Schmoozing

I was quite shy as a young child. Later I became bookish and nerdy, which added an air of stand-offishness. Neither is a winning formula for social popularity.

But my first pass through graduate school changed things significantly. My advisor had a large group of advisees, 7 or 8, with about half of the group working on master's degrees and half on PhDs. He held regular weekly meetings during which one of his students had to report on their research progress and results, and then subsequently defend themselves, with no props other than maybe a chalkboard, against the bloodletting that followed from the rest of the group. It was brutal. It was exhilarating. It was eye-opening. After a couple of years of that, the dissertation defense was a breeze.

Don't start thinking that this was in any way abusive--it was well managed, and no personal attacks or calling people poopy-heads were allowed. The result was that I learned how communicate my research ideas clearly and effectively. But that is only one part of being a functional monkey in the monkey troupe.

The job that I took after that graduation required me to convince petroleum companies to part with their dollars to fund research projects based on ideas that my colleagues and I would come up with. Within the budgets of those projects, I had to cover my salary, including sick leave and vacation, the salaries of colleagues and support staff, and overhead. I had to convince the companies that the results would be of greater benefit to them than the relatively modest cost of paying us to do the work. The first few years were a bit rough but eventually I learned the art of schmoozing. And I got pretty darned good at it. I came to enjoy being good at it. I'm still bookish and shy, but when I turn on the schmooze, I can be formidable.

I have little interest in social schmoozing, although a bit of that is necessary. I'm more interested in technical schmoozing, in which me and other monkeys talk about science-y things.

Now I am working again. Although the role is different (public sector veterinarian), this week I learned three things about my new job: there is plenty of schmoozing to be done, it's been a long time since I was able to schmooze, and I really missed doing it.

I have started lurking around the receiving area when people bring in submissions (that is, animals for necropsy) so I can chat with them. I learn a lot about production practices and problems that are of concern to them, not to mention I get a much better history than the clients write down on the submission form. I was initially worried that I might be annoying the receiving staff, who do an excellent job and whose toes I definitely do not want to step on. But I got an email from them yesterday thanking me for talking to clients! And as soon as I complete a necropsy that has a fairly definitive finding, I call the referring veterinarian and chat with them on the phone. The lab director told me last week he was so pleased to hear all the "hubbub" (that's the actual word he used) coming from my office as I chat on the phone to veterinarians and owners.

How lucky I am to have found a job that lets me do fun vet med things then chat with people about those things all day long.