I have not posted anything here for a while because I have been
involved in the grant review from hell. Let me say up front that the
people could not have been nicer from the department which will be
unnamed so that they don't hate me and never give us grant money again
as long as the grass grows and the river flows. However, we had about
25 grants of 200 pages each to read in three days. That is 5,000 pages.
On each, we were to write a 20-page review. This is 500 pages. I didn't
sleep for three days. We got that all done, I flew home and SLC
completed yet another grant proposal and submitted it. This was using
Pure Edge software which has, I am happy to report, improved from the
first time I used it when it was obviously designed by someone who
hated humanity to its current state of unbearably slow, unreliable and
illogical. It also does not run on Macintosh operating systems.
Fortunately, the wonderful people at the University of Wisconsin set up
the capability to log into a remote session and use the ^%$#* Pure Edge
software. Hot tip: If you are ever forced to use Pure Edge software as
punishment for something like sleeping with your project officer's
spouse, be sure to save your proposal every 45 seconds as it quits
randomly determined by, I believe, a combination of sun spots and the
world wide market in liver futures.
On the plus side, we have hired a couple of new people to work with us and two of our current employees have moved from part-time status to full-time. So, we should be getting caught up on work. I can already see a few patches of wood on my desk under all the papers. So, there is progress being made.
P.S. For the record, let me state that I did NOT sleep with the spouse of the project officer for any grant on which I am the principal investigator and I was forced to use the Pure Edge application anyway. How unfair is that?
On the plus side, we have hired a couple of new people to work with us and two of our current employees have moved from part-time status to full-time. So, we should be getting caught up on work. I can already see a few patches of wood on my desk under all the papers. So, there is progress being made.
P.S. For the record, let me state that I did NOT sleep with the spouse of the project officer for any grant on which I am the principal investigator and I was forced to use the Pure Edge application anyway. How unfair is that?
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