Maxine has often said that she needs a wife, as well as a husband, because running a family really needs three full-time bodies. Well, now I need more than a wife – I need a secretary (stop sniggering at the back).
-
I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
-
It's Nice To Be Wanted, But ...
- Date:
- Friday, 20 Feb ruary 2009 - 16:48 UTC
Why? Who? And, furthermore, notwithstanding? Well, what with it being Darwin year’n’all, I am getting deluged with requests to do things. I am at present
- supposed to be going to speak to some students in Toronto in March;
- meant to be getting an issue of the Journal of the Tolkien Society (which I edit) into production;
- quaking at the thought of CISB09;
- in receipt of a request from a fellow ex-graduate student to come speak at her kids’ school;
- due to go to speak at another friends’ kids’ school some time this spring;
- at the mercy of my camel’s violent winds;
- supposed to be a guest-of-honour (!) at a science fiction convention in July;
- meant to be organizing a trip to a conference at Cold Spring Harbor at the end of May;
- in receipt of a request to make a side-trip to Iowa immediately after that;
- bombarded by persistent requests from colleagues to do this, for my opinion on that, my judgement on the other.
- having to do all the manuscripts I ever did, and more. Last year I handled almost 800 – three years ago it was 500.
- the victim of the success of the Futures pages at Nature which gets swamped with submissions, between five and ten a week.
All of which, and more, makes me want to whimper, run away and hide. Or at least write blogs, which is more fun. But what I really need is an old-fashioned personal assistant who’d run my diary and tell me what I’m supposed to be doing on any given day. Mrs Gee has volunteered for the job and says she can be paid in chocolate and cups of tea, but it would mean having to give up her job, which we can’t afford to do…
Help !!!
Last updated: Friday, 20 Feb 2009 - 16:48 UTC
-
Comments
-
I bet the students and the school kids will love your camel.
Aside from the camel, all of these are the results of being good at what you do. Suggestion: do a terrible job at everything! Nobody will want your advice, you’ll have less work to do, nobody wants you to speak anywhere or go places. Problems solved!
I think I have a hard time saying ‘no’, which is a grave admission for an editor, I admit. However, I have turned down the latest request to speak at a school. I have also managed to diagnose my camel’s violent winds (Peters, J. & von den Dreisch, A. _ J. Zool._ 242, 651–679: 1997).
You must oversee a carefully managed campaign of incompetence if you want to avoid being asked to do things. This campaign must be managed with ruthless efficiency, because any illusion of competency will only be met with more work to do!
I also need to learn to say ‘no’, but I’m easily flattered and view being asked to do something as some perverse form of flattery so agree too quickly.
When I commented that I couldn’t see much point of Twitter recently, a few kind souls Twittered me to say that it is frightfully useful as people can “DM” you. This turns out not to be “directly murder” but “direct message”, ie send you a message in private. As I explain to my kind informants, the last thing I need in my life is yet another way by which people can ask me to do things.
One thing I have found since getting into this social web lark, which for me started at roughly the same time for work and personal life, late 2005, when I started a personal blog out of curiosity as I’d agreed to start two work blogs for authors and for peer-reviewers, is that the distinction between work and not-work is harder to draw. Previously, one worked as “a Nature editor” and as a result was asked to do various activities which I could describe as “outreach” – the kinds of things Henry writes above to do with giving talks about how to publish, careers and so on (but not camels). But now, I find it hard to know whether I should be commenting at Nature Network as part of “work” or not. I have always thought “not” (it is only 5.20 pm in the UK now, but I have been working since 7 am today with no break for lunch or other, so that’s a good few hours of NPG time put in). But it encroaches more and more into the other off-work-duty duties, and I think Henry’s post reflects that. Darwin, Tolkiin and Science Fiction do not help though, in Henry’s case. No further comment on the camel, but having “interests outside your core job” becomes increasingly impossible when not only family committments enter the picture (children, aging parents, or other), but also WEB 2.0, that many-headed hydra.
Henry,
you used to have a PA in everything but job title and salary. Problem is she got promoted and is now (secretly) running the company.
Making lists is always useful, I guess. Mrs Gee also had a busy job and schedule, and always has done, which means that we have regular diary meetings which sometimes resemble the General Assembly of the United Nations. We’ve just had on of these meetings and now I feel better!
you used to have a PA in everything but job title and salary
I know, I know, and I won’t embarrass her by naming her in public, but I know who you mean, and you know that I know who you mean, and I know that you know that I know that you know who I mean, and in the room company the PA’s come and go, towards absurdam, reductio.
Just keep me posted on the Toronto trip, so you can at least have someone else arrange beer and bloggers for you. I am really good at arranging beer and bloggers!
I’m not sure the Toronto trip is going ahead – we just couldn’t find a mutually satisfactory time. It might have to be later in the year, now…
quaking at the thought of CISB09
I’m also nervous, and busy (I second the Or at least write blogs, which is more fun.)
But…anything I can do?
Thanks Erika… I think I’ll just have to learn better time management.
Henry; most writers will agree that a grave admission for an editor is the BEST admission for an editor. The “asylum admission” used to be well regarded; but then they started letting them back out.