Travel with children, Part 1
The other graduate students never travel to conferences, because they're too afraid to ask permission from their supervisors. They think their supervisors are terrifying. But that's not true. You have to get rid of the ridiculous assumption that they're fully grown mature adults. They are much easier to understand, and to handle, if you realise that they are still toddlers.
Consider the last conference I went to.
When I went to my supervisor's office to ask for his approval, I could hear him screaming all the way down the corridor. What a racket! He was roaring at the top of his lungs. Any sensible student would stay away for at least a week.
Instead I went to his office and peaked in through the little window they have installed in the door to encourage professors to keep their harassment off-campus. The head of department was in the office with him. My supervisor was thumping his desk and yelling — he was throwing a full tantrum.
“I don't want it! I don't want it!” he screamed.
“Ian, you need to stop this behaviour right now. We have decided that you will teach introductory quantum mechanics next semester, and that is final.”
“I won't do it!” Now he not only thumped the desk, but at the same time jumped up and down, yelling each time, “No! No! No!” Then he stopped and roared with the kind of volume that's only possible with the most immature vocal cords, “It's! Not! Fair!”
The head of department remained calm. “Ian, I'm going now. I want you to think about how you've been acting, and when you're ready to behave like a grown-up, we can talk some more.”
I slipped around a corner and out of sight, and watched the head of department walk back towards his own office. My supervisor yelled after him, “I hate yoooooou!” and slammed his office door. For a while he followed up by violently kicking the door, then started throwing his textbooks. After a few minutes the noise subsided and I went back to the door to sneak another look. He was sitting at his desk, with his head in his hands, crying. I knew that in a little while he would remember that he had some sweets in his desk drawer, and they would help. Then he would cheer himself up by drawing on his blackboard. In half an hour he would be on the floor, without a care in the world, happily playing with his equations until lunch time.
That was the time to come back and try again.
Unfortunately when I came back Professor Johnson was there. They were about to go out to eat. It would be hard to bring up my conference trip with Johnson hanging around, but I decided to tag along anyway.
All the way to the restaurant my supervisor whinged about his teaching assignment. It would have been excruciating, if only anyone was listening to him. All Johnson wanted to do was brag about his toys.
“My new monitor is soooo big!” he cooed. “Now I have three monitors. The other ones are all bigger than your monitor, of course, but the new monitor is just the biggest of all.”
“It's not fair that I have to teach quantum mechanics. It's not my turn! It's McWhirter's turn. Everyone knows it's McWhirter's turn. It's just not fair.”
“You wouldn't believe the colour definition. Do you want to see it after lunch? Cartoons look especially good. We can watch whatever you want.”
And so on, all the way to the restaurant.
After we had ordered, Prof. Johnson went to the toilet, and I thought I saw my chance. Johnson is still not very good at going to the toilet by himself, so he was sure to be a long time. The only problem was that as soon as he was gone my supervisor started complaining about him.
“Who cares that he has a big monitor? I bet it's a stupid ugly monitor.”
I tried to reassure him. “It is. It's a terrible monitor.”
There was suddenly a stricken look on his face. “Has he showed it to you? He hasn't shown it to me!”
“Oh no, I've just heard it's a rubbish monitor.”
“Anyway, who cares about his monitor? I've written much better papers than he has.”
“Definitely.”
“And my field is much more active than his field.”
“Our field.”
“What?”
“We both work in the same field. I'm your student.”
“That's right! We do research together. We're best friends. And we're not friends with stupid Johnson, are we?”
“Oh no.”
“You like me much better than him, don't you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Let's agree to do some research together after lunch. You and me. But not with Johnson. And we're not going to look at his dumb monitor, either.”
“Sure.” Now was my chance! “In fact, I wanted to ask you about” —
“Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!”
An incredible wailing sound came from the direction of the toilets.
“Johnson must have hurt himself!” I jumped up and rushed to see what was going on.
Sure enough, Johnson had tripped on the step outside the bathroom, and scraped his knee. He was sitting on the floor, holding his knee, and bellowing at the top of his lungs. Everyone in the restaurant was watching, all with the most sour disapproving looks. I don't know why they were glaring at me! I wasn't even his student! I felt like telling them that his own student hadn't bothered to come along, but that probably wouldn't make me look any less irresponsible. The only thing to do was tend to poor Professor Johnson.
“Show me where it hurts.”
He wouldn't take his hand from his knee. He was trying to speak, but was too distraught to form his words. I tried to calm him down, and eventually I could make out what he was trying to say.
“Is there blood!?” he cried. “Is there blood?”
“If you want me to see if there's any blood, you'll have to let me look.”
There was terror in his eyes, but eventually he decided he could trust me, and he took his hand away from his knee.
There was no blood.
That helped, and eventually I got him back to the table. There were tears and snot all over his face. I wiped it clean with a napkin, and by now he was only sniffling. Then his food arrived, and suddenly he was happy again.
The same couldn't be said for my supervisor. His food had also arrived, but we'd forgotten to tell them not to put cheese on his burger.
“I hate cheese!” he yelled, whacking the table.
“It's Ok,” I said. “We can take the cheese off.”
“It's not the same! It's ruined! I don't want it!”
“But you have to eat something.”
“I want Johnson's chicken nuggets.”
“Those belong to Johnson. He needs a good lunch, too.”
“I want them!”
I appealed to Johnson. “Would you like to share?”
“No! These are mine!”
It looked like an impossible situation. My advisor was on the verge of another tantrum. Johnson, fearful of his chicken nuggets, and still delicate after his nasty fall, wasn't too far from a tantrum of his own. All of the other customers in the restaurant were watching, waiting to see how badly I'd screw up.
I knew they would all judge me poorly, but I saw only one way out of this.
“Shall we get an ice cream? Do you remember that place we passed on the way here?”
His face lit up. “I want a sundae.”
“You won't eat a whole sundae.”
“I want a sundae!”
I sighed. He knew when I was at my weakest. “Fine. We'll get you a sundae.”
“Yay! Now?”
“Yes, let's go now.”
Five minutes later we were in the ice cream parlour that's decorated in bright 1950s colours. My supervisor's face was covered in ice cream, and so was his shirt front and sleeves, and probably his trousers, too. But I hadn't seen him so happy since his last paper was accepted.
“How about we wipe your hands,” I said, “And then you can sign this travel form?”
“Mmm mmm mmm,” he agreed, through a mouthful of ice cream.