Long term benefits of bovine milk extraction...

There was a saying as I was growing up... "Don't learn to milk the cow."

Implied here is that cow milking is a labour intensive process that requires early mornings and daily, persistent commitment. The metaphor behind this aphorism is that if one were to acquire an (unpleasant) skill, that the duty would fall exclusively to them.

It became a joke at home: my dad would often ask my mother to take on new skills around the house (and she was already working full time and educating my sister), and she would say things like "that sounds like a cow" or moo at him.

It has happened to me in many aspects of my work.  I have taken on skills that have served an integral role in the work I do, and my supervisors have come to rely on me.  Just the other day, I was called upon - at a time where my thesis work is growing in intensity - to perform some off-duty data collection.  Unfortunately, there are only two people who are capable of using the software required, which requires my (or my colleague's) attendance in the lab during data collection.

It is frustrating, because my skills are often required in times where my my availability is split between priories.  But I've been reflecting on my utility, and realized why I'm in this situation to begin with.

I'm a milker.  Avoiding difficult jobs in synonymous with forgoing opportunities.   Becoming an important part of my research environment has developed a trust-based relationship with my supervisor that has afforded me the opportunity to take on larger, program-guidance roles.  These opportunities have sculpted a set of experiences that I believe are unique in graduate school.

So... based on my experiences, I'd like to revise the old saying with a new alternative:

"If you don't learn to milk the cow, you may never see the morning sunrise."

Where it all started...

I woke up in a panic.  I heard my phone ringing loudly.  I looked at the time on the face:

8:28

Shit!  I answered the call, forcibly clearing a sleep-atrophied voicebox prior to hitting "talk."

"Hello."  Damn. that was too cheerful.

"Good morning sunshine, did you forget us again?"  Thank god,  it was Lois.  She must be in charge today.

"I. Am. So. Sorry.  I am on my way in.  I'll be there in a half hour."

I finished my call and speed-showered/shaved/got dressed and drove to the hospital as quickly as I could to start yet another Sunday shift.

I arrived on the unit at 9:06 and slipped into my office to start sorting and stocking patient files.  Lois, the charge nurse of the ICU where I worked, smirked as she walked into my office.  "What was it last night?  It better be good."

"3 prostitutes and and a bottle of patron is really all I can remember, unfortunately.  I think I had fun." I laughed apologetically.

"Ha. Well, call admitting, bed three has to go back to the valley today, and bed eleven is transferring to the floor."  Lois always cut me slack.

Fortunately, these lapses in punctuality happened rarely, and I had developed quite a good rapport with the hospital staff that were becoming my "work family."  They were understanding and treated my truancy with a degree of leniency not afforded many others.

Frankly, I wish that my life was as exciting as I humorously made it seem.  In reality, I had been up until 3am finishing a systems assignment due Monday morning.  After four years in an accelerated Mechanical Engineering program, and working every Sunday, I was physically and emotionally exhausted.  My study groups had become my social life, and my assignments had supplanted my hobbies.  Whenever I actually had a day of reprieve, I drowned it in a blur of alcoholic excess.

While my entire senior year is a colloidal suspension of assignments, insomnia, and alcohol, I feel like it was this time in my life that I began to grow into myself.  I think the fog-like reality allowed me strange freedom to grow in a way that the structure of my life prior hadn't allowed.

So I'm going to be a bit indulgent, and assume that someone wants to hear any of this.  I have been wanting to tell some of these stories for a while, so here is is.