Despite working all day Saturday, as well as today, I have no more data than I did at the close of Friday. Data-less days are depressing, but one of my grad friends had a coping mechanism (besides alcohol): she referred to them as deposits into the karma bank.
The karma bank, you see, operates on sort of a mash-up of the principles of Samuel Goldwyn--"The harder I work, the luckier I get"--and the Beatles--"The love you take is equal to the love you make." So, working all day on the weekend for absolutely zero return: that's a deposit into the karma bank, which will then repay you with golden figure-ready data on some hapless Wednesday when you only have two hours to do experiments and you're half checking your email anyhow.
I am not sure who runs the karma bank, but I sure wish they'd post their interest rates.
p.s. For some reason, the idea reminds me of the famous SNL "change bank" skit.
15 years ago
5 comments:
Comforting. It certainly is true that good things sometimes happen when we least expect it/ were putting minimal work into it.
I have just always had the philosophy that I have to do something ~7 times before it works (yes, 7 is extreme, but it usually works by then if it's ever going to work). That way I'm not desperately disappointed when experiments 1 thru N don't work out.
Have a good story about this topic, will post today if possible.
I like this idea. Given the number of data-less days I've had, a whole bunch of first-author C/N/S papers should just fall out of the sky for me any minute now! :-)
I agree with Mad Hatter. I should get at least one good data set to fall into my lap at any moment. Ahem... I said any moment. Sigh.
My boss also believes in the kharma bank (and as a result, has converted me). This means his reaction when things don't work the first (or second or third) time is "Eh, you're still building up kharma with [insert new experiment]." It's very nice from my end to hear that.
I really like this idea. Its especially comforting on a day like to day when I spend all my time at war with a piece of equipment.
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