Just got invited to give a talk (yay!), but abstract submission is in two days (what‽‽‽). Why was I not asked sooner? I did not need this stress. My fellow academics, I'm begging y'all: if there's any way that you can avoid it, don't make other people rush for you. #PhDSky#AcademicSky#ChemSky 🧪

you might want to look very carefully at the invitation, as you are correct that it's rather sketchy to invite someone on two days notice. is it a reputable conference? did they add you at the last minute because they felt they needed to check some box they'd failed at originally? be judicious.

“I’m going to talk about neat stuff” should work. If that’s not good enough, they weren’t really interested anyway.

I feel this at my core 🧐☠️

I feel like there’s a sweet spot; ask too early and it drops off people’s radar but ask too late and then it’s an emergency. (Not an academic but an “ask early” person.)