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A Day of Work – Day 3 of Advent

In what seems like a previous life, I signed up for a temporary contract at a a new journal at Nature Publishing Group. I was part of the team at its launch and, much to my surprise, after 12 years I am still working for Nature Protocols. The homepage and article layout have had a face-lift, the Protocol Exchange has moved to a new platform, and I have moved to a new city!

Heidelberger Platz, the Nerve Centre of Berlin

The Berlin office is right on Heidelberger Platz. It is quite a magnificent building with a Berlin Bear in the Front, and a piece of the Berlin Wall in the courtyardly area.

These photographs were actually taken last summer – on our initial “Is Berlin a reasonable place to live?” adventure.

The offices are spacious, and the room that I am in has really good light. Downstairs there is a canteen where we can buy lunch; there is typically a choice of three hot meals and a quite nice salad bar.

The one thing about my job that has remained obstinately the same is the manuscript tracking system.

https://mts-np.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex

I wonder whether any/all of these folder heading are self-explanatory?
PE = Primary Editor – so these numbers reflect manuscripts that I am responsible for.
SE = Secondary Editor. Hardly even used by us at Nature Protocols, but sometimes it is useful to be a secondary editor for a manuscript if you need to send emails to invite people for peer review when the primary editor is away.

When I came home, Little and I took a quick shopping trip to buy some yarn – Little is crocheting madly in the run up to Christmas and needed Even More wool! – and I thought that I would also make something of the scarf and hat variety.

We then sang “Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” (which was the next item in her advent calendar) and put up some Christmas decorations. Not all of them, because it was rather late.