Seminars, meetings and clubs...just kill me now

I know that, at least in theory, journal clubs, group meetings, lab meetings and that fancy seminar given by a speaker from out of town are for my own scientific good. However, the fact that all of these things occur on a weekly basis is wearing me right the fuck out. My days are already a study in multi-tasking. I need to be productive. Just like everyone else I have deadlines and expectations to meet. Now that I have my own funding, I have progress reports that loom. I also have imaginary or self-created stresses, like worrying about my productivity post-child being compared to my productivity pre-child.

In the first month back at work, I know I wasn't all that productive, but I've seriously picked up the pace since then. I also want to prove to myself and any other nay-sayer, that I can still kick some scientific ass. As a result, my days are very busy and I get seriously annoyed when other work-related activities take me away from the bench. I feel like I need every minute. Seminars, meetings, whatever; they all cut into my day. Sure, they cut into it before, but now I can't just stay late. Of course, most of these things aren't optional, so I begrudgingly go and get nothing out of it. Why? Because I spend most of the time thinking about everything I need to be doing instead of listening and (hopefully) learning. Because of this, I get nothing out of these meetings and they truly do become a waste.

So what's a busy post-doc to do? Can I skip any of these meetings and not create a shit-storm for myself?

Lab meeting - For the most part, I don't actually mind lab meeting. I like to see what my co-workers are up to and provide (or receive) helpful suggestions. Besides, lab meeting takes place during lunch time, so at least I can multi-task my lunch.

Verdict: Skipping is not an option. Lab meetings are absolutely mandatory unless you are on vacation, sick, at a meeting or trapped under something heavy.

Group meeting - This is the departmental meeting. Sometimes people from other labs in the department present, sometimes people from other labs from local institutions present. Some of them are interesting, some of them are a snooze-fest. Like lab meetings, group meeting occurs at lunch so at least I can kill two birds with one stone.

Verdict: There are a lot of people that attend these meetings, so I'm not likely to be missed, but Magnum, PI attends them religiously, so missing too many is probably not an option.

Journal club: I fucking loath journal club, especially at post-doc university. The papers people choose are lame and I rarely ever get anything out of them. Plus, a dumb-fucking donkey from another department often attends these clubs and asks stupid and inane questions every five minutes. Also, they always run 10 to 15 minutes over.

Verdict: I think I can blow these off. Magnum, PI sees these more as required for students and I am not a student. Other post-docs in the department do not attend and nobody says boo about it.

Fancy seminar: To some degree, I think everyone should attend these. After all, I wouldn't want to give a talk at another institution and have only five people show up to listen. However, at least 50% of these talks are way, way, way out of my subject area. They are so far out that I would need to spend a week reading papers just to prepare to listen. Even then, I would still probably get lost half way through. This is because the speakers are invited by PI's from within the entire center and the center is composed of some very diverse departments. My department reminds of the sesame street song, "One of these things are not like the other."

Verdict: I think I will make an executive decision to only attend the seminars that I find (a) interesting or (b) are at least tangentially related to my area of research.

Final verdict: Attend lab meeting and the departmental meeting every week, attend the fancy seminars when I am so moved and give journal club the finger. This sounds much, much better.

What do you guys do? Do you attend every seminar or do you have the luxury of picking and choosing?

Another Master of the Obvious

Just before I left grad. school lab, a new manager was hired. While this person was very nice, they were also very annoying due to the loads of useless and obvious information they tried to impart on me and other members of the lab. For those reasons I dubbed him Captain Obvious (If you like, you can read about Capt. Obvious here and here.)
In my new lab, I found no one obsessed with imparting the obvious and this made me happy. Unfortunately, I was knocked down a peg or two when I found a new specimen in journal club. She attends every week and as you might imagine, she finds many obvious things to point out. Since this person is actually a tenure-track faculty member (sigh), I will refer to her as Dr. Obvious.
After many journal clubs, I’ve noticed Dr. Obvious pretty much sticks to the basic tactics of imparting the obvious, but she also adds her own little flair to the process. I’ve also noticed that unlike most maters of the obvious, Dr. Obvious really enjoys sucking up to other faculty. It’s nauseating.

1. Through out journal club, Dr. Obvious insists on speaking along with the presenter. Like when you know what someone is going to say and you say it with him or her. Only, since this is a presentation, I find it inappropriate and annoying. Also, since I think Dr. Obvious is inferior to every other faculty member in the department, I can only assume this "talking with the speaker" is some sad attempt at making sure that someone, anyone, realizes that they know something about science. Unfortunately, the whole room could have chimed in because we all know what the presenter is about to say in these instances. It’s called common knowledge. This goes on every week.
2. Dr. Obvious asks way too many questions. These questions are either (a) silly or (b) a thinly veiled attempt to discuss her lab’s research or (c) both. I started keeping track of the amount of time Dr. Obvious takes up in the hour-long journal club with her questions and I clocked her at 10-15 minutes. Guess how long journal club typically runs over. That's right, 15 minutes. When Dr. Obvious does not attend journal club, they end on time.
3. She coos and coos over the other faculty members when they present a paper for journal club, telling them how smart they are and how awesome their work is. (Note: The paper typically does not have anything to do with their research.) When she found out that one of the faculty members discovered a TLR, I thought she was going to offer to spawn his children. After the fourth or fifth, “Wow, I didn’t know you discovered TLR??, that is soooooooooo amazing,” even he seemed a little annoyed.
4. When Dr. Obvious isn't stating something obvious, she is demonstrating why she tends to stick to stating the obvious. This is best illustrated with an example. A few months ago a paper that detailed the phenotype of a particular knockout mouse was presented. In this case, the KO mouse exhibited a skin abnormality. Ten minutes after journal club was supposed to end and 10 stupid questions and comments later, she asks another question. After the speaker answers her, she proceeds to say, “Oh! I thought this paper was about Drosophila.” Drosophila? DROSOPHILA!

Today’s journal club was chock full of #1s and #4s. Today’s #4 went something like this: The speaker presented a paper on how a particular viral protein affects leukocyte trafficking. Ten minutes after journal club is SUPPOSED to be done she asks something like this: Since a virus can evade the host's immune system by producing proteins that interfere with signaling, and bacteria can make these types of proteins too, then how do antibiotics work or is this why they don't work?
Let me just say that if spontaneous human combustion were possible, it would have happened to me today. All I could do was burry my face in my hands and muffle the large sigh and eye rolling that spontaneously occurs when I hear something that ridiculous.