New PI postdocs settling in
On
Halloween day, three of the new PI postdocs (Ivette, David and Ernesto) got together and departed on a
shopping trip to buy furniture for their new Canadian homes. After some
information gathering, they had decided that semi-disposable Swedish furniture
was the best option, and at around
Soon
they were surrounded by furniture, ambient music and some sale assistants
dressed bizarrely as devils and witches. Instead of taking this as a bad omen
and returning immediately to
1-
Determined Buyer: he/she feels confident, already has a definitive list of the
desired items and is practically ready to pay for them and leave. The only problem are the other two team-mates, who seem a bit lost
among the show-rooms. After some interaction with their less objective friends,
a Determined Buyer tends to become an
2-
Undecided Buyer: after digesting a whole catalogue of (largely irrelevant)
information about the desired pieces and possible alternatives, the critical
facet of a true scientist steps in, and he/she starts to question their
choices. Do I really want a sofa-bed, or just a sofa? Should I really go for a
minimalist/ hand-craft type/60's psychedelic decoration style? This tortuous
self-criticism inevitably leads to the third stage
3-
Overwhelmed Wreck: 'my shopping list/taste/life doesn't make sense, what I am
doing here?' is the recurring thought of an Overwhelmed Wreck. This mood leads
to a temporary abandonment of all intent of successfully finishing the day,
accompanied by a truly random walk-type wandering of the huge hangar-like
structure. Eventually the Overwhelmed Wreck bumps into one of their colleagues
and stops to chat a bit, perhaps inadvertently criticizing some of their
decisions in the process. This self-regulation mechanism helped sustain the
alternating mood states for hours and hours.
While
these cyclic mood swings describe broadly the behavior of the three physicists,
there were some particularities as well. Ivette stood
out among them, systematically reaching the more advanced stage 1 before the
two others. Perhaps out of compassion for her team-mates, she (deliberately?)
lost her painstakingly detailed shopping list not once but twice, plunging
straight to state 3 and keeping the dynamical harmony of the group intact.
After
about 6 hours fuelled solely by a few Swedish meatballs, the three agreed that
the greatest mysteries of physics are a piece of cake compared with shopping
for furniture. On a more pragmatic level, they suddenly realized that they
hadn't explored even half of the shop yet, which definitely called for a more
combative stance. A war plan was drawn: they should strategically postpone the
furniture decision, and try to conquer the decoration sector.
This
second battle wasn't any easier, leaving psychological scars in the combatants.
In Ernesto and David, the post-traumatic stress disorder manifested itself as a
retreat back into familiar territory: they started having deep, ponderated discussions about the most trivial items. As an
example, they spent over an hour discussing the different lighting fixtures,
their energy consumption, size, and the technical requirements as described in
the bibliography (I mean, manuals). Not happy with
this theoretical workshop, they also experimentally tested lamps of different
kinds, only to settle for the obvious choice of lighting/lamp at the end. Ivette circumvented this time-consuming process by
immediately identifying the obvious choice and putting it her trolley, while
expertly hedging her bets by purchasing the next five less-obvious choices as
well. Her approach only started to show its shortcomings after it became clear
that three people have difficulty pushing 9 trolleys full of merchandise, but
by then the battle seemed to be lost already.
With
no time for dinner, they went back to the previous battleground (the furniture
section) and with trepidation made the final decisions. After that, it was just
a question of manually picking up 46 boxes in the stock, paying for it all and
arranging the delivery of about half a ton of Swedish pine that didn't quite
fit in David's car. They left the shop hungry, exhausted and disoriented one
hour after official closing time, i.e.
At
this point in our adventure David informed his bedraggled comrades that the car
wouldn't start, as its lights had been forgotten on since that remote morning.
After pushing the car across the parking lot to no avail, a rescue team had to
be brought in from nearby
The
trio was last seen planning the details of a PI Furniture Assembly Solidarity
party...