PI Power.

This week's experiment: more interactions with PI than usual.

Very curious to see how this goes.

Lately PI wants to be Involved. I am both amused and bemused by this.

In some ways, it is a big relief, someone to lean on. Someone who cares about my project (all of a sudden). At least insofar as it will make PI look good.

In other ways, I suspect it will be too little, too late.

But most of me just thinks hey, better than nothing. Better late than never.

As a point raised by JR in a comment, re: opportunity, I think this is a good example.

I often find myself wondering if the problem is that I don't handle these interactions correctly, if I don't anticipate PI's every desire and finagle every nuance in my favor, will I have missed some invaluable chance here?

I've never been good at kissing ass. And I think PI is suspicious even of sincere compliments from me, because they are so very rare indeed.

So I can't help thinking about former Postdoc(s) and how some of them, who were no better than I am at the bench, no more hard working, and no more well-read, no better writers, etc... how they somehow achieved a meteoric rise up and out of the lab.

I can only assume this - interactions with the PI - was the missing ingredient?

So I keep trying to channel these Ghosts of Postdocs Past and think about what they did differently. Why them and not me, I have to wonder?

I have to assume it's because they knew how to harness PI Power to their advantage.

I'm trying to figure out how to build PI panels and attach them to my roof.