Maybe in 5 years
December 6, 2012
Maybe.
Maybe the conversation with our colleagues sparked by “hey, how’s it going” won’t be immediately about grant funding.
I seem to recall some past halcyon days when current scientific interests were the first item on the table.
DrugMonkey 
December 6, 2012 at 5:16 am
Maybe you should stop hanging around with boring douchebaggios?
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December 6, 2012 at 5:30 am
This is, of course, one means by which a job candidate (or other visitor) can judge the scientific vitality of a place: do the inhabitants mostly talk about grants and department-level politics (e.g., who was made to teach and who wasn’t), or is the primary focus on science?
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December 6, 2012 at 5:50 am
CPP has a point. I find those kinds of conversations boring, depressing, counterproductive, and overall a complete waste of time. I’m more than willing to commiserate with a colleague who has lost funding, but general whineage about the overall funding situation? Not so much. We all know it sucks. Instead of whinging about it, we should spend that time figuring out how best to survive. That will, in large part, be through our science.
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December 6, 2012 at 6:22 am
I guess you’re older than I am. I don’t remember any such days. 😦
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December 6, 2012 at 6:43 am
Me neither.
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December 6, 2012 at 7:44 am
You are slipping PP. You are supposed to accuse me of being such a boring douchebaggio.
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December 6, 2012 at 4:23 pm
If three, or more, of your colleagues join Weight Watchers, that is the end of academic discussion in the department. I speak from experience.
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December 11, 2012 at 6:54 pm
Sooner or later you get about one grant cycle from retirement, and it is wonderful
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