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…
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
the girl card
My last post was about advantages to looking younger than I am. But part of the reason I’m considered to be more helpless or unthreatening than, say, my coworkers, is that I’m female.
Sometimes this can be an advantage, especially if you’re lugging something heavy and awkward or you can’t get something unscrewed. Joe public is a lot more likely to stop by and offer to help if I’m fighting with something mechanical than if a male coworker is. Young women who are feeling lazy can “play the girl card” and find someone else to do it. It’s not something I’m a big fan of, but it often works with the general public (I would highly recommend not trying it on your coworkers).
Having said that, I have run into situations where I couldn’t get something done by myself, and I have gotten assistance that a male coworker may not have – or at least, not as easily. Two examples:
1. I got stuck in the snow at a large facility where most of the population was male (I got help in less than 5 minutes of floundering). When I got back, I was asked if I “showed a little leg.” Um, no. Since I was wearing snow pants, jeans, and wool long underwear tucked into my socks, attempting to show a little leg would have made me fall on my ass. The reason I got stuck in the first place was because the six inches of snow had 3 inches of ice underneath.
2. A female coworker and I tried to open some old flush-mount wells (rusted bolts) near a rest area, and we ended up with an entire road crew trying to wrench them open. We felt somewhat vindicated when the road crew eventually gave up.
In both cases, we didn't really ask for help. People just appeared. In most cases, though, if I get an unsolicited offer for help, I don't take anyone up on it. If I'm doing fieldwork that requires an extra hand, I plan for more personnel to be there, rather than trying to play the girl card once I get into trouble.
Sometimes this can be an advantage, especially if you’re lugging something heavy and awkward or you can’t get something unscrewed. Joe public is a lot more likely to stop by and offer to help if I’m fighting with something mechanical than if a male coworker is. Young women who are feeling lazy can “play the girl card” and find someone else to do it. It’s not something I’m a big fan of, but it often works with the general public (I would highly recommend not trying it on your coworkers).
Having said that, I have run into situations where I couldn’t get something done by myself, and I have gotten assistance that a male coworker may not have – or at least, not as easily. Two examples:
1. I got stuck in the snow at a large facility where most of the population was male (I got help in less than 5 minutes of floundering). When I got back, I was asked if I “showed a little leg.” Um, no. Since I was wearing snow pants, jeans, and wool long underwear tucked into my socks, attempting to show a little leg would have made me fall on my ass. The reason I got stuck in the first place was because the six inches of snow had 3 inches of ice underneath.
2. A female coworker and I tried to open some old flush-mount wells (rusted bolts) near a rest area, and we ended up with an entire road crew trying to wrench them open. We felt somewhat vindicated when the road crew eventually gave up.
In both cases, we didn't really ask for help. People just appeared. In most cases, though, if I get an unsolicited offer for help, I don't take anyone up on it. If I'm doing fieldwork that requires an extra hand, I plan for more personnel to be there, rather than trying to play the girl card once I get into trouble.
Monday, April 13, 2009
advantages to looking young
Long-time readers of this blog will recognize that I have a bit of a complex about being mistaken for a much younger person. I am super-polite (in fact, I'm probably too much of a pushover) most of the time, but if someone dismisses me (or worse, patronizes me) because they think I'm younger/less experienced, I react... poorly.
It pains me to admit it, but there are advantages to looking less experienced when you're working in the field. When I'm trying to fill out resident surveys or asking for permission to access a property, I'm seen as unthreatening. For example, old ladies were somewhat more likely to answer the door to me than to some of my grizzled coworkers.
Also, actively hostile people will tend to attack the person who looks older, even if we're doing the exact same thing (say, collecting groundwater samples from wells on the same street) independently. Not that I can't handle myself, but I'm pretty happy to avoid having an angry neighbor get all in my face.
I guess it's better that I surprise people by being experienced and competent, rather than have folks assume I know what I'm doing and then screw up. But when someone asks if I'm doing surveys for a school project (and no, they're not thinking grad school), it's still incredibly hard to smile and turn the conversation to what I'm actually asking for.
It pains me to admit it, but there are advantages to looking less experienced when you're working in the field. When I'm trying to fill out resident surveys or asking for permission to access a property, I'm seen as unthreatening. For example, old ladies were somewhat more likely to answer the door to me than to some of my grizzled coworkers.
Also, actively hostile people will tend to attack the person who looks older, even if we're doing the exact same thing (say, collecting groundwater samples from wells on the same street) independently. Not that I can't handle myself, but I'm pretty happy to avoid having an angry neighbor get all in my face.
I guess it's better that I surprise people by being experienced and competent, rather than have folks assume I know what I'm doing and then screw up. But when someone asks if I'm doing surveys for a school project (and no, they're not thinking grad school), it's still incredibly hard to smile and turn the conversation to what I'm actually asking for.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
geologists are cool!
One thing that’s neat about being a geologist is that it sounds exotic and super-scientific to many non-scientists.
One of my closest friends is an editor, and we go to a lot of meet and greet type events and functions for various organizations (she’s single, I’m wingwoman). When we tell people about our respective jobs, folks are generally super excited to hear about my work, to the extent that I sort of feel bad that my friend gets neglected. Hey, she’s the single one here!
Once I start telling folks what I actually do, they’re generally not quite as awed. I mean, collecting dirt from rust-belt cities and sending it off for analysis isn’t quite the same thing as spending 6 months on the side of a volcano in some tropical location.
But as I’ve said before, I always like to be presented in public as a female scientist, so I can help dispel the myth that geologists are all sunburnt, 60 year old men who have permanent tilley hats attached to their heads*.
*ok, so I have a tilley-style sun hat while in the field. But it comes off (with great relief) once I'm back.
One of my closest friends is an editor, and we go to a lot of meet and greet type events and functions for various organizations (she’s single, I’m wingwoman). When we tell people about our respective jobs, folks are generally super excited to hear about my work, to the extent that I sort of feel bad that my friend gets neglected. Hey, she’s the single one here!
Once I start telling folks what I actually do, they’re generally not quite as awed. I mean, collecting dirt from rust-belt cities and sending it off for analysis isn’t quite the same thing as spending 6 months on the side of a volcano in some tropical location.
But as I’ve said before, I always like to be presented in public as a female scientist, so I can help dispel the myth that geologists are all sunburnt, 60 year old men who have permanent tilley hats attached to their heads*.
*ok, so I have a tilley-style sun hat while in the field. But it comes off (with great relief) once I'm back.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
predicting earthquakes
The NY Times had a bit of a kerfuffle about earthquake prediction after the earthquake in Italy that struck yesterday morning. You see, this Italian guy predicted an earthquake based on radon gas measurements, but he wasn’t specific about exactly where, and he had the date off by about a week. The authorities quashed his prediction, and now he feels vindicated.
Here’s the problem, as I see it. In order to evacuate an entire town, you need to have a fairly good sense that a disaster is imminent. Otherwise, you just get “cry wolf” syndrome. We already have problems trying to evacuate people from known, quantifiable disasters (floods from dam overflow, hurricanes, etc). How many people would evacuate after the first false alarm? The second?
Now, do I think the guy should have been shut down by the Italian government? No, I don’t.
What we should really focus on instead is reinforcing buildings so that they don’t totally collapse into rubble during a relatively minor quake. Or, barring that, enforcing actual building codes for new buildings so that eventually you’ll have less loss of life. Take a cue from Japan, which has tons of earthquakes and minimal loss of life compared to other countries with similar seismic activity.
But designing and enforcing good building codes is a long-term, expensive proposition that may not necessarily pay off in decades, if ever. Much easier to scurry around and point fingers and waste energy on whether or not an earthquake could have been predicted after the fact.
Here’s the problem, as I see it. In order to evacuate an entire town, you need to have a fairly good sense that a disaster is imminent. Otherwise, you just get “cry wolf” syndrome. We already have problems trying to evacuate people from known, quantifiable disasters (floods from dam overflow, hurricanes, etc). How many people would evacuate after the first false alarm? The second?
Now, do I think the guy should have been shut down by the Italian government? No, I don’t.
What we should really focus on instead is reinforcing buildings so that they don’t totally collapse into rubble during a relatively minor quake. Or, barring that, enforcing actual building codes for new buildings so that eventually you’ll have less loss of life. Take a cue from Japan, which has tons of earthquakes and minimal loss of life compared to other countries with similar seismic activity.
But designing and enforcing good building codes is a long-term, expensive proposition that may not necessarily pay off in decades, if ever. Much easier to scurry around and point fingers and waste energy on whether or not an earthquake could have been predicted after the fact.
Monday, April 6, 2009
poor audience behavior
As I've mentioned before, I've been to a number of conferences over my grad school career. I have several pet peeves for speakers, but for now I'd like to focus on audience pet peeves. Which bugs you most? Here's a partial list, in rough chronological order:
1. Taking the last chair in a row too narrow for anybody else to sneak past. For every single row! Move in, people!
2. Folks who let the door slam behind them when they "sneak" out in the middle of a talk
3. "Whispering" the entire time a talk is in progress.
4. Tapping madly on your blackberry when you haven't turned the "button pressing" sound off.
5. Talking over other people (people who had their hand up, incidentally) during the question and answer period.
My personal pet peeve is the blackberry one. Seriously, how do you not notice how loud your blackberry is beeping during the entire talk? Hmph.
1. Taking the last chair in a row too narrow for anybody else to sneak past. For every single row! Move in, people!
2. Folks who let the door slam behind them when they "sneak" out in the middle of a talk
3. "Whispering" the entire time a talk is in progress.
4. Tapping madly on your blackberry when you haven't turned the "button pressing" sound off.
5. Talking over other people (people who had their hand up, incidentally) during the question and answer period.
My personal pet peeve is the blackberry one. Seriously, how do you not notice how loud your blackberry is beeping during the entire talk? Hmph.
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