It's Wolf Month, but Not For Me

I'm so in the wrong career field.

April is Wolf Month, at least at the University of Colorado. It's a full month of lectures and exhibits about the biology, ecology, history and politics of the gray wolf in the United States, which is a really hot topic here in the West. Tonight was the kickoff. It was good.

I didn't actually learn anything though. I've read so much about the subject I could have given the lecture. In fact, questions were asked that the presenter didn't know the answers to. I knew the answers. It's funny, because after three years at the lab I still wouldn't be able to give a decent lecture on renewable energy. It's just not my thing. It's a paycheck. The natural sciences are definitely my thing. I know (and care) way more about my hobbies and personal interests than I do about my own career field. It's sad.

After the lecture I walked around the exhibits. I felt a stirring of emotion for my long-ago dream of being a biologist, which I sacrificed for the "easy money." I've blogged about this before.

Stuffed, dried and preserved specimens of wolves and their bones were on display. There were stuffed birds common to the Rocky Mountains, and you could push a button to hear sketchy recordings of their songs. There were panels of pinned insects and butterflies, boxes of "touch and feel" bones, dioramas, murals, fossil casts, informational plaques and all the other stuff you'd expect to find in a museum. I was in my element.

When the kids and housewives and other curious non-scientists were asking their questions: How many wolves are in Yellowstone? How many wolves does it take to kill a buffalo? Why aren't there wolves in Rocky Mountain National Park? I wanted to tell them. I didn't want to just answer the questions, I wanted to engage them. I wanted to paint the answers in their imaginations, and stir something within their hearts. I wanted to tell them a really good story.

I was in San Diego last week for work. I was part of a team from the lab who met with the Navy. They're interested and highly motivated in getting renewable energy on their bases. (It's an energy security thing, not a "green" thing for them.) All told it was me and seven really smart engineers. I have great respect for them and for their brainpower and dedication. But they're engineers. I'm not. I don't want to be. We met at their engineering headquarters, where all the "brains" of the Navy work. These people are mostly civilians who are employed by the Navy. It looked like a warehouse outside, and the inside was much worse. It was a maze of cubes with pictureless, windowless gray walls and dark, navy blue carpeting. The walls were gray. The ceiling was gray. It was dark. It was oppressive. It was very, very quiet and still - not in a peaceful way, but a sort of dead, joyless, soulless way. It was a prison. What furniture there was was all particle board and old. It smelled like a cube farm. It was your typical suburban office space, but with every trace of life and color drained from it. The only evidence of "fun" in the whole place was a sad little half eaten tray of mini cupcakes - chocolate, hastily frosted, plain, ignored - that looked like they'd been there a week. As I walked between the cubes I saw the cube farmers. Everyone looked the same: middle aged, a slight paunch, glasses. No decor to speak of. No color. No lively office clowns or brash secretaries. Everyone was quietly pecking away at their standard black PC's. It gave me the creeps just being there. There's no telling how much money these guys make, but personally I couldn't be paid enough to work in that mausoleum.

This, too, got me thinking about my own cube farm. While I have windows and sunshine, and there are some colorful people in my office, I'm still in a cube. Still attending regular staff meetings and filling out TPS reports. Still chained to a computer. Still manipulating numbers and shapes that I have a hard time associating with the real and tangible things they sort of represent. And while I quietly peck away at my plastic keyboard, frying my retinas on a hot computer screen, there are wolves roaming the wilds of Yellowstone. There are researchers following them, tagging them, writing papers about them and giving lectures on them. Their office carpet is yellow monkeyflower and Wyoming paintbrush. The walls are lodgepole pine, Engleman spruce and 1,000 foot slabs of limestone. Their ceiling is an endless blue sky, and their office mates are the wolf, the grizzly, the elk and the deer, the fox and the beaver and the coyote. As I peck away, there are kids wondering how many wolves are in Yellowstone, and why they can't see them in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Something has to be done.