It's What You Know

There's a saying that recently I've had to modify to fit my current life.

"It's not what you know, but who you know. But once you know them, you better as hell know what you're doing!"

This seems to describe my current situation at the Government.

Let me start at the beginning.

TM is a grad student that was working in the same lab as me during my honours, and her co-supervisor is a researcher for the Government of Canada in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). When I was dramatically overemphasising my lack of work this summer (although at the time the plan was to sit around for 4 monhts...), she suggested I contact him and ask if he needed any assistance this summer.

I kicked it into gear and emailed him. I got a meeting, and left his office with a volunteer position in hand.

So you see? If I didn't know (and somewhat impress) TM, I would have never thought to really contact (name dropping helped) Dr. F and I wouldn't have gotten the position.

It's who you know.

But that's not the end, silly people...

I started editing photos of orcas for photo-ID. Then I reformatted their orca sightings database to fit the form of the East coast database. Then when that was all done, I made a narwhal sightings database and range map.

Then they figured they had the money to pay me casual (*happy face!*).

Now, I have found myself as the primary developer of a beluga ice entrapment database, which will be the basis of some kind of proposal and paper and I have no clue what else (because it's not my official project, I'm just the head of the work),

And they want to put me on contract work for it. And maybe pay me more (I didn't ask, because I'm not in it for the money).

And all this because it turns out I make a pretty good looking database and some pretty nifty maps (like the one I put here, because I <3 it).

Yeah, that's all me...

So it turns out, it is what you know. But also who you know. This year I discovered that I am completely shameless when it comes to using connections and name dropping like it's no tomorrow ( I even opened an email in Hebrew to a researcher I know is Israeli to get on her good side. It may have worked).

So my advice?? Know what you are doing, but don't be afraid to connect and name drop at all times. You never know who is going to come in handy!