A weekly reflection on life in academia
Note to self: Try not to fall asleep before important interviews with smart journalists.
It’s been a tough week. My gift from last week’s meeting in San Francisco was a lovely ripe cold – something of an occupational hazard these days being cooped up in airplanes with gem-infested travelers it seems. I struggled through most of the week’s lectures and committee meetings before my voice gave up and I became too antisocial to be around, and thought I’d done pretty well as I hit the home straight heading into the weekend.
I should have known better.
Lunchtime today – working from home so I minimized my contribution to the common cold pandemic – I risked taking a quick snooze.
2:30 PM – an hour or so later – I was rudely woken from a deep, deep sleep by my wife, holding the phone out to me with the words “it’s a journalist – says she has an appointment to speak with you”.
Oh !@#$.
I was so befuddled that I couldn’t even remember my name. But I did remember I had agreed to speak with someone writing for Environmental Health Perspectives on nanomaterials and consumer products. Someone who was now on the end of the phone I had in my hands, and was probably trying to make sense of the snorts and splutters she could hear at the end of the line.
Goodness knows what I initially said in that conversation – it’s all a bit of a blur (and I was distracted by my wife having hysterics next to me). But I do remember that in response to the usual opener “is this still a good time to talk?” I blurted out “I’m sorry, I’ve just woken up!”
Not the best way to start an interview. And strangely enough, not something I remember covering in media training.
Fortunately, we managed to reschedule the call for 15 minutes later, giving me the chance to brew a cup of tea, come round a bit and try to remember whether I knew anything about what we were supposed to be talking about.
In the end, I think we had a reasonably coherent conversation. I rambled a bit and particularly concise. But I don’t think I said anything terribly inappropriate. Although I guess I’ll have to wait and see on that count.
In the meantime, speaking with journalists while in a cold-induced sleep-fug is probably one of those things that should be added to the “probably not a good idea” list.
Handing your husband the phone while he is completely out for the count should probably belong on the same list!
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