Under Advisement
{{ | date=04/03/2018 | time=14:00 EST | summary=Alma gives Tori advice on internships | cast=
- Alma
- Tori
| place_name=Alma's office in the Hall of Science | log=It's about 2pm on a Tuesday when there's a knock on Alma's door; it's Tori, and she doesn't have phone in hand - she has two paper Starbucks cups, the knock executed gently with the knuckles of a hand wrapped around one. "Ms. - ah, Professor Hunter?"
Today Alma has been working on a feeding puzzle. A desklamp has been pushed aside to make way for some urban detritus that is getting joined together with a clear lucite display that can be slotted in place over a piece of food that a corvid would need to use a tool to get at. Next to the desk, a magazine holder is filled with lucite and wood parts for making other behavioral puzzles.
The rain is drizzling down outside, but the window is still cranked open a tiny bit. There's no screen. A rectangle planter of succulents sits on the windowsill. If you peek close you can see an artful display made of found things. There's an ewer of water filled with rocks to put the water in easy reach for a drink. Next to the window there is a magnetic whiteboard surrounded by pictures. Including a large print of the New Caledonian stamp
Alma looks up,"Not a professor yet," Alma smiles, "but almost!" She waves Tori to the chair in front of her desk, then sits back down in her wheely office chair. She wheels around to the corner to look at Tori. She doesn't want to peer over the desk imperiously. "I'm glad you came by, I've been wanting to talk to you." She pulls out a folder with some brochures from Wayne State and has it ready, but is not handing it over yet.
Alma is kind of a lot - so says the lengthy turn of Tori's eyes around the space before she is summoned to sit. Which she does. One of those cups gets slid across the desk on the diagonal, toward where Alma moved. "Yeah?" she asks. "I brought you tea. You seemed like a tea person? It's passionfruit."
She brought her tea? Alma gets a tiny bit sheepish and blushes, before continuing. "Feel free to call me Alma." She fiddles wit teh folder a little, and then straightens things up by doing a stack stack stack motion. Then takes a breath to maintain calm so that she doesn't bowl over another student.
"I don't know if you remember me, but we sort of met the other day when Dr. Simon-Hackenmiller stopped by the campus requisition department to check out a spectral analyser... and then the other day I bumped in to you both at Coverfire. and I..." Alma doesn't want to rant or make anyone defensive. Her face is thoughtful but slightly frowny. "I feel like you aren't happy in your job. I was wondering if you'd like to talk about it? When I've worked for professors in the past, we got on fairly well. I'm not saying everyone was perfect, but things just didn't look like what I saw."
"And no one ever grabbed my phone out of my hand! That's... just not normal. You can do better." She passes over the folder. "I don't really know what your interests are, so I just took some wild guesses. It sounds like Dr. Simon-Hackenmiller does some sort of physics or something... but the work he's doing right now has to do with detecting toxins in the water? So, I've got pamphlets for you from the Urban Studies Program, in case you were drawn to the job based on and interest in the affects of urbanization on the watershed." She looks off and is touching the other fingers of her hand to try and make sure she remembers everything.
"And I've got you a brochure for some communications and journalism programs. Hear me out, I noticed you were on the phone, and I know people are really good at that stuff, I love Kaeli Swift, she does research in crows at u-dub BUT she also has an amazing twitter feed and a blog. This is a really import aspect of our work. So you might want to take a look at some of the things here, maybe take a minor in a communications thing and work that in to a science program. So, what are you interested in? What brought you to Detroit?"
Tori looks, at some of this, a little taken aback. But there's a moment, there, when Alma says 'journalism', where her head tilts, and she looks just a little confused. Still, she remains quiet until those couple of questions at the end, where she rubs her hands over her lap a couple times, thoughtful. "So," she says, "I'm in Detroit because of my mom. She's Wayne State alumni. She went science and engineering - has a firm in Denver." When she says Denver, her smile brightens. "She's kinda huge on the whole 'women in STEM' thing. I got good grades, you know? In high school?" A pause, then: "Including in science. So when I told her I wanted to major in journalism -" a deep breath, a heavy sigh, and a starboard dart of her eyes. "Anyway, she's a big donor, you know. Pulled some strings, got my CV to the top of the pile for the intern pool. But I am bored out of my mind. And Dr. Hacken-" a pause, like there might have been some off-color name she was going to call him. "Dr. Simon-Hackenmiller is a total jerk."
Alma takes a sip of tea while she listens to Tori. Once Tori finishes, "This is nice. Thank you." Setting the tea back down, "I'm glad you realize that. I wasn't sure how much to say. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with the doctor, but hey, it's not our job to figure him out." She signs, "Anyway, I don't know how internships work here. Is it easy to quit and get reassigned? Is there some time window you've missed? I think the best thing would be if you could resign and get a new internship. I'm visiting here from another university and I don't know how things work here... is there a student ombudsman? or something like an HR department...?" Alma gives a disgusted sigh that this student has to deal with this. "Trust your instincts. This stinks, and you don't have to put up with it. Let's figure out how to fix it."
Tori sort of rolls her shoulders; they appear to loosen. "I don't know," she says. "I think it's up to the faculty hiring? I tried to do my own thing, you know - get a job off-campus, but I had to take two busses just to get there - I didn't have time for anything. And like - I'm a good student, ok? But I don't want it to be my everything. I'd like to join a sorority. My mom said it was a waste of time. I wanted to join track and field. Same. I can quit my internship anytime, I'm sure. It'll make her mad, but..."
"I don't..." Alma isn't sure where to start. "I've been lucky with my parents and school. I think.... decide what makes *you* happy. Track and field sounds fun. I love running. I climb too." She shrugs sheepishly, "You aren't going to be happy if you get railroaded in to some job because of what other people think." She frowns. "Your mom might not understand your situation, but I hope she wouldn't want to see you working in a toxic environment..." She trails off a little, and something occurs to her.
"Do you see this?" She waves towards the contraption on her desk. "I'm building this to test wild crow puzzle solving behavior in Detroit. I had to interrupt my work in New Caledonia to come help family here." She tears a slight amount and then recovers.
"My advisor worked. his. ass. off to help me get a grant so that I could continue to do work even though I'm not doing it on New Caledonian crows. I know we can figure this out. That's the type of person you want to work for." She remembers the other thing she meant to bring up, and taps her other finger. "And you can talk to your mom about how important journalism is in terms of science if that helps her to understand. There's an entire discipline around science communication and motivated reasoning. Why do people deny climate change? It's an existential threat... People do science on communicating science... anyway, see this?"
She steps over to her construction of brickabrak with a door and opens the door up to put a nut inside. Then sets the door back against the materials that she hasn't finished with. Maybe knocking things apart will give some insight. She grabs a stick from her collection on the desk, "A bird could lever things here, but I need to make sure I design this right so that it's possible." She pokes around with the stick and fails to hook the food then wrenches things apart. "How much do you know about islands? New Caledonian crows can solve puzzles like this, but without people to communicate the ideas..." she drops some brick a brack ont he floor. "Islands are gonna be fucked and maybe it's on me because scientists don't talk to people, you think?"
<<DICE>> Alma rolls arete, difficulty 5 <<DICE>> 2 successes (6 6, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
Tori does try her level best to follow Alma, here; the haphazard approach the woman takes to conversation is itself a puzzle contraption, at times. But she follows, and her patience here is exceptional in a way; perhaps it's the investment Alma clearly has in helping her. "So you're talking like - some Bill Nye kind of thing?" she asks. "I'm more like - Samantha Bee." She grins. "I love Samantha Bee." There's a sort of vocal fry, there, when her voice drops to add that comment; it drips with the sort of casual conversation that needs no embellishment, is only true. "If there was a show like hers - like, you know, had some snark and stuff, like the person talking actually cared? Like John Oliver and all of them that came off the Daily Show. But about science stuff, or climate change or whatever? That would be cool." A beat, then: "I wonder if she'd respect /that/." That's a point of weakness, there: not a lock-in based on where her mother pushed her, but a longing for her mother's respect.
"They Daily Show? yeah, like they do. Like... when they explained Net Neutrality and stuff. You know, based on talking to you here, I can say that your mom *does* respect you. She cares. I don't think she'd want you to work in a toxic environment. And she might not have the same interests, but that doesn't mean she wants you to cut yourself off. Maybe you could call her and talk about this. ...and with school and the internship, if you need me as a reference for the toxicity, I could back you up."
Tori leans back in her chair, folding her paper cup in toward her chest, and thinks for a long minute. "Yeah, I - guess I'll call her? My mom, I mean. I wanted to feel more sure, but -" there's a pause here. "You're right. And she wouldn't want me to make big decisions under that kind of stress, you know? Working for a guy like that. She's /gonna/ tell me to quit, and finish out the semester at least." This prediction: made with the total confidence of a daughter who does in fact know a thing or three about her mother. "And we'll see how she feels about the idea of me switching majors then."
There's one more pause, and then, tentatively: "You... don't have internships with you, do you?" she asks. "I don't know anything about crows. But like - if you need someone to do..." she sort of wiggles her fingers absently. "You know, write things, or give talks, or - whatever? That's more my thing."
Alma jumps up! "oh! let me show you!" She pulls open a desk drawer and rifles a lot of papers, and hands Tori a flier that is in black and white with too small of a font size for something posted, really? really, Alma? and has bold words here and there with EXCLAMATION marks. "You don't need to know about crows! That's why ecology is so amazing! It's a multidisciplinary field! Like, I don't know how to do much coding, you know? But that's why we have collaborators! It's a team!" Alma is so excited. "I have a basic thing to accomplish with my grant, but based on who wants to work with me the possibilities are endless! You could document the work.... there are some really great crows out there. And you can talk about the city of Detroit and how policy affects the environmen.... it's so amazing!!!!"
Tori smiles: it's a totally involuntary thing she does, because Alma is so very extra with her enthusiasm. And she takes the brochure, glancing down at it and back up at Alma in turn, smile not fading. "Ok," she says, and bites her lip. "Ok, I'll call my mom tonight." A pause, and she starts to rise, then: "And I'll let you know how it goes. Thank you. Really."
"Good, that's good. You're totally right about not making big decisions under stress like this. Talk it over with your mom. Whatever happens, I'd like to know what you decide. ok?" }}
