Category Archives: Work

What does it take to become an expert?

I’m a member of Litopia, a self-proclaimed “Writer’s Colony” on-line. It’s actually a great place to go and hang out with other writers and learn the trade.

Recently, a discussion thread came up about what it takes to become an expert. It was linked to this post.

Importantly, it made the point that the transition from novice to expert was marked by preferentially focusing on negative feedback over positive feedback.

Here was my reaction:

Expertise is a funny thing. For me, in my field (which is isotopic analysis of tooth enamel from fossil mammals), becoming an ‘expert’ isn’t something that I sought to do. I just wanted to do the best I could because my own research depends upon this kind of analysis. I don’t feel like an expert – I know that there’s tons of room for improvement. (But maybe this goes to the point about how experts focus on the negative more than the positive.)

But one day, about a year ago, it happened. I got the first e-mail I’d ever gotten that said something to the effect of “We have these enamel samples that need analysis, and we’ve heard you’re the best.” After I scraped my jaw off the floor, I told them that I could analyze their samples and there you go… Since then I’ve gotten similar e-mails from people all over the world and from students who want to study with me.

I guess I’m an expert.

What makes me an expert? Getting out there and getting noticed is important. So, not all experts are introverts. I mean, I guess I could be an expert and introverted, but who would know? What would it get me? Naw, I get out there, go to meetings, use Twitter and blogs, and talk about what I do. Other people notice and they decide I’m an expert.

Maybe being an expert isn’t something that you decide. Maybe it depends upon the perceptions of other people. And if enough other people – especially those that you yourself would call experts – are calling you an expert, maybe it’s true.

I’m all right with that.

She Shoots! She Scores!

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – How do you celebrate your accomplishments?

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Celebrating accomplishments is a challenge. Perhaps it’s the constant, nagging suspicion that what I’ve done isn’t really all that good. That I’ve really done nothing more than fool the masses. Maybe it’s because, given that I’m a scientist, that every completed task is little more than a gateway to the next thing. I mean, finishing something really means that I’ve just suddenly got a whole bunch more work to do! It never ends!

At best, I celebrate accomplishing something by going home and chilling. I’ll drink an adult beverage and *gasp* watch a movie. Or better yet, I’ll go to bed after having shut off all the alarms for the following morning, thereby giving myself permission to sleep a little later.

Yeah, it’s possible I’m doing this wrong. Maybe that’s why I always feel a little stressed out. There’s always something that needs to be done. I can always come up with something I ought to be doing. So accomplishing something just means that now I have time to do the other things that I’ve been putting off. Maybe I ought to give myself a break.

Well, today marks the last day of 2012. Maybe next year I’ll go ahead and give myself that break. I deserve it, right. Perhaps I should sit down and list the things that I accomplished this year. I’ll bet it’s a long list. I wrote a book. Oh heck! I wrote two books! Went to the Arctic. Got in shape. Started learning swordsmanship. Managed to collect a bit of a following on my blog here (hi everyone!). Ooh! And two papers published (-ish)! That’s an improvement over zero papers from last year!

Yeah, I’m getting somewhere. I deserve a vacation. I think I’ll do that. Heh. Well, eventually anyway!

For 12-31-12

Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – What is the hardest job you’ve ever done?

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Hardest job ever?

Parenting. Hands down. No contest. No comparison.

Toughest job I’ve ever done for a paycheck?

Graduate student. Lousy paycheck (though still pretty decent, really). Long hours. Little respect. Nightmares. Uncertain outlook.

Positive aspects of both jobs?

Rewarding. Meaningful outcome. ‘Character building’ (whatever that is).

If I had it to do over, would I?

Yes.

For 12-28-12

Working alone… with others

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Would you rather work alone or with other people?

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This is a hard one. There are situations in which having partners on a project is great as well as those which wind up being a nightmare.

Working with others means that you have back-up if there are problems and built-in help. It means also that you don’t need to know every single thing – your colleagues can fill in for your knowledge gaps. The downside is that, unless you’re working with a great set of people, sometimes you might wind up being more of a cheerleader for an unmotivated group. This can result in a pretty crappy result (if any ever arises).

Working alone means that you don’t have to coordinate meetings and you can work at your own pace. Plus, you can take full credit if the project is successful. Downside: Failure is all your’s too, and there’s no-one prompting you or encouraging you to stay on task. Things might never get done!

I’ve had successes and failures in both scenarios. I like to think that I’d prefer to work alone, that I’d be more successful if I didn’t have to deal with other people, but there are a lot of things I just can do on my own. It doesn’t help that I have social anxiety – just picking up the phone to call someone to ask on their progress can be a nightmare! If I could, I’d rather work alone, but the reality is that I just can’t. So I often get into collaborative projects, and hope that either a) my colleagues will be as motivated as me and won’t need much prompting or b) I’m not the leader on the project. It doesn’t always work that way, and I’ve suffered through many failures. I’ve also had many successes.

So I’m going to take the middle road and say ‘both.’ If I could, I would probably prefer to work alone, but I accept that that is not a viable option in most cases. I move on. Things have to get finished. And they do – most of the time.

For 12-27-12

I can haz career?

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you think you have a job or a career?

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To me, having a ‘job’ would be working for an hourly wage at something that you do only for the pay and not because of any long-term goal. ‘Jobs’ are typically positions that do not provide much (if anything) in the way of benefits or retirement plans.

A ‘career’ involves working at a single type of work (hopefully at a single place of employment) with a long-term goal of working up to higher positions and greater pay and usually includes some manner of retirement plan.

Most definitely, I have a career. It’s hard not to have a career when one has put the time into getting a Ph.D. (though it happens). I expect to be doing the same sort of work (science and teaching and maybe a little writing) until I’m ready to retire.

Further evidence that I have a career: I finally got business cards. I feel all grown up.

Back off, man! I'm a scientist!
Back off, man! I’m a scientist!

For 12-26-12

Going for a ride…

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – How far would you travel daily for a job you love?

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Since I really like my current job, let’s examine how far I travel each day to get to it, shall we?

The drive is approximately 35 miles one-way, according to my car’s trip odometer. That means 70 miles round-trip each day, 350 miles a week. Happily, the drive itself tends to take less than 45 minutes, unless there’s heavy traffic or lots of snow. Some folk’s commutes take that long and they only have to go two miles!

It’s worth it because I also really like the house we live in: an 1830’s colonial farm house on two acres. It’s huge and has space for all our books.

Yup, I have a job I like and a home I like, and it only costs me 350 miles a week.

For 12-25-12

Noises off!

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Can you get work done with background noise or do you need the room silent?

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Everyone has there preferences, but for myself, I generally need silence or white noise in order to keep my thoughts from wandering too far. Sometimes I can work to old, familiar music, but most often, silence.

Noise distracts me constantly. I hate extraneous sounds. I like quiet. The noise in this room right now is disturbing me.

Sigh.

For 12-24-12

The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary – Lombardi

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you think some people achieve easily, or do you agree with Lombardi that “the only place success comes before work is in the dictionary”?

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I suppose that for every little quote like this, there is a notable exception. The problem arises when people assume that they are the exception, and so don’t apply the wisdom provided.

If you want to be successful, you ought to expect to work. That is all there is to say about that. The most successful people, like actors or football players, actually put in some brutally long hours. They also get paid well and get some fantastic benefits, but that’s beside the point. No, actually, that is the point.

We all want to get paid well and we want the fantastic benefits. But we don’t consider that the people who are already in those positions are working their hind ends off to stay where they are. Once one of these highly successful individuals falls out of the adoring spotlight of the world’s population (for whatever reason), often then fades their success. (How many times have we heard of the once affluent person who is destitute later in life, after their fame faded.)

For this reason it is important to work up to achieve success, and to keep working to maintain that success. We can’t take a break and assume that momentum will carry us comfortably through the rest of our lives.

And on that note… I’ve got some work to do!

For 12-21-12

The harder I work, the luckier I get. – Samuel Goldwyn

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Do you think this thought by Samuel Goldwyn is true? “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

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When a person says they are ‘lucky,’ that means that fortunate events seem to happen to them. But luck isn’t some supernatural phenomenon. Luck comes from two sources, and maybe more.

First, how lucky you feel depends to a great degree upon how you relate and react to your world and events around you. If you are a naturally negative person, nothing good ever seems to happen to you (that you are aware of), and you consider yourself unlucky. If you’re a naturally positive person, then almost everything that happens can be seen in a positive light and you see yourself as lucky.

The other part of luck is putting yourself in a position where beneficial events can happen to you. When you work hard to promote yourself (directly) or your work, you increase the likelihood that someone might take notice and present you with an opportunity. If you tend to prefer to be hidden in your office or lab (or den), feverishly working on things that you’ll never share outside of your immediate family or work environment, it’s hard for ‘lucky’ things to happen to you.

This is why, over the last year, I’ve stuck my neck way out by using Twitter more and by posting frequently on and promoting my blog. And people have started to take notice. I don’t expect a book deal tomorrow. I hope maybe to get a book contract within the next few years, perhaps. But I don’t think any of that would be possible if I wasn’t out doing the cyber-legwork.

So, luck is what you make of it, I guess. But lucky situations seldom arise if we just sit back and wait for them. If I keep working hard, I think my luck will improve.

For 12-20-12

Nothing will work unless you do. – Maya Angelou

National Blog Posting Month – December 2012 – Work

Prompt – Discuss this quote by Maya Angelou: “Nothing will work unless you do.”

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This quote falls along the likes of what I often say, that few things worth doing are easy. The point here is that the easy route usually fails (though occasionally you luck out). If you want to succeed, you have to do some work. You’ve got to pay your dues, as it were. For most people, work is a requirement for success.

This isn’t to say that hard work is a guarantee of success, but no work is basically a guarantee of no success. Even people who seem to get lucky breaks work hard to put themselves in situations where they might get noticed.

That’s why it’s important to keep working toward goals, even if they seem impossible, because when you stop working, success is not possible.

It’s an unfortunate circumstance that (here in the U.S. at least) this lesson is lost on many. We have a great sense of entitlement in our culture (and I won’t get into the discussion of why) in which we all assume that if we’ve been working scut jobs for so long, we suddenly deserve to get paid more and have wonderful living conditions. And when that fails… well, it’s bad news.

We’re a society of getting a prize for trying, not for winning, which has resulted in a whole generation of people who think they should get something just for being there: entitlement. It can’t work that way, though. Not for adults. Some cope with that just fine. Others sometimes go off the deep end, with potentially disasterous results.

Yes, we need to teach this lesson to our kids: You don’t get something for nothing. You’ve got to work for the things that you want. Nothing worth having is easily attained. “Nothing will work unless you do.”

For 12-19-12