Dr. Bridget’s Postdoctoral Diary
We had much amusement in the office today over a brilliant ‘Bridget Jones’ pastiche by Kat Arney. I was supposed to be job-hunting on Nextwave, and looking for tips to make myself utterly irresistible to potential employers. Instead, I spent the next 20 minutes laughing my head off, and then forced my Postgrads to stop work too while I impressed on them how hilarious it was.
This passage in particular struck a chord:
Search the Internet for exciting conferences in exotic locations. Very enthusiastic about the prospect of a meeting in Honolulu when I remember that I have (a) no travel money left and (b) no results. My boss points out that I went to a very interesting conference last year in Dorset. Argue back that the windswept vistas of the South Coast are no match for the sun-kissed beaches of Hawaii. She retorts that I should be interested only in the quality of the science and anyway, the funding body thinks that £46 for a return train fare is more than enough to spend on me.
And this…
Number of tasks on to-do list as of Monday morning: 36 Number of tasks on to-do list as of Friday evening: 27 Distance by which frontiers of science have been pushed back this week: 0.73 mm
It might only be funny if you’re a scientist, but there’s probably something that most people can identify with.
