The interviewer, building up steam :)

Today I am unusually excited about my work.

This is the first day of my interview study, where I will be interviewing groups of people at different companies about how they organize themselves and work around human factors in new production systems.

Yes, it may sound dry, but this is the first time in a long time that my work will significantly involve the input of someone else - some very knowledgeable people are going to tell me about how it works in the real world, where ergonomics is only one of a thousand things to be balanced out in the ambition to 'make it work' - and I'll be asking questions about how they make it work for the human workers, in the long run (everyone follow dat? Good. ;). Today, I'll be telephone-interviewing two ergonomists in different production sectors. The equipment and recording software has been tested over and over and I now feel... confident, but with a slight buzz of anxiety that it still might act up. Oh well, one can only prepare to a T, right?

It may not seem like 'science' or even engineering per se, but I think it has pretty much been established that Qualitative research - i.e., the stuff you can't count, but need to mull over and interpret - is the game I play at the moment. And it suits me fine. :)

So I'm kind of mentally 'stretching' and warming up in a secluded lab (not the grey room, but the 'sunny' lab which is normally used for classes) - 45 minutes in advance of my first interview.

I also realized today that the me who is terrified of making phone calls is actually stepping aside for once, letting a hitherto unknown interviewer personality blossom and get ready for some action - which involves making others talk. This feeling is a good one and I hope for the best.

I'm actually excited.

May I...? ;)

*squeee*!