Maybe it's because I know they don't really give a shit and they're now wasting my time with stupid "pleasantries".
Oh my god yes! And then after you answer "fine." they say, "Good, good to hear that!" Really? You were that concerned with how I am? THEN STOP CALLING WITH STUPID QUESTIONS!
Oddly enough, in my experience that can magically turn "He's away from his desk" to "I just saw him come in."
Generally not with CS though. It might work with me, though more than likely, It'll not be "they just came in" but "Let me see if I can go find them."
2 PhDs from Penn. I can't find any published material by him and his name isn't extremely common.
Where did you look? What was his position at the CDC?
2 PhDs from Penn
What are they in? From the rest of the paragraph, I'm assuming science--where an article is a big major deal, no? So he might not have a publication out. And, IME, whether publications come up is very hit or miss.
Most of what comes up if I google myself is my conference appearances, one article I wrote on
Amélie,
and a few university websites where I taught. However, I have googled people that got really good tenure-track positions I was up for and found no trace of them. I have no idea why major universities would hire these people instead of me, but there you go.
What are they in?
One is in epidemiology. I have no idea what he did at the CDC, but he was/is (I think he still works there) a physician assistant at The Med.
Does he come up in Google at all?
Nothing on Google. Nothing on research databases like MedLine and Wilson Select Plus and others related to science or medicine.
don't know chikat - at first I was all "yup, weird," but then I googled my DH, who has some pubs in scientific journals and he didn't ping at all. Still, if your guy has worked at the CDC, you should be able to find something. maybe you need a literature search?
eta: xpost!
2 phds and a cdc stint and he's a physician's assistant? ok...
Okay I just actually googled myself and the only that came up that shows I actually have a PhD is the alumni site for my department, which lists the title of my dissertation (these only go back a few years though).
You might see if you can find his name at UMI, which houses most dissertations.
Was he supposed to have been at the CDC in Atlanta?