My least favorite part of academic research has to be waiting for vendors who aren't actually going to call me back. Even when it's a company I've done a lot of business with, "a lot of business" by my standards is peanuts to them, so I'm way, way down the priority queue when it comes to callbacks.
In order to really get anything done, I need to call the vendor, and get an actual human on the line. Leaving voice mail messages really doesn't do any good. And yet, I feel like an asshole calling them every hour on the hour trying to get through to the one person in the company who knows where the critical parts for my experiment are.
So I sit here, like an idiot, waiting for a call that's not going to come, but I'm too polite to call people who wouldn't be offended even if I did call them every hour on the hour. I hate this-- it's like I'm dating the regional sales rep. Worse than that-- it's like I'm being dumped by the regional sales rep.
Maybe I should take up playing Scrabble on Facebook...
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Hm, strange... I can usually get white ruled pads same day, but I do admit to a fondness for #2 1/2 Ticonderoga pencils, and they can take longer.
On the other hand, NASA will hand out free pens, and really any will do, the pencils are a vanity.