i love my boss.
ok so... i'm in grad school. i think we all know that.
and in the research consortium i am a part of, has semi-annual meeting which i have dubbed the "justify your existance meetings". because most of the representatives from the companies that give us research money come to see how we're spending it. some of these are guys that directly fund a research project with a professor... and some just pay a fee to be able to use the research project products.
and so... we have to present our work. to everyone. this actually doesn't stress me out at all. for a quiet guy, i'm surprisingly comfortable with public speaking.
where the stress comes in, is making the slides.
see, my boss works very dynamically. as do i. we submit our slides and he revises them. and sometimes on revision two or three... he'll tell you to change something he himself told you to do in the first place. but that's fine. i understand it. it's about the flow of the whole thing. if it doesn't work, change it. i and others have spent more than a few all nighters, near the deadline... making it perfect, gathering the last bit of data from simulations to add to the content to make sure it's enough...
and this is a very specific audience. you need to get to know what they already know. and adjust the content accordingly. this takes some doing.
and so this march (as the meetings are march and october), i obviously can't present my material. so boss has to do it. which i actually find more stressful, because he needs it to be more perfect, for him. since he will be presenting my work, it needs to be incredibly lucid so that he knows what he's talking about. plus, i'm not there in the office for the constant feedback as the deadline nears. to be able to change things at the last minute whcih invariably happens.
so you can imagine... what i felt... when in an IM session with the bossman... talking about the simulations i was trying to get done to add data to the slides that i had just made (first draft)... i got this:abhijit dasgupta: ok, shoot me an email & let me know if this works...if no, then we may have to consider killing the present job & pulling out intermediate info for the slides
dan: ok. will do.
dan: i'll keep you updated.
abhijit dasgupta: ok, let me look quickly at your slides & see what else is needed...standby
dan: ok
abhijit dasgupta: looks quite ok actually
dan: whoa.
i nearly fell off my chair.
plus he's great because we have conversations like this:abhijit dasgupta: btw, what did you do to milosovic ? i send u 2 netherlands...& next thing i know, war criminals are falling dead like flies in dutch prisons !
dan: hahahha. i know. first the tsunami, now this....
and in the research consortium i am a part of, has semi-annual meeting which i have dubbed the "justify your existance meetings". because most of the representatives from the companies that give us research money come to see how we're spending it. some of these are guys that directly fund a research project with a professor... and some just pay a fee to be able to use the research project products.
and so... we have to present our work. to everyone. this actually doesn't stress me out at all. for a quiet guy, i'm surprisingly comfortable with public speaking.
where the stress comes in, is making the slides.
see, my boss works very dynamically. as do i. we submit our slides and he revises them. and sometimes on revision two or three... he'll tell you to change something he himself told you to do in the first place. but that's fine. i understand it. it's about the flow of the whole thing. if it doesn't work, change it. i and others have spent more than a few all nighters, near the deadline... making it perfect, gathering the last bit of data from simulations to add to the content to make sure it's enough...
and this is a very specific audience. you need to get to know what they already know. and adjust the content accordingly. this takes some doing.
and so this march (as the meetings are march and october), i obviously can't present my material. so boss has to do it. which i actually find more stressful, because he needs it to be more perfect, for him. since he will be presenting my work, it needs to be incredibly lucid so that he knows what he's talking about. plus, i'm not there in the office for the constant feedback as the deadline nears. to be able to change things at the last minute whcih invariably happens.
so you can imagine... what i felt... when in an IM session with the bossman... talking about the simulations i was trying to get done to add data to the slides that i had just made (first draft)... i got this:abhijit dasgupta: ok, shoot me an email & let me know if this works...if no, then we may have to consider killing the present job & pulling out intermediate info for the slides
dan: ok. will do.
dan: i'll keep you updated.
abhijit dasgupta: ok, let me look quickly at your slides & see what else is needed...standby
dan: ok
abhijit dasgupta: looks quite ok actually
dan: whoa.
i nearly fell off my chair.
plus he's great because we have conversations like this:abhijit dasgupta: btw, what did you do to milosovic ? i send u 2 netherlands...& next thing i know, war criminals are falling dead like flies in dutch prisons !
dan: hahahha. i know. first the tsunami, now this....