This makes me angry.

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We hear a lot of talk about diversity in STEM these days and about how we need to have more of it.

I couldn’t agree more.

Racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in science and math fields, and we need to do more to include them. However…

…there exists another minority that is underrepresented in STEM. I’m talking about people with physical disabilities. (Those with other kinds of disabilities are affected by this exclusion as well, but for the purposes of this post, I will focus on physical disabilities.)

I have mild, although real and diagnosed, cerebral palsy (CP), which affects the coordination in my small muscles, as well as my walking. This has undoubtedly affected my performance in the biological research laboratory. To wit…

I was bullied repeatedly and ultimately fired from a job in an academic research lab where my CP would not allow me to put together small devices and manipulate tiny tubes in order to perform a crucial experiment. My CP also impeded my ability to prepare and isolate plasmid DNA. “We only have a year and a half left on our grant. Do you want a job in a year and a half?” I was told, proving that in some labs, the grants are infinitely more important than the employees.

I later had a position in a lab at a different institution in which I had to work with live mice. This work included restraining the mice and snipping off the ends of their tails with special scissors (yes, cruelty is the norm in some undertakings). Once again, my CP did not allow my hands to cooperate no matter how hard I tried, and I was fired from this job as well. My principal investigator cited my lack of dexterity as one of the main reasons for my dismissal.

I never worked in an industry lab. I took a few courses at the local community college which taught how to do cell culture, chromatography, and other procedures important to the industry. Although I did well on the exams, my lab performance was of concern to the instructor, who believed that I worked too slowly. And my instructor was right.

Is anyone willing to make a reasonable accommodation for a worker who needs to be more deliberate and careful in their work in order to do a good job?

If you have a physical disability and work in STEM, please let me hear from you. Are you being treated fairly?

A different kind of animal companion

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Last week this blog focused on those who keep live animals in their workplace offices. If doing so helps you work more efficiently, I say go for it.

If I kept live animals in my workspace, I personally would find them distracting—even an aquarium full of fish swimming about. However, I do not want my office space to be sterile and devoid of life (or anything that resembles life), either.

This is why I have stuffed animals in my office space.

I do not have a whole menagerie similar to what a little girl might have in her bedroom. I only have three stuffed animals at the moment. Please allow me to introduce you to each of them.

First, there is the Maryland Quarter Bear. For those of you unfamiliar with Quarter Bears, they came out around the turn of the millennium, when the 50 state quarters were being minted and distributed. Each little teddy bear represents a U.S. state, is a different color, and has a little pocket for holding the quarter that represents its state. Since I was born, was raised, and currently live in Maryland, I purchased the Maryland bear decades ago and inserted a Maryland quarter, with the State House design visible, into its pocket. It is fuzzy, black in color, and has the iconic Maryland flag embroidered on its back. Looking at it gives me a sense of state pride.

Then there is Roary, who is a Beanie Baby lion. Remember the Beanie Baby craze of the 1990s? I did not rush out and buy all of them (some of them sold for outrageous prices), but I told myself that I had to have just one. I chose Roary because the lion is my favorite animal, and I paid a reasonable price for him. Sometimes I have to laugh at myself when I look at him because he reminds me of how I almost got sucked into the Beanie Baby fad (or perhaps I did get sucked into it).

Last, but not least, there is Garfield. Yes, as in the famous orange cat. He has been my favorite comic strip character since I was eight years old, and I collect all kinds of items with his likeness. (I even have a cloth Garfield mask, which was made for and worn during the COVID-19 pandemic.) The stuffed Garfield on my bookshelf wears a chef’s hat and an apron that reads, “I LOVE LASAGNA!” I obtained it in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Lake George, New York when I was about nine.

Do you have (or do you admit to having) stuffed animals in your workspace? What are they?

Animal Planet…in your office

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While I personally like to be by myself when I am editing, some people I know prefer to have a live companion in their offices while they are working. I have known people in all kinds of professions who have a live animal in their office.

I am guessing that having one makes a person feel less alone.

At the church I attend, one former member of the pastoral staff kept a snake in a terrarium in his office. It was a rather small snake; I believe it was a ball python. The terrarium had special lights and tree limbs and such, and the staff member did not know whether it was male or female. He bought feeder mice for it and stashed them in the freezer in the church office’s kitchenette—without notifying the other staff members of this. Sure enough, one day the church bookkeeper was cleaning out the freezer and found the frozen mice. I’m told the scream was loud enough to be heard around the whole building.

Similarly, in my undergraduate years, there was a biology professor who kept a live turtle in her office, also in an elaborate aquarium/terrarium. The professor knew it was a female, and the turtle had one front limb missing. Thus, the professor named her Lefty. Lefty had a typed set of instructions above her habitat carefully spelling out how she was to be cared for. This was for the teaching assistants who looked after Lefty in the professor’s absence.

An aquarium with fish is a common sight in an office. Watching them swim can be good therapy, as it is highly relaxing. However, the pump and other aquarium equipment are often loud, and so this would not work for yours truly, who needs things quiet.

Some people work at home and have cats or dogs. Cats are extremely cute and many are good to cuddle with, but there is always the peril of them walking on your keyboard and messing up what you are editing. Dogs, too, are cute and affectionate, but they require a lot of attention, and you need to be flexible enough to leave your editing for a while and let your dog out into the yard to “do number two,” so to speak, or take your dog for a walk.

Do you have any live companions in your office? If so, what are they?

Freebies? Sure…in moderation.

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How did I get my first editing experience? By volunteering.

I began by editing for the church my husband and I belong to. I had been doing some menial tasks there, such as cleaning, when the church staff discovered that I was extremely good at writing and copyediting. I don’t exactly recall how this happened, but I was soon put in charge of copyediting the church’s weekly programs—a task I really enjoyed. BibleGateway.com soon became my best friend.

Soon afterwards, I began copyediting larger documents for the church. I edited booklets describing the small groups available for each season, the staff handbook, the safety manual for child care workers, and other material. I loved doing all of them. The church eventually became my first client and remained so for years, until I resumed working for them pro bono due to their need to save money.

Around the same time that I began editing for the church, I approached our local chapter of Habitat for Humanity and asked about writing for them on a volunteer basis. I eventually began editing their website, going over it every month and compiling a list of changes to be sent to the webmaster. For several years I did this until my paid work began to take off and my time became more limited. Then I connected with another editor, who was looking for pro bono experience as I had been, and handed her the reins. (It was important to find someone else to replace me so that Habitat for Humanity would not be left high and dry.)

Currently, I am on the Board of Directors for our homeowners’ association. Last fall, the Board began making a periodic newsletter, which is sent to each homeowner in our condo community. Guess who writes it? A homeowner who sees how well the newsletter is written and edited is likely to refer me to a potential client they know. Win-win.

Have you done any volunteer editing? What was it like for you?

NOTE: Next Sunday is a holiday that holds deep spiritual significance for me and which I will be celebrating with my husband and family. I will be back on the blog in two weeks. Until then, please keep well.

How to replace a computer…Fiedler style

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First, you must decide that you want to replace the computer. Glance at your nine-year-old minitower (yes, I said it is nine years old) and sigh about how it served you in a flash for years but is now as slow as molasses. Then look at the ancient monitor that was given to you by a good friend when your last one suddenly died during an editing gig. Tell the machines that it’s been great working with them all these years, but it is time for them to go to the big office desk in the sky.

Next, go online and write down the model numbers of a couple of nice laptops that interest you and which you would like to make part of your family.

Haul the minitower and monitor to the office/electronics store and tell the friendly tech service folks that you would like your information transferred to the laptop of your choice. Say goodbye to your “old faithful” pieces of equipment and pay for your new laptop (you will not actually have it for a few days, so be absolutely sure to save the paperwork!). Let the tech service folks take care of e-cycling the minitower and monitor (don’t forget to thank them for this).

When the store notifies you that your laptop is ready, pick it up and take it home. Unbox it and do your best to hook everything up. Call your spouse to come and help you. Make sure one of things you attach is your nice ergonomic keyboard, and another is your awesome speaker set (the latter for watching YouTube videos and blasting Eurodance music while you clean the bathroom).

Alas, the speakers won’t work. You can’t figure this out, so take the laptop back to the store and beg for help. The tech service person will plug a set of speakers into your laptop without a hitch. Sigh and go home.

Plug your speakers into your laptop again and rejoice when they work. Begin using your new laptop with pleasure.

Finally, reassure your three-year-old work laptop at the other end of the room that you still love it.

Have you replaced hardware recently? How did it go?

A neat desk in a sign of a sick mind…or is it?

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Thus read a sign (minus …or is it?) above a rather messy desk in the classroom of my high school newspaper’s faculty adviser.

My workplace is located in a corner of our condo’s “office room.” My main furniture is a work desk and a bookshelf, both of which I attempt to keep tidy. I have to admit, however, that I am not successful at this every single day. Papers and envelopes tend to accumulate on the corners of my desk, and every so often I go through them, either tossing or filing them in order to make my desk tidy again.

At the different institutions of higher learning which I attended, I had a couple of professors who, while being extremely intelligent and knowledgeable in their subjects, had offices which were unbelievably messy. I mean papers piled up near the ceiling in one case. I supposed that these faculty members had their own systems for finding what they needed quickly. At least, I hope they did.

Personally, I think that if things ever get the point where you cannot find what you need quickly, you need to tidy up. When you need a hard copy document and you shuffle papers around for several minutes trying to find it, it is embarrassing for you if there is someone in your office space watching you. They might think you are a slob. I would even be humiliated if nobody were nearby.

For me, straightening up often involves the use of folders. I use labeled folders to store important things, including documents that don’t have to do with my work, such as paid medical bills and insurance statements. Everyone knows that a shredder is, of course, a highly important thing to have (although I wish it did not make so much noise to torture my sensitive ears). And unwanted papers with no personal information on them belong in the recycling bin.

Which system works better for you—tidy or untidy?

Unnatural disasters

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I am genuinely concerned for the members of one of my professional organizations right now. During the first week of April, they are having a conference in San Diego.

I am concerned because the state of California, including San Diego, has been pummeled with natural disasters lately. In the southern part of the state, there have been floods and mudslides. In the north, there was just this week a blizzard, and I cannot even recall what else has plagued this part of the Golden State in the last several months.

I want my colleagues to stay safe.

It seems to me that California used to be the state with perfect weather, no hurricanes, blizzards, torrential downpours, or floods. (I have always lived on the East Coast, so I can’t really say that; I am going by my impressions only.) Now they can’t catch a break. And on top of all of this, they sometimes have earthquakes. Earthquakes seem to be the worst natural disasters because you cannot predict when they will hit or evacuate ahead of time.

Forgive me now for saying something that is often considered political but is scientific: The climate is changing.

I have family in Québec, Canada who got along without air conditioning in their homes for decades. Many people in that area are now installing air conditioning, because it often gets brutally hot in the summer. One summer, the temperature in the Montreal area hit a scorching 98° F and the authorities were telling people without air conditioning (i.e., nearly everyone) to go to malls, libraries, public pools, and other cool places and not stay home. The community swimming pool in my aunt and uncle’s neighborhood was open until the wee hours so people could cool off instead of sweating in their beds.

In the Maryland city where I live, there is a large pond in a beautiful downtown park. At one end of the pond are the remains of a shelter for ice skaters. They are there for historic purposes only, because skating is now forbidden on the pond. This is because—you guessed it—the ice does not freeze hard enough to be safe for skating.

These are my observations. What are yours?

My love-hate relationship with printers

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Printers. Just about everyone who has a computer needs one. How else would we make hard copies? How else would we create things to pin to our bulletin boards? I could go on forever.

I love printers (specifically our HP DeskJet 4155e).

I love them because they can take blue, yellow, magenta, and black ink and combine them to form a vast pallet of colors.

I love them because they are fast. I am old enough to remember the slow, noisy dot matrix and daisywheel printers of yore. The one at my home is an inkjet.

I love them because it is not too difficult to install and change their ink cartridges. If I can do it, anyone can—even if I sometimes have to refresh my memory by viewing a YouTube tutorial. My mother bought a Brother printer a little over a year ago and I installed the cartridges in it without any problems.

I love them because they connect to my laptop via Wi-Fi, without messy cords and cables dangling off desks and waiting on the floor to trip me.

I love them because they do their job without audibly saying, “Don’t tell me you’re printing this!”

That being said…

I hate printers.

I hate them when the paper jams. Granted, this rarely happens with ours, and I don’t think most modern printers jam much, if at all.

I hate them when the cartridges run out of ink. This always seems to happen when I am printing something very important, and it is why I always order ink ahead of time so I can keep new cartridges handy.

I hate them when they go offline for a reason I cannot figure out to save my life.

I hate them when they stop being supported by their manufacturer and refuse to print in color or to print correctly. Then I need to buy another whole printer. Planned obsolescence.

How about you? Do you love printers or hate them? Or both?

How to behave in discussions

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If you are in a professional organization, chances are the organization maintains a discussion list or board (I’ll say “discussion list” for the rest of this post, even though I mean both). Such a list is an invaluable tool for sharing and getting great ideas, telling the occasional (appropriate) joke, and encouraging others, to name some. One of the professional organizations of which I am a member has a wonderful discussion list, the posts on which I read regularly. I also post on the list occasionally, when I have something important to say or have a question.

However, there are some people out there who make a discussion list harmful. These are the people who dress others down in front of thousands of other members when a mistake or an offense is made. They are the people who insult others and start fights. In the horrific summer of 2020, I witnessed a discussion list go into major meltdown.

How do the members of a professional organization keep a discussion list safe and comfortable for everyone? In my opinion, they do so by following the “three B’s and a T.”

Be respectful. Remember that not everyone shares your opinion. Remember that the people on a discussion board might not look like you, have your financial status, or even come from the same country as you, so do not assume that they think just like you do. Also, remarks or jokes that are critical of others—whether they look like you or not—are inappropriate and have no place on a discussion list.

Be kind. If, for example, an upset novice editor posts on the discussion list about how they  shortchanged a client by accident, don’t jump on the list and scold them, telling them how they should have used such and such timekeeping software and plugged in their brain. Instead, give them helpful suggestions along with an “I’m sorry this happened to you.” Right now, they need sympathy.

Be fruitful. By this, I mean that if you have a great idea about how you made something work for you, share it. Others on the discussion list will be grateful and may even thank you in a post. You can also pick up great ideas from others who share them.

Treat others the way you want to be treated on the discussion list. This one goes without saying.

If you are or have been on a discussion list or board, what has been your experience?

Background sounds, anyone?

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Different people (not only editors) listen to different kinds of background sounds while they work.

As for me, I prefer silence.

I do not like sounds in my vicinity while I am editing. I do not want the dishwasher, clothes washer, or dryer running while I work. I do not like hearing the grim sound of leaf blowers or lawnmowers outside my office space window.

And I especially do not like the white noise emitted by the heating/air conditioning vent that occupies a space on the wall directly above my work desk.

The world, however, does not revolve around me, and others have different preferences.

I had a roommate in college who liked to listen to music while she studied. Vocal music distracts me from working; however, because my roommate was such a sweetheart, I let her indulge herself with—gulp—country music. Not my preference by any means, but I tolerated it for a semester.

There were others in college whose tastes in background sound were even more offensive. They loved to blast hard rock or alternative rock music while they worked. Unfortunately, their music would inevitably be shared with me, since the dorm room walls were thin. That was when I would grumble and head to the library.

I have to say that at the moment I am typing this post, I feel rather hypocritical because I am not writing it in silence. I have classical music coming from the desktop computer behind me, courtesy of YouTube. I heard it said decades ago that instrumental classical music is the only music that actually enhances a person’s work or studying. I believe it. I love instrumental classical music (as long as the piece isn’t too loud) and right now it is relaxing me and fueling my brain as I write.

What do you like to listen to while you work, if anything?