Chapter 17: Behind the Driven Professional: A Creative, Funny Personality
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Tinkey provides a glimpse behind the professional persona. She notes that she is very focused and driven at work and that’s how colleagues know her. However she is a fun-loving jokester outside of work and enjoys many creative activities. She confirms that her creative side comes out at work, first in the poetry she writes for department celebrations. She gives an example by singing the parodic lyrics she wrote to the Soft Cell song, “Tainted Love.”
Next, Dr. Tinkey talks about her humor and creativity help her as an administrator (work that is not her first love).
Identifier
TinkeyPT_03_20160624_C17
Publication Date
6-24-2016
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Character and Personal Philosophy; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Personal Background; The Administrator; Working Environment; Funny Stories; Portraits; Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, we have about, I don’t know, 10 minutes left. And I wanted to ask you if there’s anything else you wanted to explore. Anything that occurred to you during our time this morning.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
I think we’ve covered it all really. Think we have.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I just wanted to ask you one other question, which is, is there anything that you’d like to share in this oral history that shows who you are behind the department chair and cofounder of the Gulf Coast Consortium. All the roles. Something about a talent, an interest that people don’t really know about.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Well, honestly, my own assessment of myself is I think I’m much more light and casual and goofy than I can be at work. So I suspect there’s probably people in my life that have never known me as a veterinarian, and especially not as a department chair, who are flabbergasted. How can she do this? Because she’s such a goof. And when I say goofy, I like to laugh, I like to joke a lot. My husband makes fun of me because I’ll say things in weird accents. Or I’ll try and make like a motorboat noise. And he always says, “Girls cannot make good motorboat noises. Boys do that much better.” So I think probably what people see here, it’d be interesting to ask what people think. But I think what they see here is someone who comes in and is very focused and is very organized and who is very quality-driven. I want to get our work done high quality, on deadline. Poor Karen can tell you I’m obsessive-compulsive about calendar and appointments. I think it looks bad to be late. I do not want to miss an appointment. And so I think that persona probably is what people see. And so they think ooh, that’s a very serious let’s do this right and let’s get it on the mark kind of thing. I think they probably see much less of my creative side.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I hear you write poetry though.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
I wish I had more time. So from time if we’ve had something -- and I don’t write a lot of poetry at home. I sew and I knit and I took it into my head a couple of years ago. One of the presents I asked for for Christmas was both volumes of Julia Child’s cookbooks. And so I said to my husband, “I am going to learn to make perfect souffles. So I want a copper bowl because I heard copper bowls.” So when I had a few days off in a row over Christmas I made a souffle every single day. They were like, “Souffle again?” “Yes, because I’m making one every single day until I get it right.” So I like to do things like that. I have a little sourdough culture in my fridge so I can make sourdough breads.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Does it have a name, is the question.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Well, I usually call it Chia Pet because when I first got it and I was feeding it flour and water and putting it on the counter, I was like, “This is just like a Chia Pet, you got to feed it every day.” So I do things like that. But yeah, there’ve been occasions here at Anderson where we were either having a celebration or function or something like that, and I wanted to say something, and I get bored saying the same thing. So I either -- what’s the literary term you call it when you take the letters of the word and you make another word with it? I don’t know if there’s an actual literary term for that.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Like an anagram?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Maybe. Because we were having like technician week. And so I took the word technician, and I said, “T is for this and E is for this and C is for this.” So I’ve done things like that. I’ve written poetry. We had administrative week. And I wrote a parody of “The Night before Christmas,” I can’t even remember it now. I can remember this one, and I shouldn’t even sing this to you. But before I was department chair and I was in the Surgery Section we were doing a project and we had to use adenovirus. And remember that song “Tainted Love”? Here, I’ll sing. I was down there, and I told one of the techs. I was like, “Oh, we should write a song parody.” And so I thought about it. She helped me with it. But I got her going because I got the basis. Let’s see. How does this go? I got to think about it for a minute. Let’s see. Because we were talking about oh, what if we spilled it, what would happen. So that “Tainted Love” song goes da da da da da da da da da da da, right? So. [Singing] I had a spill and adeno went up my nose and it went down to my toes and I know it’s changing my DNA. I stay up late because I could feel my genes mutate. I don’t know what to do. Because half my cells are just messed up goo. Once I was human. Now I don’t know what I am. My cells are an adeno’s home. It’s messing up my whole genome. Adenovirus oh oh oh. So I just did the song like that.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s fabulous. Are you kidding me? That’s so great.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Well, I figured I probably shouldn’t sing it around the institution because I’m talking about messing up my DNA. But yeah, so I think that’s probably what people don’t -- because I would never go in front of the Research Executive Council meeting and say, “Hey, you guys want to hear my adenovirus ‘Tainted Love’ parody?”
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Who was your co-composer on that?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Julie Basham.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s really great. “Tainted Love.”
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Julie is like me. She’s now the manager down there. I’ll tell a story on her. I think we’ve both just gotten older and more settled down, mature. But she does a great lizard.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Like pulling her --
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
It goes up and down. They had to separate us.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So does the humor and the creativity help you in what you do?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
It does.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
How so?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Well, like I told you, you can have some pretty blue days. In two ways. So humor just always helps. It just always helps. And this is a rigorous job. So you got to have humor. The reality of my life as chairman of the department is it’s a very heavily administrative job. We were talking about reluctant leader or something like that. For me honestly, looking back, I love this job, I think I’ve done a good job, I think we have achieved things in the department, but being an administrator really is not my first love. And so the opportunity -- even when you’re down there and you’re doing surgery, to me it feeds a creative need in you. You can say, “Oh, hey, maybe I’ll do this suture pattern. Or why don’t I try this? Or maybe I’ll move my approach a little.” Administration is not very creative. And so I think it also has helped me that way. Sometimes administrative functions don’t really feed my passion. And so some of these creative outlets rejuvenate me.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s cool.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Even though they’re goofy.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Oh, no, how could I top that?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I was wondering, but I had to ask. Well, I really thank you for your time. It’s been a pleasure.
Peggy Tinkey, DVM:
Sure, absolutely, thanks so much for giving me the opportunity. I look forward to reading the transcript. I’ll probably read it and think oh, why did I say that.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That always happens. Well, I thank you very much. And just for the record, I am turning off the recorder at about 28 minutes after 10:00.
Recommended Citation
Tinkey, Peggy T. DVM and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 17: Behind the Driven Professional: A Creative, Funny Personality" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1237.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1237
Conditions Governing Access
Open
