A Day in the Life of Joey

Why am I so giddy? This is just another writing prompt, right? I mean why on earth would an old man in Northeast Texas be so excited to tell anyone "I love my job because..." I'm not an important celebrity nor am I a politician. However, I am a Gemini and in my lifetime, that's meant a lot to me. There's an old wisdom that people born under the sign of Gemini tend to be creative types. They also tend to never finish projects they start and they are always experimenting with what they want to be when they finally grow up. The problem is most Geminis never grow up.

Let's cut to the chase. In my sixty-plus years in the workforce, I've been a golf-ball picker-upper, a grocery bagboy, a grocery stocker, a meat cutter, a U. S. Marine, a Deputy Sheriff, a City Police Officer, a Drug Enforcement Agent, and an Insurance salesman. I've owned a sawmill business and a cabinet shop. I've been a home builder and I've owned a picture frame shop. Each time I changed professions or divested myself of a business, it was because of two reasons, 1) the opportunity to make more money and 2) boredom with what I was doing. In other words, I was constantly seeking a challenge and once I felt like a particular career no longer offered me a challenge, I began looking to do something else.

The problem is most Geminis never grow up.

Along the way, I met the love of my life, got married, and raised a family. I earned an advanced degree in business and was ready to retire when I suffered a life-changing accident that left me disabled and unable to walk. I battled through several years of depression and pain medication addiction before reconnecting with those things that made me the consummate Gemini and entrepreneur. So what is it that makes "my boat float"? What revs my motor every morning that gets me so excited I can hardly wait to get busy? Why am I sitting here at midnight on a Friday night writing about it?

I am an Academic Researcher and I provide my services for free to any student or professor who needs assistance perusing hundreds of articles in a library database to source those one or two peer-reviewed journal studies that will support their assertion about a chosen topic. That's a mouthful for saying I read a lot of medical journals. On average, I'm reading anywhere from 25 to 40 peer-reviewed articles per day. And it's not just reading! I also mark up these articles for the most pertinent information the doctoral student needs. So why does this excite me? I mean I'm not getting paid for it, so what is my motivation?

What revs my motor every morning that gets me so excited I can hardly wait to get busy? Why am I sitting here at midnight on a Friday night writing about it?

Have you ever met a doctoral student? One that is already through their comps phase? They have to be the most stressed-out people on the face of the planet. My adventure began at home with my first client, my very own wife, and expanded from there. She had finished her formal classes and had just passed her comps. The next steps involved several years of research where she was responsible for developing her hypotheses, methodologies and conducting her research in preparation for defending her thesis before her committee. This is a laborious process that depending on the area of study, can be very competitive which means the current research is in a constant state of flux. In other words, any preparatory work she might complete in one month might be obsolete the next month.

I mean I'm not getting paid for it, so what is my motivation?

To stay abreast of current research, a doctoral student might try burning the midnight oil at first, but that usually results in a mental breakdown, withdrawal from the program, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid student loans with no degree. Others who are more fortunate and can afford to pay will spend thousands of dollars a month for services that keep them abreast of the latest research and in some cases, will even prepare their doctoral research for the student. We could not afford for my wife to risk dropping out nor could we afford to pay a company to do everything for her.

We shared the epiphany that I could and should help where it made sense, especially since I was already familiar with university databases and how to conduct academic research. To prevent any issues of impropriety, we agreed I would only assist her with reviewing the articles of interest she pointed me toward and that I would go through and highlight the pertinent information in those articles. If the articles weren't apropos, I would mark them as such. We estimate my assistance probably saved her hundreds of hours of time that she used to focus on the development of her study about how Covid-19 affected parental intentions to vaccinate children for other immunizations.

It wasn't long after she completed her degree that she began asking me if she could "lend me out" to other students who had a similar need. Aside from helping those students better manage their time, she had noticed a remarkable benefit for me. I was no longer sitting in a wheelchair at home, reading a book, or watching television for hours on end. I had a renewed purpose in life. One that didn't require remuneration on my part. I actually enjoyed helping these students. I saw it as a way to fulfill a lifelong dream of changing the world, only it didn't happen exactly like I imagined it would happen.

Instead, I would change the world by helping students become doctors. I would reduce their time and financial burdens caused by a system that promotes competitiveness over knowledge and freeing up their time and money to focus on more important things like finding cures or improving current proficiencies. So let's discuss my typical day.

I awaken every morning at 5 a.m. for coffee and to do some recreational reading and writing. I also need this time to physically prepare for my day since I am disabled, it takes me longer to shower, to get dressed, and to do the many things abled-bodied people are capable of doing in a much shorter time. My wife and youngest son get up around 6:30 a. m. each morning and are out the door by 7:30 a. m., leaving me alone for the rest of the day.

Once they're gone, I boot up my triple-screen computer system. I have two large-screen monitors on my desk and then a larger monitor that overhangs from the wall above those two. I use the left monitor to do all of my writing on, the right monitor to mark up and highlight research papers, and the top monitor to search university and peer-reviewed journal databases. I am sure there are more efficient work methods but this system works best for me especially since I'm confined to a wheelchair.

This is where the fun really begins.

I check my email for new requests and then I begin my day by first going to the databases to find pertinent articles using the information the student has provided me. This is where the fun really begins. Seldom do I find what the student needs during the first few searches. I have to spend time reading each article and going through the article bibliography looking for sources. It is within these bibliographies that the gems are found.

Gems lead me to keywords which lead me to more articles which lead me to the most relevant recent information on a specific subject. By this point, I begin to believe I'm Inspector Clouseau of the Pink Panther fame on the trail of an important formula that will save the world. Some of these projects may only produce one or two articles while others produce dozens. I always go through each article and highlight the keywords and the important statistics so the student can digest in minutes what might have taken him or her days to find and digest if left to their own methods. I never offer opinions or provide conclusions. I provide the available data in a summary format.

I cannot describe the feeling of relief and joy they communicate back to me when I reply almost immediately, even at a late hour, and ask if I can call them now.

So that's my day, except for the numerous interruptions caused by my disability. Fortunately, the nature of what I do allows me the flexibility to accommodate those interruptions. I still haven't clearly described why I love what I do. This is difficult to pinpoint without offering a typical interaction I have with a student. The contact normally begins with an email sent to me by the student asking if I could help them the way I helped another student they know. They provide me some basic information and ask for me to call them. Sometimes, they've procrastinated and it's late at night and they plead with me to call them as soon as I get the email.

Almost all of them use read receipts on the emails they send me. This speaks to the level of insecurity of most doctoral students preparing to defend their dissertations. I cannot describe the feeling of relief and joy they communicate back to me when I reply almost immediately, even at a late hour, and ask if I can call them now. Once I get them on the phone and we work through the introductions and determine what it is they need, I set a schedule and go to work. When I deliver the finished product usually only a day or two later, sometimes longer but rarely, I cannot describe the excitement and the relief in their voices. I've given up count on how many times I've heard, "this is exactly what I needed" or "how did you find this?"

It warms my heart that I'm able to help these future doctors because I know they'll be the ones who go out and do tremendous things in their lives.

Now, I've been doing this for some time and more and more students are seeking out my help. I've come to realize there is a saturation point where eventually I'll have to turn students away. To prevent that from happening, I've written guides that are free for the taking to assist any student with the same process I use. My thinking is this will free my time up to focus on only the most emergent research where a student needs immediate help.

Will this win me a challenge? Only the judges know for sure! The outcome matters not to me because in my mind and heart I've already won. I'm providing a much-needed free service to doctoral students who will change the world. I tell myself that although I may not live long enough to witness it, one of the students I help may be the person to cure cancer all because they had more time to focus on their research study. To me, that is the best feeling in the whole world.