My wife did this academic journal editing stuff for a few years. She also found it to be challenging for the same reasons.
Yeah, itâs funny how everyone lauds peer review as some sort of impartial arbiter of scientific truth. But itâs random as fuck. Iâve had a chance to do the editor thing, but it was a lesser journal, and my biggest problem was finding competent reviewers who were willing to review a paper.
On top of all this reviews are also based on reputation. When I used to review papers I usually knew which groups were putting out good research in the field and I was way more likely to give a good review to them than to some random group from a university Iâve never heard of.
I also started mailing it in with the reviews after a while because who has 4 hours to thoroughly review a paper with everything else going on? 90% of the time I probably had already made up my mind on the review outcome after reading the introduction.
I was probably a nightmare for the editors who sent papers to me, but somehow I kept getting assigned in a couple of B+ level journals. Maybe they just had no other recourse.
They have actually done research on this where they compared reviews blinded to authors with unblinded ones. I read one paper long ago which showed no difference. Maybe there are some newer ones out.
I didnât know there had been studies on this, maybe I was just biased when reviewing papers. I donât think I was a particularly good reviewer, but from seeing other peopleâs reviews of papers I reviewed or the ones I wrote, I donât think I was outside of the norm either.
My personal experience in medical technology was that some groups would take a hold of editor boards of a few key journals/conferences, and youâd see them present their work over and over again. This led to increased funding from NIH, and it would be a reinforcing cycle. Some of those groups were doing great work, and others not so much, but you wouldnât believe that from the academic output.
Itâs funny. I met someone last week and we had literally the same conversation. He was saying how he just reviewed a paper and when he saw the senior author, he just auto-assumed it was good (which he then confirmed after reading it).
Iâm not sure he believed that there is no difference. Iâm not sure I do either.
I also discussed this with a friend a long time ago who, like spidercrab, is kind of a big deal. He hypothesized that once people get very famous, other people become jealous and become hypercritical out of spite. So in cases like that not knowing the author helps the author. But even if that is true, then itâs not really a case of the reviewer being unbiased, whatâs happening is that biases are strong but canceling each other out. Thatâs not good and I think a strong argument for blinded reviews.
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A lot of life is like this.
lol no
Is anyone else here following the anticipated Microsoft Copilot launch? This looks like it could make work A LOT easier for those of us that use Microsoft Office for 80% of our jobs.
Man we thought that Millenials and Gen Z had it bad economically, just wait until Gen After-Z hits the workforce and there are no more entry level jobs at all because theyâre all AIâd.
At work we had a generative AI brainstorm earlier this week and it ended up looking like a list of tasks that brand new people take on as they get their feet wet. Meeting minutes, prep PowerPoints, develop outlines and rough drafts, conduct market research⊠Lots of things that I think Copilot promises.
I get that in theory it frees people up to focus on more valuable tasks (or frees up time) but I assume that in reality it will just end up fucking the next generation over, reducing their ability to pick up knowledge and expertise due to a reduction in opportunities.
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Yeah, there is some of that for sure. My team is even talking about it in terms like âthis is a 24/7 digital intern that you carry around in your pocketâ.
I dont think its hopeless for new hires but its going to amplify the value of thinking and greatly reduce the value of executing simple tasks. For some people thatâs a huge win. For others its a death sentence in the workplace.
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There are many good aspects to my job, but some time during the summer we get our annual salary letters, and itâs more than a bit depressing to see something like the following:
Our annual raise pool is 3%. Based on the performance rating communicated to you earlier, your compensation will increase as follows:
Substantially beyond expectations: +3.25%
Beyond expectations: +3%
Meets expectations: +2.75%
Slightly below expectations: +2.5%
Significantly below expectations: +1%
[Youâre more or less guaranteed at least âSlightly below expectationsâ unless you show up to work drunk each day AND significantly damage some expensive equipment AND violate FERPA.]
So the reward to working incredibly hard vs. just absolutely coasting is a 0.75% difference in salary. Super motivating.
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Iâm about to find out if blacklisting is a real thing (or maybe I just did).
Reached out to an old colleague about a position at their company. Five years ago I pursued a role there, with a different team, accepted an offer, but then declined when my employer at the time made an incredibly compelling counter (nearly 2x what I had just accepted, considering all components).
The former colleague was kind enough to forward my bio and resumĂ© to the hiring manager and recruiter. I then get an email, âHey quick question - did you ever receive an offer here? One of the HR folks thought your name looked familiar from having received an offer in the past.â Ugh. I immediately felt shitty about potentially putting the colleague in a bad spot, but this was honestly not top of mind at all because it was so long ago.
Iâve always personally had a clean conscience about how things went down at the time. While it was a very difficult decision, I didnât proactively use an offer to negotiate a counter - I resigned, and I didnât expect a counter to be presented. I didnât ghost anybody on the other side; I called the hiring manager immediately to explain the situation and how I had to now decline the offer as the best thing for my family.
If this all puts me on some blacklist years later for jobs that Iâm qualified to at least be part of the process, that says more about them than me, IMO. But it still sucks.
ETA: For further irony, the role I reneged on was eliminated 14 months later when COVID hit. But of course, thatâs just business!
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was this email from the hiring manager, your friend, or the recruiter?
As you mentioned, if HR does put the kibosh on you, it definitely says more about the company than you. If I get a referral from a cow-orker I value that about 200x more than some dipshit in HR being butthurt about something from eons ago. As a general rule I will always give a call to anyone that is referred to me anyway, and if this hiring manager doesnât because of an HR beef that says a lot about the hiring manager as well.
The email to me came from my friend. As if she had gotten something from the recruiter about recognizing my name, and why.
Edit: maybe I got myself worked up unnecessarily about it. A recruiter (not the same person I worked with 5 years ago) reached out today to find time to discuss the role.
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Just reviewed a resume that listed Time person of the year (2006) as an accomplishment. Next!
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I wanted to post a book recommendation here, partly because Iâm super behind on the book thread, but mainly because itâs a memoir book written by someone with decade of experience working in Amazon management:
Exit Interview: The Life and Death of My Ambitious Career
https://www.amazon.com/Exit-Interview-Death-Ambitious-Career/dp/0374600902
It doesnât exactly document Amazonâs middle years (say, 2005-2015), but this is one personâs story about working in a variety of management positions there, and Amazonâs culture and practices seep through all of her stories. So you do pick up a good amount of background information about some of the things that may or may not have made Amazon so successful.
A couple of other notes:
- This is a really well-written book; it was a real pleasure to read. This author has another book that Iâve read (Nothing Good Can Come from This) about her addiction and sobriety path that is equally good and that I also highly recommend.
- A lot of this book is about this authorâs experience as a woman in management, and how her gender affected her experiences there. Obviously I donât have personal experience with that point of view, reading about it was pretty eye-opening for me. My guess is that women might find this book particularly interesting and relatable, but thatâs just a guess.
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Twitter and TikTok listed as technical skills JFC
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