Every other Friday

One of the aspects of now having a job and not being a grad student is that I have a more set schedule. This certainly has its pros and cons … I kind of miss the freedom of being a graduate student … but, it is nice to leave work at work.

A schedule that many companies are adopting is called a 9/80, which means that you work 80 hours in 9 days. What this means is that you have every other Friday off. Each work day is a bit longer but you barely notice. Most companies will try and even it out such that about half the office is out each Friday (instead of everybody on same Friday).

I love this schedule.

The Friday that you do work is great because half the office is gone … things that waste your time (i.e., meetings) are diminished or eliminated. It’s a chance to get a lot of work done. But, today is my Friday off. What am I doing? I’m finishing revisions for a paper.

I was very happy to see ChrisR’s post the other day about his paper that came out after quite a long process.  I’m in the middle of a similar stretch with one of the main papers from my Ph.D. research. His success gives me hope. I submitted it last July, got reviews back in early December (the week of my defense), and am now about to re-submit for either further review or the associate editor’s blessing (fingers crossed).

The reviewer comments were constructive and more-or-less aligned. The meat of the thing, the data presentation, was in great shape. They wanted an improved introduction section discussing the problem(s) and motivation better. They also wanted the discussion section at the end of the paper more focused and … well, just better. Oh yeah, it’s got to be ~15% shorter and get rid of at least three figures.

Essentially, shorten it and make it better.

So, on my every other Friday off I’m doing just that. I’m finally nearly done with revising this thing. I plan to submit on Monday or Tuesday after my co-author gives it one more look-see. When I compare to the original version, it is definitely improved. I’m optimistic, but we’ll see.

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