You can take the girl out of grad school, but you can't take grad school out of the girl...

[wshaffer]

Director: We could hire a professional services consultant to explain how X works to us.
Me: Nah, let me and [colleague] do a little research first. I bet we could figure it out ourselves.
Director: I love your DIY spirit.

My DIY spirit was forged largely in grad school, where literally almost everything was more expensive than my own labor. Why spend what could end up being thousands of dollars on a consultant when maybe we could just do it ourselves? The only thing I need to remember is that I'm not paid like a grad student anymore and neither is [colleague]*, so it is possible to reach a point where the consultant becomes the cost effective option.

Until then, I'm gonna DIY it. Punk rock doc, y'all.

*Come to think of it, [colleague] is also a former grad student, which might explain part of why we work so well together.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Now that I am the professional consultant, I can tell you that you always have a deeper understanding when you do it yourself - consultants are just handy if you don't have the time or skill set to do your own digging
D

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that the consultants I've worked with have been a deeply mixed bag - some of them have been wonderful, others required so much handholding from us that I've wondered what exactly we were paying them for.