Troubleshooting

Sometimes it feels like all I do is extinguish fires.

Today in particular, everything was in flames. The day started with a meeting regarding issues around our newly appointed PhD researcher. She’s currently stuck abroad for corona-related reasons, which makes her life, and by association also our lives, more difficult than necessary. We prioritized some urgent aspects to be arranged – out of necessity by me – in preparation for her field research this summer.

During this meeting, I received an e-mail telling me that our climate cabinet was giving all kinds of alarms. Argh! I decide to pour myself a coffee, and then get over there to fix things. Self-care is important…

Pretty much while I’m taking my first sip, I get another notification informing me that alarms are blaring in another climate chamber facility and we cannot enter (where another PhD researcher had seedlings to water and hundreds of root samples to wash). So, ARGH!

I drank my coffee. I casually fixed our cabinet (no clue, don’t ask). Ate Chocoladekrapfen (Thanks Maxi!). The engineering company fixed the other alarms. Submitted a long-due manuscript in between. Washed roots to make up for lost time.

All fires extinguished.

Weekend time!