Wednesday, April 15, 2009

field fingernails

How can you tell that an environmental consultant doesn’t do fieldwork? She has perfect manicured hands and fingernails.

Now, I’m not the manicuring type, and the odd time I put on nail polish, I do it myself. So that could be a large part of the reason why my nail polish lasts about 3 days before it starts to go (also, I admit to being a polish-picker. Once it starts to peel, it’s all over.)

But even when I do wear nail polish, it’s pretty hard to disguise the fact that I have “working” hands. If I’ve been in the field for any length of time, I have all sorts of odd calluses, inevitably at least one knuckle is scraped, and my fingernails look like crap. I get grime under the nails, and even when they’re cut super short (the quick of my nails is pretty close to the end of my fingers, so I don’t have a lot to work with) they snag and tear.

It’s petty, but I’m suspicious of a female geologist with perfect fingernail polish. How does that work? Do you have some sort of industrial-strength gels? Do you wear gloves nonstop? Or do you let someone else (me?) do the dirty work?

Maybe it’s me and I’m just a klutz in the field…

1 comment:

Diggitt said...

A couple years ago I read a review of a biography of Martha Stewart. The reviewer was snide about the fact that Martha does not have a great manicure. It was pointed out that Martha does not have a great manicure because she is a working woman .. with her hands. She digs in the garden, she works with wood, she works with solvents and paint and glue, she's at home in the kitchen. Her hands are her best and favorite tools! Mine too.

Yours too. Give yourself a break! If you start hanging out with models and beautiful people, you can find an expensive manicurist to give you very pricey tips. Maybe you can get yourself seduced into a lifestyle where your biggest worry will be your manicure. Do you really want that? Yeah, I thought not.