Felt like I was in grad school or back on the campaign again.

Yesterday was a strange day of playing with antibiotics and formularies…. Then I got to play with spreadsheets as my father, myself and my housemate worked hard during the sabbath…. Our programmer is very religious and we had until past sundown to get the work done…. It gave us a long patch of time and we accomplished the tasks that was set for us.  During this time I fielded a couple of real estate calls and even looked at a property for a client.  I never thought I would find real estate a welcome break…

All this work was done around my dining table.  We could spread our work out and use all the computers…. This seemed like a big research meeting or some of the campaign discussions we had during  my run for Congress… I made dad buy pizza since everyone who was likely to cook was busy in spreadsheets.. Finally the sun came down and eventually our programmer called us…  He was fresh from his day of rest while we were tired and testy…. At around 10:30 PM  I could not concentrate anymore…. The words went in one ear and out the other as if I had a hollow tube….  Finally I told him (remember Dad had a stroke 9 days ago) that we were all very tired and had been working since the morning…  Now it is time to test the program….  I want to make sure the results are consistent with standard medical practice.  I am hoping my dad the doctor will be with me so I do not have to look everything up in a drug guide…I have such guides but I am tired… ‘

It is very important that this program is ready for the start of the study.  It would be very embarrassing to my father to arrive in Israel and not have the program ready.  I have very little control of the actual timetable.  I can just push here to see that our tasks are complete.  My housemate will make a tutorial for the doctors in Israel.  Somehow it never occurred to anyone to this… Maybe she should be a project manager if we can ever get funding or sell this.   Meanwhile my husband played on his computer all day ignoring us…. He did go get the pizza though.

While I do this work I do not prospect and it will hurt business.  Someday I will prospect again…

This is a funny career….

I started my life as a  chemist…. Well that is not true I started my life as a baby (just like everyone else).   I took a BS and MA in Chemistry.  In all my working career (short because I took care of my kids) people rarely what I was doing and if it had any implications in the world.   The conversation started like this.  “Debbie what do you do? ”  “I am a physical chemistry graduate student.”   They would take a step back then trying to regroup they would ask what my husband did.   I would tell them he is a math graduate student.  At that point they would usually find someone else to talk to….. Fast forward 3 kids and 25 years later.  I am a real estate agent and I ran for Congress. I have2 kids who are college graduates, one starting grad school and the other starting college.   People do not ask me what I think of the political situation (I have to force that on them).  They ask me the market conditions.  What is their home worth and whether I think the market is rising or falling?  What do I think will happen in next few months…. Can people really get loans?

 

It was very interesting to have people want to hear my opinion.  I think I had less than that as the nominee for my party and certainly less then as a Scientist.

 

We are ambassadors of our profession and we owe it to our client to be abreast of the situation.  This is just a thought for the day before my office meeting?

  Debbie Holmes