It's my time, and I'll do what I want

Oft I have travelled in the realms of gold. Or maybe just traveled. And then traveled some more.

But recently everything feels out of control, or, more accurately, I feel as though I am not in control of my time. Incessant emails, demands for information, writing tasks, more emails, more meetings--sure, it's standard drill for an administrator. It has to be done when it has to be done, and if your own writing suffers--with consequent damage to grants, writing, awards, etc.--that's just too bad. No one twisted my arm to do this, and I believe in what I'm doing.

Figure 1. Still the best technique.

You can only feel pushed so far, though, before you want to reassert control, which I did in three ways recently. If you don't want to read about petty triumphs, this isn't the post for you.

The first is the end-of-semester anger management technique I wrote about--surprise!--at the end of the semester a couple of years ago: "Take your hands off that man!" 

"You want it to say X, even after I explained the problems with that? Fine. X it is then." Take your hands off that issue. Let it go, and don't look back.

Figure 2. One of these things is . . .

The second is this: A couple of weeks ago, one of my collaborators--you know, the ones from The Good Place--asked about something in my area of expertise; I spent some time on research and a careful answer, which ze ignored, as per usual.

In recipe terms, I said something like "You know, Worcestershire sauce and vanilla extract may look the same, but if you use Worcestershire sauce in your chocolate chip cookie recipe, you're in for a world of hurt." Today I received an email saying "full speed ahead with the brown liquid for the cookies, yes?"

Figure 3 . . . not like the other.

I wrote back and said, "So glad that we're going to go with any old brown liquid condiment for all the cookies without checking to see what it is; much easier to find than figuring out, as I recommended two weeks ago, whether it's actually vanilla extract or not."  Collaborator: "What? Oh, no."

Figure 4. Grady explaining "correction" to Jack.

And maybe tomorrow I'll turn off email and do some of my own scholarship for a change.