July 16, 2013

Bob & Judy

So, I got the job. This is almost certainly a good thing, although as I mentioned before it's some way out of my comfort zone. You have to do that from time to time, right? I'm apprehensive, but also looking forward to getting my teeth into something new. It starts on 16 September.

One immediate problem is trying to maintain enthusiasm for the work I'm clearly not going to finish before moving on. This is frustrating, because some of it is pretty promising, and with a few more months it could actually be worthwhile. But there aren't those months -- in theory I finish in a fortnight, though of course it won't be quite that clear cut -- and if I try to carry this stuff on alongside my new job it'll just drag on forever, getting nowhere with exponential slowness. I've seen plenty of those Zeno papers, 90% complete at the end of someone's term, getting intermittently worked over in odd interstices for years and years, unable to keep up as the field moves on around them, gradually acquiring semi-mythic status, like spectres haunting the halls of the department, occasionally glimpsed with clanking chains and severed head tucked under arm, irrelevant but glumly immortal. Every now and then you'll walk into the office and there's that erstwhile PhD student, several post-doc jobs down the line, back for a meeting with the PI as if there was still any fucking point to the whole business.

So, um, not that.

It's all about handing over, I think. Not that there is really anyone to hand over to, but still. If it's somewhat documented and vaguely functional and at least a bit usable someone may eventually use it. And if they don't, well -- that'll no longer be my problem.

Posted by matt at July 16, 2013 9:04 AM