black coffee and anger

the messiest bitches in the game

people who don't know anything about academics: man y'all are stuffy and boring what's up with that? actual academics: *too busy fist-fighting each other over the beryllium problem or the existence of a dentistry profession in ancient egypt to reply*

People who don't know anything about academics: they're keeping this grand conspiracy about these civilizations a secret!!! actual academics: can barely coordinate a time for a Zoom meeting, will infodump about their specialty for hours without prompting

People who don’t know anything about academics: How dare these stuffy scientists ignore this poor random dude who has a Theory That Changes Everything (and conveniently makes him a small fortune by selling books and DVDs about the Theory) Actual academics: Has already patiently explained to 40 different people why the Theory That Changes Everything doesn’t make any sense and is also kinda racist, but nobody is hyping their answer because it doesn’t make anybody money or make them feel extra special.

Also actual academics in this case: *vibrating with the only barely controlled need to throat punch Erich von Däniken the dude hawking the Theory of Racist Lies*

I had a friend who was doing a study that required data that had been patiently collected (and was still being collected) since the late 1960s. And when he looked at the data he realized that it had been collected in a way that was accurate for the late 1960s but was unusably inaccurate now- and the kicker was, they were STILL COLLECTING IT THAT WAY. ALL of the data was unusable. The data they collected last week was unusable. They had never bothered to change it because 'it had always been done that way' and it was this low-priority 'super long period of time' -style study. And now the data was useless and all that time and effort was for nothing. The guy who had originally been in charge of the study retired in like 2010, and my friend's boss was so incandescent with fury he found out where the guy lived and DROVE TO HIS HOUSE ready to fistfight an old man in his front yard, a couple of his students had to hold him back

This is only tangentially related but non academics also don’t realize how fundamentally messy academics are. There’s a conference in my field that’s KNOWN for breaking up marriages because of all the cheating