VBP
No, it’s not the name of some new, trendy, innovative anti retroviral drug ready for the market. VBP stands for Very-Busy-Person and it’s what I turning into. Let’s make a brief recap: your group leader is on holiday in Germany doing meditation (that’s just an unconfirmed rumour, although from an informed and reliable source), the said reliable source (my direct supervisor) has gone home on Thursday, the other PhD student has no willingness to work and no sense of duty, so, predictably, has literally just dropped in to say hello, the other guy usually working in your group is in the middle of the writing of his graduation thesis. Plainly, you are all alone in the lab, but far from being unemployed.
I’ve completed an old ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation, for all the chemists reading) with a second series of RT-PCR, prepared some buffers I’ll need on Monday, started a new ChIP and looked after my supervisor’s cells. Not bad.
None of these things, though, really matters when compared to a couple of other major events, which have turned me into a VBP.
This morning I have had my very first real conference/business call (something I’ll be able to describe more in detail later) at 12:30. Throughout the working day (which isn’t yet over as a VBP’s working day is never really over) I received gratifying emails that are giving me the great chance of complaining about the huge number of (refunded) flights I’ll have to book in the next month (see above).
I can go one better, though. Before heading north, my group leader made me an offer you cannot refuse: to help him in correcting written tests. Usually a (punishment) for PhDs or even PostDocs, my red pen is going to judge whether second-year students of my same degree course have any idea what a polymerase is.
To complete this task I have occupied the luxurious office of the boss, with its human-leather chair (if you aren’t Italian you can’t get this reference, sorry) and much more. Plainly, the ideal position for business calls.
For what concerns the exams, I am going to complete their correction on Sunday. It’s a multiple choice test: so, I completed it to get the right answers and this has speed up the process. I am also considering going scientific plotting the results and publishing everything here.
Oh, the power!
yes, i'm so agreeing with you about that!!!
(and the human-leather chair, of course)
power is really quite something
vbp, fancy a night out & a couple of pints?
Meditation in Germany? Meditation in Germany is jackbooted Lutherans headed west in panzers, joyously singing Fahrvergn?gen. The EU could have been in place a lot sooner.