Thread 17 - TalkLair: "Okay, first of all, what's with the outfit? Live in the now, okay? You look like DeBarge."

[RasaSayangEh]

(Previous thread 16).

Spring is springing, daffodils blooming all over our LairGarden, which have not all been picked by a neighbour's kid...

In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, cosy rugs are down on the floors looking a bit stained by cat hairball regurgitation. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I agree.

Not sure, I am firmly Gen X and I hated initiating conversations, phone or face to face, in my early career.

YANBU but I suspect 'twas ever thus. Having dropped out first time around (wrong time, wrong place) I went back as an undergrad in my late 30s and was faced with a load of girls aged 18 who were terrified to ask questions - or speak at all really! Whenever there was any sort of "ish-shoo", such as the 1 hour exam that would have taken 3 hours to complete properly, they cried and begged me to speak to the prof. They must have been born around 1970.

She doesn't have to like it, she just has to do it.

I would not be gentle in my reminders.

There is (or at least used to be) a test for one of the special forces, where the soldier is dropped in the middle of nowhere, several hundred miles from base, with nothing but a knife and the clothes he's wearing. He then has to get back to base camp without being spotted.

I'm of the opinion there ought to be similar for teenagers. At 17 or 18, drop them in a random city at least 2 countries away from home, with a phrase book and a modest amount of money. No phone. Task: get home (unlike the army one, nobody's hunting them). They can't graduate from school until they've completed the task.

It's probably a good thing I'm not a parent, but my Darwinian system would make universities and workplaces a whole lot more efficient.

@NoBinturongsHereMate It's probably a good thing I'm not a parent, but my Darwinian system would make universities and workplaces a whole lot more efficient.

Ha! I too might well have been an uncompromising parent, intolerant of wilful feebleness. Fortunately I was never once tempted to try!

I'm glad I'm NBU

This student also seems to avoid sending emails if she can help it. I know I am old-fashioned, my work emails are generally written like letters (Dear Firstname,... Text in full sentences... Best wishes). I get one-line, 4-word, half-sentence replies from her, if she replies at all. Earlier this week, I had to leave early and left her to collect the last set of readings from her experiment (all done by computer, very simple), told her to email the file to me so I could process the data in the morning before she arrived. No email arrived, of course. So I had to do the desk-corner-look-dance the next morning until she arrived, then ask for the file, then process the data, before we could get into the lab (couple of hours of delay).

Don't get me wrong - I understand the horror of initiating any kind of interaction or conversation. e.g. I still have to psych myself up before making a phone call, and if I can do the thing by email/text I'll always choose that.

But some of these young 'uns seem extra extra avoidant of even the most basic and common interactions. I wonder if it's because technology means they've generally never had to even try to overcome their natural reluctance to interact with others?

I sort of recall, as a small child, being terrified if my parents told me to ask in a shop for something, request the bill from the waiter, etc. But in those days you had to learn to do it else you'd never get anything done. Now for example, my DC never have to ask the bus driver for a child ticket because they pre-buy said tickets on their smartphone app. Once, they happened not to have any tickets ready and were frantically trying to buy as we were running to catch the bus. I said, "Don't panic, just buy from the driver!" and was met by wails of despair, "But then I have to speak to him!!" And I think my DC are quite well-trained in the matters of speaking-nicely-to-people-to-obtain-services and polite-social-conversation-with-strangers compared to some others.

I would be totally on board with Bint's teen-homing test!

I shouldn't paint youngsters too harshly.

This academic year I have also supervised a couple of keen, proactive students who would just get on with things. If they had questions, they'd just ask. If they wanted to try a different approach, they'd just suggest it. If we had a conversation where I said "Prof Soandso would know best about this technique," they'd promptly fire off a (politely and properly worded and punctuated) email to Prof Soandso introducing themselves, asking their question, requesting a meeting at Prof's convenience, etc.

OTOH in this batch of students I also assisted a colleague in supervising her 2 MSc students, she wanted me to teach them a technique that I know much better than she does. So I met up with them, talked over the general principles, explained the procedure, then emailed them the relevant documents to be digested before lab day, specifically a carefully-planned step-by-step idiot-proof protocol that I had crafted for their specific experiment.

Lab day arrived, we stood together at my bench.

I said, "OK, get your protocol sheet out so we can tick each step!"
Blank looks.
I said, "Did you get my email?"
Nods.
I said, "Did you read and understand the documents?"
NOPE.

Frankly I would wonder why they were even at MSc level with that degree of incompetence.

Jeez, they won't last in an industrial setting. I've had young colleagues like this, who go a whole shift without processing data and on asking, said that there were no navigation files.

Did you ask Graham about it (producer of navigation files). No.

Why not? Erm, didn't know I should.

Me: Any nav files, Graham?
Aye, all there.

Hmm, are they in the right folder?
Shit, sorry - I put them in yesterday's, hang on a sec...

Young colleague is in the chair next to Graham.

I have no doubt that all these individuals would get kidnapped by the angry bus driver!

That student sounds so frustrating, I hope she manages to up her game soon or she'll find professional life difficult.

I'm not bad at speaking up and think it's partly because I had early encouragement from my dad. The first time I spoke up I was nine and we were holidaying on Jersey and staying in a hotel, but my room was right above the disco so the noise went on late and kept me awake. On the first morning I grumbled to my dad about the noise and he told me to speak to the manager, who happened to be standing a few feet away from us. 'There he is, go and tell him' said my dad, so I did and I got moved to another room. It felt very strange at the time but it was good training. What I usually do is to write myself a script in my head and then deliver the lines, like an actor.

I discovered that my older brother was doing the same in our teens. He had to phone someone official and had written himself a script to read out over the phone, but he left the piece of paper behind after he'd finished. It started with the word 'Um' which everyone thought was rather sweet.

An excellent dad is worth his weight in rhodium. Mine had a policy of responding to questions about how I should deal with a problem with "Well, what do you think?" He taught me to think stuff through, weigh up the pros and cons and then, if applicable, just say "Oh well, what the hell!" and throw caution to the wind.

My mother's attitude to this was "Well of course, your problem is that your father always treated you as though you were a boy!" 😂

News of FagsMags&Bags.

She's been admitted to the spa-like hospice and is being very well looked after. A friend from the Old Place is with her (and was there overnight too).

If you are a praying and/or candle lighting type, now would be a good time for either or both. May the road rise up to meet her.

Thank you for sharing, @SqueakyDinosaur , I was beginning to wonder. Im glad she’s well looked after.

Thanks for the update @SqueakyDinosaur and glad to hear Fags has a friend at her side. I’ve been thinking of her a lot.

Me too. Thank you @SqueakyDinosaur

Thanks @SqueakyDinosaur . I’m a (very bad) Quaker (who almost never goes to meeting) but I love the Quaker phrase “holding her in the light” so please pass that on if you can.

I have done, @Britinme .

Thank you for the update. I'll be holding her in my thoughts.

Thank you for letting us know. I'm glad she's being well cared for and will be lighting a candle and thinking of her.

Ah, I'm sorry she hasn't had longer to enjoy their magnificent facilities. I'll be thinking of her.

Thank you for keeping us updated @SqueakyDinosaur, I'm not a prayers or candles person but I will be thinking of her. I am glad she is being well looked after and has a friend with her.

FagsMags&Bags died earlier today. Her dear friend E was with her and has asked me to let you know. Rest in peace, dear C.

Oh that’s so sad, I’m glad she had E with her. Her insight into the journey she was on was so moving, I’m privileged she shared some of it with us.