By an unfortunate stroke of luck, I have four grants due on the same day this month. I’m basically on top of all the bits and pieces I need for each one and the proposals are all at the final draft stage but my poor grants manager is not dealing with the situation very well. His stress is largely due to the fact that each grant is going to a different agency and each agency has their own stupid rules, regulations and requirements, different budgets with different percentages for indirect costs, different websites, different ways of submitting the grants, etc.
I thought I was doing ok and handling the stress pretty well until I discovered a new gray hair this morning. Unlike the others that can be covered with the rest of my hair, this one is front and center where everyone can see it.
Shit. These goddamned grants are causing me to look like a skunk.
Aaaaaargh.
I can only imagine what they’re doing to my grants manager.
Parenting Failure
6 hours ago
It's not an old wives' tale. Stress really does cause gray hairs:
ReplyDeleteScience 4 February 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5710, pp. 720 - 724
DOI: 10.1126/science.1099593
Mechanisms of Hair Graying: Incomplete Melanocyte Stem Cell Maintenance in the Niche
Emi K. Nishimura,1* Scott R. Granter,2 David E. Fisher1
I'll match your gray hair and raise you a gray hair. I'm at least 5 years younger than you and have at least 5 gray hairs that I can't hide!!!11!!
ReplyDeleteGood luck to you and your grant manager getting those in.
Look at it this way: would you rather get gray hairs or gain weight? Grantsmanship did the latter for me - no gray hairs, but a pound per proposal (I wrote a lot of proposals, as you will too). You can always just dye the grays...
ReplyDeleteI'm 25 years old and I first noticed a white hair on my head when I was 16. I can't even tell anymore if a white hair is new or not. It'll be neat to have curly white hair when I'm older.
ReplyDeleteGosh, I'm only writing a mock grant and I'm getting grey hairs. I can't imagine have 4 real ones due on the same day. Good luck!
ReplyDeletegrants manager? Lucky -- we have to do the budgets, forms, etc ourselves and submit to our office of research. They just make sure we didn't f*** it up....if they find an error, it's up to us to correct it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny is we are in a top tier med school -- one would THINK there would be funds to assist the PIs....
Just keep reminding yourself that the grays make you look distinguished. Good luck on getting them all out the door!
ReplyDelete@PUI Prof: I'm enjoying the reference.
I have four grants due on the same day this month
ReplyDeleteFuck!
I had a pure white hair grow out of the middle of my EAR CANAL during the last grant round. Why can't I get grey hair at the temples like George Clooney or my postdoc instead? Fuckers.
-antipodean
I had a pure white hair grow out of the middle of my EAR CANAL during the last grant round.
ReplyDeleteThere are worse places for that to happen.
There are worse places for that to happen.
ReplyDeleteARghhh! Mine eyes!
-antipodean
Hey, better to have grey hairs than fewer hairs, as I'm finding over the years *sigh*.
ReplyDelete