The Worst Part of My Job
I love my job (internship), I honestly, truly, do. I am so lucky and so privileged to be in the position I'm in and to have the experiences I've had. In no way am I complaining about what I do, because what I do is awesome (at least in my opinion). I spend all day looking at flies that no one has ever seen before, and that is so cool. I work in a beautiful, large lab, filled with nice people, and have a great boss. There is a darkside to my seemingly perfect job. The papers.
Last summer I complied a list from two sources of known species of bee flies. One of the sources had a list of papers/articles/journals of where these bee flies were described. The bad thing (or good thing if you want to become an expert) about bee flies is that a lot of the literature describing them is pretty old. The oldest paper on my list dates from 1840. The youngest paper on my list is from 1974. Luckily I do not need to find all of these papers, because I am ignore the anthracine flies, and the bulk of the papers describe those. Unfortunatly, the papers I do need to find date 1926, 1934, and 1840 (last summer we found the one from 1974).
And how is my search for the papers I need going? Not so great. You see my dear readers, two of the three papers are written in French (the oldest one and the one from the 30s) and the other is written in German. I have six and a half years of Italian and one semester of Spanish 101 under my belt. The Doc said not to worry, because she will find people who can translate them for us. The other issue is actually finding them.
I have not found these papers. I have found their citations. I have references to them on online archives. I might have found one, but I can't read French. Honestly, the worst part of my job is finding the papers. I can spend hours on Google Scholar, online data bases, and archive websites looking for papers, and come up with nothing. It is the most unfulfilling and discouraging part of what I do. In the time I spend searching for papers with no result and the pit of sadness that accompanies it, I could be keying out flies and feel happy with my accomplishment.
And this my friends, is the worst part of my job. Googling papers.
Last summer I complied a list from two sources of known species of bee flies. One of the sources had a list of papers/articles/journals of where these bee flies were described. The bad thing (or good thing if you want to become an expert) about bee flies is that a lot of the literature describing them is pretty old. The oldest paper on my list dates from 1840. The youngest paper on my list is from 1974. Luckily I do not need to find all of these papers, because I am ignore the anthracine flies, and the bulk of the papers describe those. Unfortunatly, the papers I do need to find date 1926, 1934, and 1840 (last summer we found the one from 1974).
And how is my search for the papers I need going? Not so great. You see my dear readers, two of the three papers are written in French (the oldest one and the one from the 30s) and the other is written in German. I have six and a half years of Italian and one semester of Spanish 101 under my belt. The Doc said not to worry, because she will find people who can translate them for us. The other issue is actually finding them.
I have not found these papers. I have found their citations. I have references to them on online archives. I might have found one, but I can't read French. Honestly, the worst part of my job is finding the papers. I can spend hours on Google Scholar, online data bases, and archive websites looking for papers, and come up with nothing. It is the most unfulfilling and discouraging part of what I do. In the time I spend searching for papers with no result and the pit of sadness that accompanies it, I could be keying out flies and feel happy with my accomplishment.
And this my friends, is the worst part of my job. Googling papers.
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