Gettin' Jiggy With It
I was watching "In the Actor's Studio" on Bravo this morning. I happened to catch the episode with Will Smith. Mr. Lipton pointed out that Will Smith is the first guest to have contributed a word to the Webster's Dictionary. Mr. Smith was rather surprised and asked what word it was. The word is "jiggy." Mr. Smith replied, "Really? That's cool. Cuz now I can look it up and see what it means." Heh.
Later one of the students asked Mr. Smith if he thought that Mr. Lipton would, actually, be capable of "getting jiggy with it." This cracked up the audience. Mr. Smith allowed as how Mr. Lipton probably could get jiggy with it, but that he'd be concerned about Mr. Lipton hurting himself so would want to have medical personnel standing by just in case.
Stupid Television
"Do you speak Canadian?"--overheard from a commerical for Real Housewives of Orange County.
Today's Productivity
I have converted a .pdf file into text and then imported it into Excel and re-formatted it so I can do additional data entry for work. I've given up on expecting to get the data in usable format from the central office. Of course, if I tell them what I did I'll get told that I shouldn't have to do that and I should have "staff". Which is fine, but I don't have "staff" and we're short a clerical person too.
Frankly, I think my going over the data carefully is critical to the success of the investigation. I am able to identify missing data and to identify problem persons who will need additional study. Someone else not involved in the investigation or not thinking critically about the information they are handling won't catch that. Apparently quality of the work isn't as important as the impression being given by having a PhD actually work directly with the raw data. I don't see that as being beneath me though I wouldn't want it to be my sole purpose. I look at this as being my investigation and believe that the more familiar I am with the data the more likely I will be to find any patterns and anomalies in that data. I have tried to point out that this is a team effort and everybody has something to contribute. I happen to have excellent data/computer skills so I do the data stuff (which I enjoy anyway and think is important, rather than "beneath me"). There are other things I cannot do which my co-workers do much better (like tracking down individual patients and getting missing data across the state).
*shrug*
Later one of the students asked Mr. Smith if he thought that Mr. Lipton would, actually, be capable of "getting jiggy with it." This cracked up the audience. Mr. Smith allowed as how Mr. Lipton probably could get jiggy with it, but that he'd be concerned about Mr. Lipton hurting himself so would want to have medical personnel standing by just in case.
Stupid Television
"Do you speak Canadian?"--overheard from a commerical for Real Housewives of Orange County.
Today's Productivity
I have converted a .pdf file into text and then imported it into Excel and re-formatted it so I can do additional data entry for work. I've given up on expecting to get the data in usable format from the central office. Of course, if I tell them what I did I'll get told that I shouldn't have to do that and I should have "staff". Which is fine, but I don't have "staff" and we're short a clerical person too.
Frankly, I think my going over the data carefully is critical to the success of the investigation. I am able to identify missing data and to identify problem persons who will need additional study. Someone else not involved in the investigation or not thinking critically about the information they are handling won't catch that. Apparently quality of the work isn't as important as the impression being given by having a PhD actually work directly with the raw data. I don't see that as being beneath me though I wouldn't want it to be my sole purpose. I look at this as being my investigation and believe that the more familiar I am with the data the more likely I will be to find any patterns and anomalies in that data. I have tried to point out that this is a team effort and everybody has something to contribute. I happen to have excellent data/computer skills so I do the data stuff (which I enjoy anyway and think is important, rather than "beneath me"). There are other things I cannot do which my co-workers do much better (like tracking down individual patients and getting missing data across the state).
*shrug*
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