My office hasn’t improved much since the first days. I have yet to put up my corkboard, my papers are all in piles, my bookshelf is mostly empty, save for the treasured Fields Virology tomes (signed by both of the editors, because I am a giant dork). It’s all a bit of a mess, really. The only point of focus and motivation in my office is Debbie.
It seems silly to have motivational photographs, especially when they are not of family or loved ones, but she does me good. She looks super tough, doesn’t she? You wouldn’t want to mess with her, right? So whenever I have to send an email I reeeeallly don’t want to, or work on a project that makes me gag, I look to Debbie, in all her toughness, and steel myself for what’s ahead.
And you know what? It works. Partially because of Debbie (and mostly because of my loved ones) I revised the manuscript from my graduate work with just a few days to go in my 60-day resubmission window and resubmitted without a hope it the world of the paper surviving re-review. I was completely astounded, blown away, shocked, and brought to tears by its acceptance for publication a mere 48 hours after resubmission. Debbie, and the Journal of Virology, were good to me.
This acceptance was no small miracle. It’s been a year and a half since I left school, two years since I completed the work. My lab no longer exists, my advisor is unavailable (long and awful story there), and yet the paper is out. The whole graduate school business has closure now, and all is well.
I hope I am not the only one with emotional reinforcements in the office. If you want to borrow Debbie, feel free. She works wonders.
Congrats. Sometimes closure is all you need!
I put up some photos of my recent trip to Australia to help me deal with job rejections right now. Maybe I don’t have a job, but at least I saw a rainbow over Kata Tjuta:
(It’s actually a double rainbow!)
And congrats on the paper! I never got to publish the last bit of my PhD, but I wrote it up for a Nature Precedings manuscript, and finally submitting that also felt so nice and finished.
Congrats on the accepted paper! I have a photo of Machu Picchu on my desktop. I figured if I could do a four day hike while having to deal with squat toilets, I can get though anything at work!
Congrats on the accepted paper! I have a photo of Machu Picchu on my desktop. I figured if I could do a four day hike while having to deal with squat toilets, I can get though anything at work!
Yay for Debbie Harry.
(rpg notes that NN men of a certain age are otherwise too embarrassed to comment on this post)
Congrats!! :)
Caryn – Thank you! It’s been a long, long time in coming.
Alyssa – Um, eww. Fair point. Is there a way to see Machu Picchu without the squatting and the nature? I don’t like either of those things, but would love to see the site.
Eva – Gorgeous picture! I don’t think I have ever seen a double rainbow before. This paper is actually my first first-author manuscript. I feels good to have something with my name at the start. Embarrassingly good, in fact! So glad that you were able to get closure with your work as well. Precedings is a thing of beauty.
Richard – Point well-taken. I am aware that pictures of my Debbie adorn many many walls, few of them being offices. Still, she deserves her due!
Anna – Thank you!
Debbie Harry – I’m afraid my best recollection of her was her very memorable appearance on The Muppet Show, in which she appeared to be incredibly stoned. She must as you say be very strong to have survived that particular event and have even today a credible recording career.
That said, Heart of Glass and Call Me are certainly on my top hundred or so favourite songs of all time.
For a long time at my previous job I had a photo I took from the top of Snowdon, out over a particularly picturesque bit of North Wales, to remind me that there were better places to be (it’s in my office now, too, but just because I like it). Nowadays I’ve got a photo from a course I attended at the Sanger Centre (for scientific inspiration) and a photo I took of a race car, signed by the driver, who is a different sort of inspiration. Plus a wide variety of other photos of places I’ve been, just for fun.
Oh, and well done you for the J. Virol. paper! :D
Yippee on your paper! That’s just great.
How did you pick Debbie, of all tough women? I mean, why not Rhea Perlman? Or Tina Turner?
Richard – Oooh, I hadn’t heard about the Muppet fiasco. Will have to check it out. I came to love Blondie late, well past their recording prime (I didn’t move to the States until ‘89), so all of DB’s antics and various drug issues just seemed like part of the package and aura, as opposed to a serious and ongoing problem. I saw Blondie play on their first reunion tour, sometime in the late 90s. It was a little sad, but really good too. She looked great, if a little worse for wear, but certainly not chemically altered.
Heather – I don’t know much about Rhea Perlman. I think I moved to the States too late to get caught up in Cheers. Tina Turner, though I love her dearly, is a little too glam for my taste. Debbie is just… tough. Doesn’t look like she would take anyone’s BS. Not when that picture was taken, anyway. I also happen to love Blondie’s music very much.
Hi Anna
I pinned my first article to the wall of my flat (aka shared house).
I have a Soviet propaganda poster on my wall to remind me my boss might be looking over my shoulder and I should get back to work instead of reading NN…
Richard – Oooh, I hadn’t heard about the Muppet fiasco.
It’s actually a pretty good episode with some classic performances on it – she’s really quite good in it, but definitely looks a bit “out there”.
Another memorable one featured Alice Cooper. The performance of Welcome to my Nightmare was particularly good.
I always thought of putting a picture of Gordon Ramsey in the lab, but it never happened.