Ringing phones

I have been getting a series of weird phone calls today. People phoning up with totally random question. The weirdest was some fisherman phoning up asking what I know about flesh-eating bacteria. Which, being a neurobiologist, is next to nothing.

A little while ago, I had some physician asking if there’s anyone doing cancer research here, because he’s going to have access to various kinds of tumors in his research. Considering that this is a basic biology department with strengths in ecology and plant science, that was also a big no.

And then there’s been the series of calls from students who seem to be unable to read the university catalogue and are asking for “advisement.” Most of the time, advisement is about as much fun as reading the rules on Oscar night. (I may be dating myself, since reading the rules got dropped from pretty much every awards show years ago because it was so tedious. But all those awards shows used to do it.)

And people wonder why I don't like phones.