RIP Story: Sept 28th, 2024
The science was not “science-ing” on this day. Joan looked out the window at a beautiful day. The screams of joy from children at play in the park below. She’d been annoyed when it was announced there was a playground being built on campus right below the research department windows! Today was different. The task which sat on her desk for the last three months hit a wall. Ten days prior she hit that wall, and she tried everything she could to find and answer. Maybe there wasn’t an answer, but the cycle of hit wall, go home, eat, sleep, wake up and do it again was getting old. Emails and phone calls had been made asking for suggestions of next steps. Some gave her no new procedures to try, and others had not yet replied. Maybe they were head-down working out a solution but she doubted it.
The last trick she had was something a recently retired colleague told her. “When in doubt, go back to basics.” Joan took this to heart by going to the research library and looking for the books she’d used in college. She even found a copy of the high school textbook she used to discover her interest in science and research. She looked at the small stack of books on her desk wondering if she was looking at another wall waiting to be run into, but she had to try. The fan of her computer turned on as she looked for a thunderstorm video to play in the background while she read. She preferred battlefield artillery videos but she didn’t want her co-workers to think she was weirder that they already did.
Hours later, the video ended and while she hadn’t found a solution to her current problem, Joan did find a trip down memory lane. Reading the lessons from her youth took her away to where she was in her life. The people she spent time with. The people she’d loved, or thought she loved. The teachers who shaped her career path. The fights with her sister. The late nights at the diner taking notes, using these same books trying to work out what felt like impossible problems at the time.
It wasn’t all fun memories. There was a lot of pain in there. The pain of youth finds ways to bring other pains to the fore. At one point she needed to close a book, thinking about a friend who no longer wanted to be friends. “I never felt like we were friends” was painful to hear after entire childhoods spent together. She never got an explanation, and she never heard from them again.
The trip had been a roller coaster of emotion but from the outside Joan was just doing her job. Cathy walked into the lab and asked if Joan wanted to join the girls for a drink, “Mai Tai’s are four bucks Joan,” Cathy said. Joan had forgotten what day it was. She looked at her watch, which didn’t show the day of the week, but she hoped it would trigger her brain to remember the day. “Girl!” Cathy said, her voice slightly raised. “Life is short, the problem will be there tomorrow. Mai Tais and wings, let’s go!”
Joan involuntary gave in and started to pack her bag without thinking. “Don’t I know it,” Joan replied.
Thanks for reading, see you tomorrow.
EPILOGUE: This ended up in a place I wasn’t expecting. I feel like I’m misrepresenting the concept of a professional researcher. I have no idea what scientist do on the day-to-day, so I tried to “vague over” that as much as possible. I wasn’t even thinking about writing a mundane “life of the worker” story, but we ended up down memory lane and that’s what I like about doing these exercises. It’s easy to think about characters that have something special or have the opportunity to change the world. I think most of us are regular people trying our best. We are influenced by the lessons learned, the pain and the joy that life gives us over time. While “we” as characters don’t make for the most exciting storytelling, we still have stories worth telling, even in the form of short story or background. I think of Hot Pie in Game of Thrones. I want to know more about the character from the show, but sometimes a little of an interesting thing is the right way to make the audience to feel good about a character arc.
