Dr. Science wanted us to participate in a poster session and talk up the Hamster project. I had my team make a draft of the poster (And, oh God, does it look like it's been laid out by engineers!) to send him before the holiday. I'm pretty sure that he'll change everything, but we have to pretend like we're the ones making the poster. He did offer to have the poster made up professionally, so we're happy to humor him.
The poster session is Friday, today is Tuesday. I haven't heard anything from Dr. Science, so I've told the team that we may be on our own for the poster and we plan accordingly. Dr. Smith asks me about it this afternoon. Our conversation goes like this:
Dr. Smith: "So when is that poster session?"
Me: "Friday. We have to be in Blacksburg by 4:00 pm."
Dr. Smith: "When do you have to turn in the poster?"
Me: "Friday at 4:00 pm."
Dr. Smith: "When?"
Me (wondering how Mrs. Smith has managed all these years): "Friday. This Friday three days from now."
Dr. Smith: "Does Dr. Science know that?"
Me (thinking Well, he's only been told a couple times, so I guess not): "…"
This precipitates a flurry of phone calls and we (meaning "I") are directed to email all poster-related files to the graphics design guy down in Hampton. The poster will be made up down there and will be overnighted or dropped off at Dr. Smith's house to be ferried up to Richmond Friday morning or something. Or we may be making our own poster with cardboard and magic markers. Or something. I scurry back to the Sun lab, catching the team just as they're putting on their coats, and delegate file collection activities since they are on Mountain Girl's laptop and Ratso is the one who sort of put our draft poster together.
The team comes through! They don't want to do the cardboard and magic marker thing either. We get the files sent off with time to spare.
Later on I get email from the graphics design guy: "So when is the deadline for this anyway?"
363 words | November 30, 2004 10:48 PM | Ivory tower