coldhearted scientist وداد

→ The post of the day is from Feminéma, on salaries and negotiation, very important.

→ The post beautiful award for today goes to Jonathan, on poetry, theory, and poetics — what a relief it is to read that in lieu of the news.

I had planned to spend this day on teaching activities, and they needed doing, but it ended up going to service, big bad meetings and negotiations and mediating difficult personalities, and I am both aggravated and exhausted. What I mean about service and administration is that I, too, dislike them. I deny that they are easier than research; I sometimes finish service tasks relieved that they have been accomplished and will have their desired effect, but I rarely finish them refreshed — whereas research is always refreshing.

It is fashionable to say one dislikes or “is not good at” service and I think people say it because they feel this will make them seem intelligent. To say that is to imply one is good at more important things. Saying one is not good at service is like saying one is not good at housework, or has not learned to type. I have said before what I have to say about service: it needs doing and it needs to be done well, and if you think it is easy or meaningless then you have never taken on major service. Without service your infrastructure would be gone, do you want that?

I will repeat my lemma: writing is fun, publishing is easy, teaching takes time and is worth that time, and administration is creative. This, however, is not to be construed to mean I recommend service over research as a “value.” This weblog or codex is an absolute failure if that is what it has been suggesting.

Axé.