I think I will be sick tomorrow...

My current job requires an uncomfortably high level of staff management. I have never been particularly good at this as I am often accused of being either too nice/diplomatic or totally unsympathetic (hows that for contrast?). One of the “totally unsympathetic” accusations came when I was informed by my staff that “I will be sick next week” quite matter-a-factly; my instant reaction was, “how do you know it will last all week?”, her, “I know”. Now the organization’s regulations state that the staff will have to produce a signed letter from a doctor saying the person was sick enough that they couldn’t come in to work but outside of the west that is an absolute joke, those kind of letters can be forged or bought for a few Euros and of course you will still be paid because you are “sick” grrrrrrrrrr. I have about given up on this but it will never cease to irritate me… the other day I had a migraine and decided to go home early, I informed my administrator and the first thing he asked was “will you be sick tomorrow?” 

Pork cravings

I guess its kinda clear from my writing that I work in international development which, of course, includes living/working in many different countries. I rather like the diversity of my work but it is fraught with numerous inconveniences and each country has its own little issue. I am currently in Azerbaijan but before that I worked in Afghanistan, both are Muslim countries. I am from one of the largest pork producing states in the US not to mention the world and I have grown up with pork in all its forms but the past two countries I have worked in have presented their own problems, from Afghanistan where it is totally harem (forbidden/verboten), to Azerbaijan where people just don’t care for it; I can’t seem to get a “pork break”. I smuggled a pack of bacon from Georgia (the country) to Azerbaijan and had a very sinfully fattening weekend of bacon with everything (bacon bits in a salad, straight fried bacon, bacon with green beans (canned but what the heck), and bacon N cheese omelet… I will die a young (but happy) man. Anyway, when I am in the US, one of the first things I plan on doing is clogging my arteries with some good ole’ chopped BBQ pork with spicy vinegar sauce!

Zoonotic infections? Anyone need help with zoonotic infection mitigation?

It seems that I have finally reached a level (professionally) where recruiters have started contacting me (as opposed to my begging them); that is not to say that any jobs have come of it but hey, it does help my (severely damaged) professional ego. Today I got an email asking if they could include me in a proposal (hardly a guarantee of employment) as a "Zoonotic Swine Infections specialist"… didn’t see that one coming. I got my MA in “International development” but was frustrated by the lack of technical expertise the degree offered so every chance I had I tried to gear it towards something more technical (agriculture related in my case). An example of this was my masters paper, which was pretty much zoonotic infection mitigation in small scale Southeast Asian aquaculture production. I have worked on a small scale swine operation in the US as well so some recruiter thought “hey, this guy might work” (I am guessing there are not many people who have a background in this, and having been in the position of having to recruit consultants I know the feeling) but the problem is that reducing zoonotic (mainly parasitic) infections in a swine operation is probably quite different from doing it in an aquaculture operation, not to mention variables like scale (I am much more familiar with small scale livestock production in general)… and the fact that the best mitigation is just cooking your food well before eating it (there are exceptions like mad cow disease but anywho)