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Apr. 16th, 2005 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterToday I am finally less than slightly absurdly busy. Hooray! That being said, I still have a TON of work to do. But I'm getting my feet under me again, which is a good feeling.
Yesterday I almost burst into tears in front of my advisor. The story goes thus: this week, I set aside several large chunks of time to work on my manuscript and on a paper for a class that is already late. Good plan, huh? Well, on Wednesday, I received a phone call from my advisor, J, saying that I had to help plan out our space for the new building that we'll be moving into in about six months. Obviously that takes priority over my other projects, so I spent three hours working on space planning. Meanwhile, D, my former housemate and fellow social insect grad student, is stressed beyond belief because the project that she's working on requires a Herculean level of man-hours (she needs three other people for two hours a day every day of the week). So that afternoon I helped her with the project and then helped her pour packaged bees into new beehives
[That was really cool, I must admit. To get the bees into a state where they can be shipped, they cool them down and get them in swarm mode. When bees are swarming, they generally won't sting you and will just hang out in clusters or balls near the queen, so one can literally pour a bunch of them into a new beehive. This is also the state that bees must be in when a person uses them to make a "bee beard" (y'know, those classic pictures where a beekeeper is covered in bees).]
So there went Wednesday.
On Thursday, I had some time set aside again, but there were so many constant interruptions in my "office" (which is really just a desk in a laboratory) that I never had more than five minutes to myself to get work done. Many of the interruptions had to do with a prof who was visiting on Friday. So there went Thursday.
On Friday morning, straits were getting a bit desperate--I had told the prof teaching the class where I had an outline due for a paper that I'd have the outline in to him by Friday. The visiting prof was there, and she had a meeting scheduled with another professor in the lab--my "office." It was early morning, so I was a genteel hostess and made espressos for the two of them on the lab espresso machine. Then my advisor called--one of her dogs had gotten loose, so she was running late and I ended up doing most of the organizing of the visiting prof's schedule for the day.
At some point, one of the IT department's guys came by to check out my ant lion (I'd showed it to some of the other IT people while they were setting up our lab printer). Normally that sort of visit would be fine, but in this case it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Can I just say that it's impossible to get work done when I'm interrupted every five minutes?
So I put in a request for some shared office space on our floor of the building. We'll see if that happens. Otherwise, mercifully, one of my other committee members has a lot of quiet, empty space in his lab right now, so I might move up there so I can actually get work done.
I like people, really I do. But my frustration level is higher than it ought to be because right now there is nowhere where I can go to have some quiet and not have to deal with any people and any of their issues. Even at home there are too many interruptions, and if I close my door, the cats complain.
I'd like to say that I'll get over it, but something needs to change.
Yesterday I almost burst into tears in front of my advisor. The story goes thus: this week, I set aside several large chunks of time to work on my manuscript and on a paper for a class that is already late. Good plan, huh? Well, on Wednesday, I received a phone call from my advisor, J, saying that I had to help plan out our space for the new building that we'll be moving into in about six months. Obviously that takes priority over my other projects, so I spent three hours working on space planning. Meanwhile, D, my former housemate and fellow social insect grad student, is stressed beyond belief because the project that she's working on requires a Herculean level of man-hours (she needs three other people for two hours a day every day of the week). So that afternoon I helped her with the project and then helped her pour packaged bees into new beehives
[That was really cool, I must admit. To get the bees into a state where they can be shipped, they cool them down and get them in swarm mode. When bees are swarming, they generally won't sting you and will just hang out in clusters or balls near the queen, so one can literally pour a bunch of them into a new beehive. This is also the state that bees must be in when a person uses them to make a "bee beard" (y'know, those classic pictures where a beekeeper is covered in bees).]
So there went Wednesday.
On Thursday, I had some time set aside again, but there were so many constant interruptions in my "office" (which is really just a desk in a laboratory) that I never had more than five minutes to myself to get work done. Many of the interruptions had to do with a prof who was visiting on Friday. So there went Thursday.
On Friday morning, straits were getting a bit desperate--I had told the prof teaching the class where I had an outline due for a paper that I'd have the outline in to him by Friday. The visiting prof was there, and she had a meeting scheduled with another professor in the lab--my "office." It was early morning, so I was a genteel hostess and made espressos for the two of them on the lab espresso machine. Then my advisor called--one of her dogs had gotten loose, so she was running late and I ended up doing most of the organizing of the visiting prof's schedule for the day.
At some point, one of the IT department's guys came by to check out my ant lion (I'd showed it to some of the other IT people while they were setting up our lab printer). Normally that sort of visit would be fine, but in this case it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Can I just say that it's impossible to get work done when I'm interrupted every five minutes?
So I put in a request for some shared office space on our floor of the building. We'll see if that happens. Otherwise, mercifully, one of my other committee members has a lot of quiet, empty space in his lab right now, so I might move up there so I can actually get work done.
I like people, really I do. But my frustration level is higher than it ought to be because right now there is nowhere where I can go to have some quiet and not have to deal with any people and any of their issues. Even at home there are too many interruptions, and if I close my door, the cats complain.
I'd like to say that I'll get over it, but something needs to change.
I feel you....
Date: 2005-04-18 12:28 am (UTC)I feel your frustration....I also spend many days doing so much I do nothing, or get interrupted all day. *Solution* I now go to my lab on sat and sun when no other person in their right mind would be there. So, I give up some beer drinking, but my abs are happier for it, and my sanity too. Peace girl
anjali