Emil Volcheck's recent piece on "getting scooped" reminded me of my situation as a graduate student years ago. Back in '92, I was working in quantum groups, mostly reading in the area and also attending important conferences in ring theory and Hopf algebras. One of my advisor's colleagues was working with another colleague on an extension of an important construction of a particular bialgebra that my advisor said would be good for me to pursue as the centerpiece of my Ph.D. dissertation.

In the summer of '92, my advisor and I attended a conference on Hopf algebras hosted at DePaul. Many of the "big guns" interested in Hopf algebras and quantum groups were there, including the gentleman who was also interested in the above-mentioned extension. My advisor said I might have three weeks to produce the extension, as the hot interest in the area meant that someone else would certainly do it and get it in print fairly quickly. No pressure there!!

The fall 1992 semester got underway, and I was busy trying to produce the result; a misunderstanding on my part cost me some valuable time in obtaining the generators and relations for the desired bialgebra. My advisor's colleague and his collaborator basically had much of the work done themselves, but they graciously gave me "first dibs" on the work if I could get it done by Dec. 31, 1992. It took a bunch of work, and a little luck, but I was able to fax them my results by Dec. 30th to beat their deadline. Soon after, I received a nice letter from one of them congratulating me on the work, and granting me permission to use it in my dissertation and then publish the results. All's well that ends well, as they say!