The Nomination

If I may be so forward as to interrupt the general swearing for some new nuggets from Dean Suzy's days.....

Colleage G, our prize researcher, asked if he could have lunch with me the other day. This usually does not mean that they want to hear my thoughts on the last movie I saw ("Inception" - what a dream, go see it!). They want money. Or office space. Or curtains.

We started off with some gossip and he let me know where his large research program is headed (sounds useful to society, maybe I wasn't paying attention). Then he dropped his request. There's a research prize at our university given out every year. It's just a little bit of money, but it's no strings attached money. You can spend it on pretty much anything but booze. Could I please nominate his buddy H?

Well sure, deans get to nominate, but I need two others to second. And I need to write a nomination letter. Now, H is a fine fellow and brings in lots of $$$. So I suppose I need to write this. The deadline? Friday.

After lunch I run around looking for someone to second. I found one, the chair of Important University Committee. He agreed to sign if I wrote it and we set a date for Friday for signing. I need the IUC occasionally, so I spent the evening grubbing through H's home page and putting together a nomination. I sent it off the IUC chair by email, and attended to other chores. Like reading CM.

Friday I showed up at IUC meeting with G in attendance to get a signature. Big important people are there, but the chair is late. When he shows, he refuses to sign - I forgot to include Important Project the two of them did together. He didn't get around to reading it until this morning. So I end up trudging back to my office, fixing up the nomination, and trudging back. At least others at the meeting offered to also sign to make it look better. And I missed them fighting about their current project, a definite plus.

IUC chair didn't even look at it before signing. I should have left it the way it was.