Postdoc life from the outside
I was chatting with the carpenter at work, a multi-talented guy who was a touring rock musician in the 70’s and is now also a nondenominational minister who says weddings on the weekends. He asked what was new. "Well, I’m going to [Economically Depressed Eastern City] for a conference next week," I said, not very enthusiastically.
"Wow, that’s great," he said. "Is that something they pay you to do? I think it’s really cool that they basically pay you to use your brain. In all the years I have been here, I just come to work every day and do the same stuff. You might think they’d have me go teach people something, like how not to get splinters or whatnot, but no. That’s the value of an education– always doing new things."
