On the eve of his first big talk at a major international conference, ecologist Kevin Burgio discovers there’s something seriously wrong with the clothes he’d planned to wear.
Kevin R. Burgio is a US Air Force veteran, first-generation college student, and currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut. He is collaborating with researchers from a variety of disciplines to create effective science communication training. When not working on science communication, his research focuses on using an integrative approach to understanding the ecology, biogeography, and extinction of parrot communities. His ultimate goal is to bridge the divide between ecological theory and on-the-ground conservation in order to make the best possible decisions not just for now, but for the future as well. He also advocates for inclusiveness in science and you can follow him on Twitter @KRBurgio.
This story originally aired on December 28, 2018 in an episode titled “Carpe Diem.”
Story Transcript
It’s midnight. It’s the night before I’m giving a big talk in a major international conference. I’m crashing at my friend’s Airbnb. I’ve been traveling all day. I’m just exhausted and I just want to go to bed so I unzip my suitcase and pull out my pillow. I reach in to grab my pajamas and I feel something cold and wet. Why are my clothes cold and wet?
In that moment I just catch this whiff, this aroma coming from my clothes and I knew what it was in an instant. For those of you who have cats in the crowd you know where I’m going with this. That’s right. My cat snuck into my suitcase the night before and pissed all over my clothes.
And this is my big debut. This is the first time I’m getting up in front of a bunch of important scientists to talk about my dissertation research which is on the global conservation of parrots.
So I look down at my suitcase full of cat-piss clothes, I look down at the shirt that I’m wearing and it’s caked with dry sweat, because it’s Washington, DC, which is a literal swamp, and it’s August, and I walked up a hill 20 minutes from the train station to the hotel lugging my suitcase.
To just make my anxiety even higher at this point, I was waiting on hearing back from a job I applied to at Brown University as a postdoc. I just knew I got that job. I killed the interview and I knew this so deep in my bones that I had already created this narrative in my mind. See, I’m a kid from Boston and I grew up on welfare. I actually ate government cheese. If you don’t know what government cheese is, it’s a block of cheese-like substance and it just in big bold letters just says ‘cheese’ on it. That’s it. And I’m only the second person in my family to graduate high school.
So I’m thinking I’m like Good Will Hunting. In fact, I am the real-life Good Will Hunting, this poor kid from Boston who’s going to make it in the Ivy Leagues. I’m so invested in this narrative, and this is really embarrassing to admit into a roomful of people I don't know, well, I know some of you. Anyway, I was planning on getting the Brown University crest tattooed on my back. That’s how important this was and how invested in this narrative I was.
So I look around the Airbnb to see what I can do. There's a washing machine. Great. Problem solved. I put all the clothes in the washing machine. The goddamn thing is broken. And it’s midnight. I can’t call anybody to come fix it.
So I look around more and I see there's a sink and there's dish soap. All right. So I wash the shirt with the dish soap, I wring it out, hang it up and go to bed because I’m just exhausted. I wake up in the morning and smell the shirt and it still smells like cat piss, but not just cat piss, also Dawn now.
So I’m like, “Well, this has got to be my Plan B. I’m just going to go buy a new shirt”.
I Google all the local clothing stores around the hotel and it’s a hipster neighborhood so all they have is vintage clothing stores. Apparently, what that means for men is you have a very limited selection of ‘70s really shiny, polyester, paisley, huge-lapel shirts. At the time, I was finishing my dissertation and I had put on a lot of weight because I was stress eating all the time. I’m not going to tell you how much but it was quite a bit.
So I’m like, “All right. I’m just going to try this shirt on. Anything is better than going up in front of a crowd with a cat-piss shirt.”
I put on the shirt and it’s puckered like this. They're all super tight. I guess in the ‘70s they didn’t really have the dad-bod thing going on. I can’t give a presentation with my skin hanging out. It’s not very professionals. And it’s certainly not acceptable for a golden boy who’s going to make it in the ivies.
So I look down and I’m just resigned at this point. I’m going to go give this talk covered in cat piss. There's nothing else I can do. So I walk back to the hotel, I get to the conference center. It’s about half an hour before I give my talk and I’m standing in the hallway outside of the room that I’m going to give this talk. It’s just a regular generic hotel. Everything is taupe and beige. The rug just has this intricate pattern. If you stare at it too long it gives you a terrible headache. And it’s quiet because everybody is in listening to other people talk about their research.
My phone buzzes so I pick it up. I look at it. It’s an email from the guy from Brown. At this moment I’m like, “This is my Good Will Hunting moment. This is it. Break out the tattoo gun, I’m ready to go.”
So I read the email and I didn’t get the job. At that moment, this narrative I built for myself just crumbles. And this boy, this grubby boy from Boston who ate government cheese, who played street hockey with a crushed beer can instead of a puck, who picked up used heroin needles on his fourth-grade playground, that boy was standing there in that shirt with all the cat piss on it. And all the things that I ever told myself about how I didn’t belong in school doing what I’m doing and how I was an impostor just waiting for everybody to figure it out, it all wells up inside me. I am the impostor in that moment and I don't belong here.
But I’m like, “I need to calm down. I need to calm down.” So I start doing a breathing exercise. I breathe in and I smell cat piss and Dawn, which doesn’t do anything for my anxiety just to be perfectly clear about that. But there's 15 minutes left before I have to give my talk.
The doors open up, people come in and leave, get ready for the person who’s talking right before me. Robotically I just walk into the room. I sit as far away as everybody as I can. I’m sitting there and there's sweat beading up on my skin and I’m stuck in my chair with indecision.
I can just leave. I can walk out. Nobody knows what I look like. I can just leave and they'll call my name and nobody will answer and they'll just move on. Is that better or worse than having everybody listen to this garbage research that I did? Because it’s got to be garbage.
But the time just disappears and suddenly the person ahead of me is done. I didn’t hear a single word they said. I see my title slide up on the presentation screen and the moderator gets up and she calls my name. I don't know what else to do so I stand up and I walk to the front of the stage.
I turn around and at that moment I’m standing there, and I’m standing here, and I think, “Well, maybe because I’m standing here I belong here.”
So I open my mouth and I say, “Thanks, everybody, for coming out. My name is Kevin Burgio and now let’s talk about parrots.”