Trying to look on the bright side
I was talking to the postdoc I share my office with today, and I mentioned to her that I have trouble sleeping as of late because I have a ton of stuff on my mind. She said she had the same problem, and to get to sleep she’d think of the few goods things that happened during the day and focus on those. This week has been full of emotional ups and downs based on work, and things are sort of resolved now so I’m guessing I should be focusing on that, though to be honest I’m still reeling a bit.
Anyways here’s what’s been going down. I started my second rotation lab, THE lab I wanted to work in when I was looking at Caltech, and I had high hopes and high expectations. The PI is AMAZING, she is sweet and caring and super smart. Only problem is that she’s really busy so the lab kind of runs itself. It’s filled with tons of postdocs, which I thought would be great since I thought I’d have this huge knowledge and mentoring resource, but it has been anything but. Don’t get me wrong, there’s super nice people, but the main people are pretty arrogant and don’t think very much of grad students, let alone rotation students. The worst by far was the woman I was working with. I don’t think I’ve ever been treated more rudely in my life, and her behavior towards me has not been limited to yelling (like literally yelling) at me in front of other post docs for no good reason, belittling every thing I do (for 20 good things I do, she’ll harp me on the 1 mistake I made), treating me as if I’ve never held a pipette before in my life, and just walking off while I’m talking to her (since she has better things to do apparently).
This had been going on for the past four weeks, and I put up with it because I wanted to learn about the model organism she was teaching me, so I sucked it up even though I was miserable at being picked apart and micromanaged so much. Finally this week I had the last straw. After an especially bad morning when everything seemed to be going wrong, and on top of that her criticizing everything about me (which was not limited to my lab techniques but my work ethic, and personal habits), I finally talked to the professor about it. Though I had wanted to switch to one of the nicer postdocs working on the same model organism, she decided that it would be best to change model organisms all together and tell her “oh I wasn’t that interested in your model organism to begin with” Anyway I did just that the next day, and she took it well (or so I thought) and I switched to a more laid back postdoc, though I now I’m working on something I’m not that interested in. That was yesterday. Today, she treats me like crap again and I just straight up left. I guess I took most of the day off just to get away from it all.
Anyway, I really wish I had stood up to her, but I am proud of myself for doing something about it and getting myself out of that situation. So that’s good things number one :) And I guess by being diplomatic about it and not saying all the horrible things I wanted to say to her I’m not burning bridges with this lab, which I know is good in the long run, but I’m not feeling so good about it now.
Ok that was my drama (though it was a bit encompassing since I had to deal with it 8 hours a day, all week long). Other good things this week include
1. Getting to hang out with the Caltech kids. They’ve all loosened up a bit since first quarter, and it’s kind of refreshing not having to talk to them about lab stuff all the time now. We all went to a froyo place, and a bunch of us are getting together to teach me how to ride a bike tomorrow, so I’m really looking forward to that :)
2. Having another really great meeting with my professor from my last rotation and getting to see everyone at lab again. Just being in this new working environment has made me realize how great I had it over there and I can’t wait to get back!
3. Going to Target and hanging out with the roommate this week. She is really amazing, like totally respectful of common areas and gives me space, which has been really nice. Plus she took me in her car to Target which meant I could buy more things that I could carry (something that is not usually the case since I walk everywhere) which was great!
4. All of this work drama helping me forget about the rest of the drama I have in my life! Just like the crazy airport drama, I’m seeing that immediate drama is helping me focus less on all this parents shit, which has been good, though I’m not sure if this is the best way to cope
For the rest of the night (and this weekend) I’m going to try to focus on myself and stuff that makes me happy, which hopefully I’ll be able to do. Now it’s time to watch “Meet the Fockers!” (Woo for Netflix!)
