Monday, March 30, 2015

Excellent reasons to have your boyfriend move in

His messiness conceals your messiness (at least during the initial "things are still in boxes" phase)

Extra snuggles

Someone to swing by the store after you get home and realize you've forgotten to buy the sweet potatoes for your bean and sweet potato burritos+ (d'oh!)


Shoulder to cry on

Someone else to yell at the cat when she's chewing on electrical wires for attention at 6am

Constant access to oversized sweats, boxers, and t shirts (my boyfriend is closer to my size and body shape than any of my college roommates were... Damn short people!)

Partner for spontaneous dance parties

And, for the scientists in the crowd.... An excellent, reliable guinea pig for at-home experiments (with an option for blind studies possible!). Case in point: there are a lot of "natural" remedies that use Apple cider vinegar to remove moles (what's natural about applying a smelly, stingingly acidic brown liquid to your body?) which I have begun to evaluate using my lovely, live-in boyfriend. (And so far, it's looking like it's going to work! The mole got all swollen and now is shriveling up....although the skin around is is red an irritated so hopefully that will resolve itself.)

posted from Bloggeroid

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Bonehead

Bonehead #1 forgot to order small sharps containers for the PCR hood (Bonehead rating: 2)
Bonehead #2, who hasn't produced any data this year (Bonehead rating: 8), decided to start his most important experiment at 4pm on the Friday before he left for break (Bonehead rating: 9) and, clearly too busy to walk into the adjoining room, he devised a sharps container from the only beaker within a 10ft radius- the ethidium bromide tip waste container (Bonehead rating: 10).

Thanks everyone I work with. You're jerks.

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Amendment to last entry-

UPDATE: Grad student 2, who I forgot to mention is completely sexist, just approached me and said, "It seems totally misogynistic to call you a Post-doctoral Fellow, so is there a word for a female fellow?"

(Proceed with ripping hair out of head)

Escape from Toyland

This is the dynamic of the lab I work for:

Grad student 1 - runs around doing benchwork all day and answering open-ended questions from boss such as "see if Prof X can help"; she cannot "code" and thus is spoken down to whenever instructions are given

Grad student 2- sits at computer all day, tasked with "making a DNA library", which has yet to happen in the 2 years he has been here- however he can "code" and thus is given a great deal of respect. All interesting research questions are reserved for him, as he and boss have "discussed" them in the past. Has been asked to help a student with a single task (measure growth curve) and failed, despite his regularly repeating the mantra "growth curves were my LIFE in my rotation"

Postdoc (me)- splits time between running around doing lab work and coordinating the work of two undergrads, each of whom the boss made clear should have their own project. I, meanwhile, have no concrete project of my own. Am treated like an undergrad myself- eg, when I expressed concern over the centrifuges heating up samples due to misalignment, boss informed me that the centrifuges are not temperature controlled. (Fucking DUH)

Undergrad 1- actually helpful, so the boss has given him 63,000 additional duties to prevent him from actually becoming useful to me

Undergrad 2- needs almost literally constant instruction and supervision, yet constantly interrupts me while I am speaking. Never brings work to do during down time, preferring to relate inappropriate personal anecdotes (causing the boss to privately tell me he would speak to Undergrad 2 about this, although he ended up failing to do so, as he made a group announcement condemning such practices while Undergraduate 2 was absent).


Fun, fun, fun.