Confessions of a researchaholic

[This post was typed directly into my WordPress site on an iPad, so bear with me for potential typos.]

On the morning before my CHI presentation (for a paper whose the first-author/former-intern couldn’t attend due to visa issues) I noticed cryptic messages from two coworkers about soon-to-lose Slack access. Given that we were on the same team, my hunch was that we might have been impacted by an organization change.

I gave the presentation as usual which seemed to go well (albeit from some AV equipment issues kindly resolved by a helpful student volunteer) and then noticed “time sensitive” meeting requests from my management chain. (The meeting slots were in my afternoon during which I already planned museum visits, so I took their calls while in the grand hall of Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.) It turned out that my entire team has been “role eliminated” because our project doesn’t fit the new org mission well. We were “highly encouraged” to find alternative internal roles within a 2-month period with partial employee status meanwhile.

If you were me, what would you do? (1) find another job, inside or outside the current employer, (2) take it easy, settle for a more relaxing role or retire, (3) convince your teammates to start up together and see what would happen. I have thought about this potential eventuality for a while, and the answer is kinda a no-brainer to me. Counterintuitively, I feel more excited and energized than before when my career has become somehow stabilized.

Today he participated in a company volunteer activity to help fight hunger by packing dried food.

Within a large conference room were multiple stations of two types, one for mixing powdered vitamins, dried and chopped vegetables, powdered soy, and rice grains into bags, and another for weighing and sealing the bags.
Multiple volunteers were assigned to each station, and the process was repeated ad infinitum with pop music blasting in the background.

It was kind of fun to work and chat with other volunteers, but he started to wonder the value and goal of this activity.
All the equipments and materials had to be brought to and from the event venue, and the repetitive tasks seemed more suitable for robots than humans, not to mention employees who are paid (potentially high) hourly wages to do this.
So this volunteer activity looks like a form of employee benefits but with a more positive spin than the usual corporate parties.

If you worry about coming back to work after a break, just remember that you are not alone, and I often find my colleagues to be still away or no more prepared.

I also no longer have to think about what to do with my time during the break.

Just walked up to the 15th floor and found my PhD adviser sitting in a cubicle before returning to my office on the 8th floor.