Tim Dowling: How not to interview eminent scientists – a control freak’s guide

TThe transition to electric car ownership is in its final stages, with our electricity supplier set to install a smart meter coupled with a special tariff that will allow us to charge our car cheaply in the dead of night. After that, all I have to do is live long enough to see a return on my significant investment.

In the meantime – as sometimes happens in the course of my work – I need to interview some outstanding scientists. In my experience, eminent scientists are easy to contact – they are usually attached to academic institutions that readily provide their contact details – and are surprisingly willing to spend an hour explaining their work to an idiot. But there always comes a period—a long period of time after I have written four or five letters and before any of them have replied—when I begin to suspect a conspiracy of silence. I wonder what they don’t like about my buttery letters?

When I went to bed that night, I still had no response from anyone. I wake up at 7 am and immediately check my phone: nothing.

“Why are scientists ignoring me?” I speak.

“What?” My wife says, looking up from her phone.

“Nothing,” I say. “Work thing.”

“The person with the smart meter just texted that he would arrive between 12 and 12:30,” she says. – Will you be home?

“Yes,” I say. “I’ll be here trying to find the other five scientists.”

Four hours later, I’m sitting in my office shed, composing another oily email when my wife leans toward the door.

“I’m popping out,” she says. “Don’t forget about the man.”

“What?” I say: “Yes, no, okay.”

I spend some time staring into space. As I look at my computer screen, I see a new email in my inbox from a distinguished scientist: he says he’s happy to be interviewed, but it’s due in the next 45 minutes. I check the time difference: five hours. He obviously got up very early to please me.

Certainly! I answer. I will organize a meeting on Zoom in 30 minutes. I find a notebook with my questions. I move my laptop to the optimal angle for a Zoom meeting so that my head is framed by the bookshelves. I put my phone on the table to record the meeting as a backup. I look at the biography of the scientist on the website of his institution. Then I remembered the counter. I’m calling my wife.

“Where are you?” I speak.

“I’m going to the front door,” she says.

“Oh, okay,” I say. “So will you be here to let this man in?”

“I’m here now,” she says.

“Because it turns out that at this time I will be interviewing an outstanding scientist,” I say.

“OK,” she says. – I’ll deal with this.

I straighten my chair. I check my questions again. I look up at the house just in time to see a figure illuminated from behind by the open front door: the meter arrives right on time.

I log into the Zoom meeting room five minutes early and keep my head focused on the screen. A minute before the scheduled start time, I start recording on my phone. All the elements of my control freak fall into place.

Suddenly my desk lamp goes out. At the same time, my computer screen dims and my image freezes. The Wi-Fi signal has disappeared.

I don’t remember the next 30 seconds, but they are being saved for posterity by the automatic transcription service I use:

Speaker 1: What’s going on?

Speaker 1: Oh my God, he turned off the power!

Speaker 1: Damn it! Hm. Come on! What should I do?

I get up and run into the house, where I find a man wearing a polo shirt with the logo of my new electricity supplier and a piece of cable in his hand.

-Did you just turn off the power? I speak.

“Yes,” he says.

“How long?” I’m screaming.

“About 40 minutes,” he says.

“Fuck!” I’m screaming. This will be our only interaction.

I run back to my office. After another three minutes of blind panic, I realize that I can access the Internet through my phone’s personal hotspot. I log back into the Zoom meeting where the eminent scientist is waiting patiently.

The recording on my phone doesn’t capture my labored breathing or my heartbeat. All you can hear is my apology, followed by an hour-long interview, punctuated by a constant stream of new emails coming in: all the other scientists get back to me.