Friday, September 14, 2007

Screw you guys, I'm staying home.

Got a much-needed pep talk from a friend today who insists I should start on the job application process, even as I'm agonizing over publications, publications, publications.

So I swore I'd try to get in the mode of moving forward, not worrying about past mistakes, not being afraid of the worst possible outcomes.

Bite the bullet, make the leap, that sort of positive thinking!

But then I checked my junkmail folder, and found that an abstract I submitted a couple months ago for a meeting got assigned to a Poster.

I am somewhat amused that my email program knew exactly what to do with an email like that!

I hate posters. And this work, IMHO, deserves to be presented in a talk.

And I always hate this meeting.

So I'm thinking I'd rather not go.

It's supposed to be good to go to these things, for networking, blah blah blah.

But this meeting is big enough that it's really hard to meet anyone new.

And most of the people I know who go religiously every year are people I don't really ache to see. You know how it goes, you go out and drink with them because that's what you're supposed to do, but you find yourself having to drink just to numb the pain of having to talk to them?

Yup, this is one of those meetings that makes me question if I'm in the wrong field. It's that bad. It's one of those meetings that makes me remember why sometimes I really hate scientists and science.

So I think I'll take a line from Cartman on Southpark and just skip the whole thing.

I'd much rather stay home and like science than go to this meeting and hate it.

It will be the second abstract I've withdrawn this year for lack of getting picked to give a talk, so I'm wondering if that looks bad.

Somehow I doubt anyone who relegated me to poster status would even care.

Labels: , , ,

6 Comments:

At 9:37 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you really hate the conference, why did you submit anything to begin with? I know that networking is super important, but there are lots of conferences to go to every year (unless you are in a super specialised field, but I don't get the impression.)

 
At 5:01 PM, Blogger Ms.PhD said...

Good question. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have bothered.

But you know, you have an abstract ready and you can submit it to several meetings with deadlines around the same time, so you might as well, right?

And there's a lot of, shall we say, peer pressure to attend, mostly to keep tabs on the competition. Everyone else is doing it, yada yada.

Once upon a time, I went to one of these meetings and really had a good time.

That only happened once.

 
At 9:31 AM, Blogger Drugmonkey said...

Whether you get picked for a platform presentation or not shouldn't factor in.

Factor 1: Will I get something scientific out of it?

Factor 2: Is it a good scientific community that I enjoy?

Factor 3: Is it a fun location?

Factor 4: How's the schmoozing potential to benefit my career?

Factors 1-4 may swap around in importance depending on how close to the job market you are and the quality of Factor 3's answer.

Whether you get a talk or not is just petulance.

...and I'm also really confused why you would submit an abstract to this thing. if there were so many around the same time, this means you have multiple presentation options which further argues against going to a meeting you hate...

 
At 5:41 PM, Blogger Ms.PhD said...

In my defense(?), for this meeting, I'd have to say:

Factor 1: varies wildly depending on the year

Factor 2: no, not really

Factor 3: would be, except that I'm poor and always tired at meetings where the housing is sucky or not included in the price

Factor 4: varies wildly depending on the year

Even the years when the science sucked, I did manage to do some schmoozing, but I always wanted to vomit violently afterwards and never slept well. And no, not because I drank too much alcohol.

The one year when the science was awesome, it was really awesome, but that hasn't ever happened again since. Maybe it was just a fluke.

One other year I had a great time schmoozing, even though the science wasn't anything to take notes about.

In some ways the schmoozing has been more consistently useful, but not for what I need right now (faculty position leads).

Also, did I mention the part where I hate almost everything related to posters? I hate making them, I hate giving them, and I usually hate looking at them. I'm a talk person, all the way around. What can I say. How much more 2-dimensional can you get? And always bad lighting. And standing up until your feet are about to fall off. I could go on and on about how much I despise poster sessions. And I think I have, elsewhere on this blog. But it bears repeating. I think it's one of the most outdated practices and it needs to go away.
There, I said it. Posters SUCK. I can't wait until they're officially outdated and replaced with walk-thru multimedia presentations like the kind of advertisements in Minority Report.

 
At 10:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

At least you got a poster assignment.

I submitted an abstract, hoping for a talk--and got nothing!

I'm proud of the work and was convinced the abstract was compelling.

 
At 5:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Im with you on this -
I thought i would get a talk for this conference in Antigua - but just a poster - its a long way to go for just a poster - such a bummer!
Im still going to go though -
Toronto PDF

 

Post a Comment

<< Home