Says “Hi”? Must have results.
I have noticed a syndrome among researchers in my lab. I’ll call it "Only-says-’hi’-when-he-has-results disorder." It afflicts a certain type of individual, who is rarely seen in the department during working hours, preferring instead to work from his home computer, spend time in the library, or come to the lab between midnight and 6am. If you do see him in the hallway, he will probably give you the briefest of nods and continue walking. After all, he saw you yesterday, and yesterday is pretty much the same as today, is the same as last month, right? Such seemingly arbitrary time divisions fade to insignificance when you are solving important problems.
Then, one day, at a departmental coffee hour, he will pop up out of nowhere with a huge grin. "HI SHELLIE! HOW ARE YOU?" (no pause, here) "I was working on a problem related to crystallography of the surface modifications of carbon nanotubes" (insert actual sensible topic here) "and found this fantastic result– it turns out that by using magic-ase solution, I could supertwist the amino chains and show that blah, blah, blah…" Darn. Now you are stuck there for half an hour, forced to make murmuring grunts to acknowledge his brilliance. Darn. Using magic-ase to supertwist the amino chains (or whatever) was a pretty good idea. Why didn’t you think of that?
At this point, syndrome-afflicted individuals differ. Some abruptly walk away. Others follow up their monologue with the question "So what are you working on?" followed by a somewhat doubtful "do you think that’s a good area to be working in?" Either way, your ego has been effectively deflated for a bit. As yet I have no solutions. Any ideas?
