     *     *     *

Fortunately, the Big Dolphin is on my side and said I should keep talking to whomever I want to. That's what Expanding Habitats is all about ...

I have to take blogger training?????

If I want to write for the Petting Zoo's blog, I have to take their blogger training course.

Ironic, no?

It's some sort of two-hour session where they indoctrinate you about what you can and can't say.

I've been here for two and a half months, and they're just now getting around to telling me that it'd be great if I wanted to blog. Woot! There's another training session coming up, oh, in another month or two.

Things move slowly around here. Have you noticed?

I'd be utterly offended of it weren't for the fact that EVERYBODY has to go through this "training," including Passionate Public Interest Lobbyist (whom I wrote about the other day), who worked as a journalist for longer than I worked in academe before coming here. All the other communications and public affairs people, several  of whom have extensive publication records, have to take it, too.

Apparently, scientists have even bigger egos than writers. Possibly it makes them feel better about their own writing skillz if EVERYBODY has to get the blogger training.