Advice For Aspiring Vertebrate Paleontologists, Part 8: Be Thou Selfish, But Not A Douchebag

Downtown Pittsburgh is an odd in a slightly idiosyncratic in a way I can't quite put my finger on, but that I like somehow. Nice and crappy looking buildings co-exist peacefully on the street. I saw tour buses driving around that look like boats, and a couple kids riding bikes down a busy sidewalk. There are cool looking projections on the sides of buildings, sometimes accompanied by sound effects; I guess Pittsburgh is the poor man's Tokyo. The panhandlers are quiet and unobtrusive. I understood most of Barsbald's speech. Goddamn was the food expensive at the Westin though. Not the best SVP meeting ever, but a decent enough one, and it went by really fast. I mostly enjoyed it for reasons having nothing to do with the actual meeting.

Don't miss SVP 2011, the first one where most people attending 8:00 a.m. talks will already be drunk.

Listen, dudes. Out there are many paleontologists trying to establish themselves, who want to not be posers and do good work, but who feel that they are not in the cool kids group. They see paleontologists who are well known, and whom they would like to be able to work with and hang out with, who do not seem too terribly interested in them, even if they share research interests. As a result, they make the mistake of thinking that the apparent disinterest is personal, like the big boys and girls just don't think they are cool enough to hang out with. This is the wrong way to think about it.

People are inherently selfish. Everybody in the world is trying to find whatever it is that makes them feel happy and productive, while (if they are good people) doing as little damage to their fellow human beings as they can. The same is true of paleontologists.

Most paleontologists with well-established research programs and professional respect got there by learning how to find and exploit the resources available too them, both in terms of research projects, and people who could provide them with information, help them advance, and find jobs and things to work on. Well-established paleontologists have a network of people they know who they are working with and being provided information by, and a list of things they are working on which eat up their time. Although most are happy to offer a little time to help out students and researchers trying to get a foot in the door, the bulk of their attention is devoted to doing the things they want to do, and the people that can help them get these things.

When they see you, the question that these researchers are asking themselves, consciously or subconsciously, is: what can that person do for ME? Are you someone with information that they would like to have, or who can offer them a new project to work on? Will you be a driven and productive graduate student who will win them kudos, perform useful tasks, and not require too much supervision?

You need to learn to think the same way. Don't waste you time worrying about whether or not the big boys and girls have accepted you or not and just USE the fuckers. Suck up whatever information they offer. Listen in on their conversations, consider their advice on grad schools and projects. When people with money offer it to you, take it. Suck them dry like a fucking vampire and move on to the next one. Eventually, they will recognize you as one of their own.

Now please note: this is not the same as being a douchebag, i.e. someone who takes things rather than just accepting them when they are offered. You are a douchebag if you do one of the following:

1. Move into someone else's field area without discussing the matter with them.
2. Publish on material (or at least an aspect of the material) that someone else is already invested time and effort in, unless they told you that they are probably never going to publish themselves, and that they don't mind.
3. Otherwise fuck over colleagues behind their backs.

Important clue: if you are doing something that may impact another researcher's work, and have not discussed it with them, you may be a douchebag. If you do it to a grad student, you are douchebag squared. If you delude yourself into thinking that taking something that someone else has already done makes you "tough", or even competent, you are the Duke of Douche. You can add it to your other title, King of the Shinglers. You know who I am talking about asshole.

Sorry, I got a little distracted there.

I have a flight to catch, so goodbye everybody. Take care. Except for you, douchebag. Get run over by a bus or something. Stop getting your poodles to write letters trying to get me and Bill fired. It isn't working, and just emphasizes that no one is listening to you anymore. The Emperor has no clothes, and a tiny cock.

Everyone else ignore that. I was talking to douchebag.