I’m not having a bad day, in fact I’m actually getting quite a bit accomplished and even managed to find some great birthday gifts online on sale, with free shipping, so that makes me happy. The problem is that there are lots of things annoying me today.
First off, I’ve mentioned before that I maintain an instrument which is technically a user facility. It doesn’t get much traffic, so it’s usually a matter or the occasional training and then I pretty much just open a door. No biggie. That is, until the users start taking advantage of me – like today. Someone was supposed to come this morning, and about half an hour before the scheduled time sent me an email saying that she’s “sort of on call to go hang out with her [friend].” WTF? Would this happen if there was a staff member in charge of the facility? If the use was charged? Seriously, I’m a student too, I don’t have all day to sit around and wait for this person. I think she’s not coming today though – it’s been 2 ½ hours and no word yet. Mildly annoying.
Second, we have a new visiting scientist. I think this guy is a professor in his own right in his home country, but I’m not clear on the details about what he’s doing here. He’s supposed to be working with the lab Pig, but the Pig is rude and demeaning towards him, so he comes to me for help. I think this is a test of my patience. Yesterday I had to train him on the aforementioned instrument – it was like beating my head against a wall. There’s a substantial language barrier, sure, but HE DOESN’T LISTEN!!!! I end up having to repeat everything I say at least 3 times. Annoying
Third, this same visiting scientist stole my instrument time this morning! Thank goodness I was already planning to be here late tonight as I’m on a deadline for the paper (aside: the boss is actually looking at it now). He came up to ask me for help with the instrument and I said I was scheduled to use it and he told me I wasn’t signed up. He didn’t bother to look at the dates on the damn calendar…VERY annoying.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
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3 comments:
Okay, I would have zero patience for the person who said she was sort of on call to hang out with her friend. Zero patience, as in, if she wasn't there at the appointed time, her loss, no training. WTF???
Because you aren't staff, I would argue that your time is MORE valuable, because you are actually, you know, trying to get your own shit together so that you can maybe, I don't know, GRADUATE someday. Yes, helping people out is part of the deal -- I do it too -- but in return I expect that they acknowledge that I am taking time out of my own experiments and that they at least show up on time and respect that! It's one thing if there was an emergency, and I always understand if someone says that there was a problem in the lab and they have to postpone since my own experiments are far from cooperative, but to sign up for training and then say that they might not come because they have to hang out with a friend? Seriously? Maybe I'm just in a weird program, but around here, students are expected to be in the lab full time, so what is she doing hanging out with a friend during the day anyway?!
(Sorry, as you can tell I'm just slightly bitter because people like this always waltz their way through graduate school in no time, and I bust my ass 80 hours/week and it will still take me 7+ years, without sort of being on call to hang out with my friends in the middle.)
I'm having a limited patience day so I echo Julie. And would even if I was having an endless patience day. They cannot blow you off to "hang out with their friend". That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite a while.
Also, visiting scientist needs to learn a bit of lab ettiquite. As does not so eager to learn anything girl.
Good luck!
Yeah, being "on call to hang out" is special. She's in a different department so who knows, maybe that kind of thing is common over there. In all honesty not having her come today was for the best anyway.
As for the visiting scientist, that just deteriorated quickly. Not to be possessive, but the instruments primary purpose is my project - and the three of us on that system allow him and the Pig to use it on our terms, so this was even more annoying. That aside, he said he'd only take an hour - at 10 am. At 3pm he told me he was done. It killed that part of my day, and that will now carry over until tomorrow. I'd say something, but he wouldn't understand me anyway. GRR.
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