Ghosts in the lab

Whether because the holidays remind me of A Christmas Carol, or because the economy is threatening Dickensian-level poverty and wealth stratification, my thoughts turn to the Ghosts of Labs Past, Present, and Future.

What does the hovering specter of Lab Past say? "Dr Jekyll, you need to polish up one manuscript, collect a bit more data for another, and perhaps write a review, all for Grad Lab."

Ghost of Lab Present: "Data! You need data! More of it! You are planning on talking about this project at a conference in a few months--get on it."

Lab Future: "Dr J, you need to start working on this grant/fellowship proposal. It will set you up for a great project in your second postdoc lab. But it cannot happen unless you actually get cracking."

To some extent, the pressure of projects past, present, and future are recognizable to anyone. But I think postdocs--especially those of us with lingering graduate work, and that means a lot of us--are particularly likely to feel torn by our ghosts. We know we need the grad publications to be out of our hair so we can apply ourselves to our current work. We need the postdoctoral research to be humming so that we can start making a splash at conferences. And we need to have a foot out the door with small independent grants or other efforts at defining our intellectual futures.

Scrooge's manic freak-out following his ghostly visitations bears uncanny resemblance to the OMG-so-much-work-to-do waves of anxiety that periodically beset me.

I dearly wish that I could vanquish my ghosts by sending a neighborhood boy to buy the largest goose in the butcher shop.