Friday, September 7, 2012

Talking to my idols

The coolest thing just happened!  I decided I wanted to talk to this Famous Blogger (in my neck of the internet) about the kinds of things this pseudonymous person is famous for (which is reporting on the state of jobs in chemistry, and generally advocating for jobs policy).  There is not a voice quite like this in biology, and the blog covers of lot of really policy centric stuff.  Like, Chemjobber gets up super early to read and report on the jobs report.

The point is, I realize this person is passionate and engaged in something that is clearly beyond the scope of their actually paid position, and I wanted to know how that works.  And if it is something that I would care to try/ fit into my own version of myself as a professional.   So even though I think of this person as incredibly important, and busy, and thoughtful and frankly, kinda famous... I sent an email saying I like what you do and I'd love to talk about how you do it.  Because, you gotta try, even if you get caught in a spam filter or weeded out by an all important secretary.

Ha.  Chemjobber wrote back in 10 minutes and was like "Sure!  You wanna Skype?"  WOW.

Moral of the story: Don't be intimidated by your heroes.

No comments: