Just a half hour left at work. I had a little free time this morning before I started off meetings. I had one from 11-noon. Saw Leif from 12:15 to 12:50. Then I went to the DOE meeting for proposal submitters in my field from 1-2pm and got to hear the political side of proposal thing. At 2:30pm I had a patent meeting with my project manager, former team lead (now my underling on this task - he gave me this task when he was team lead and too busy to properly do the job) and the patent lawyer. That was exhausting.
I don't know if the patent lawyer was just stupid, or if he was just extremely, excruciatingly thorough. Probably a little bit of both, we went over and over the same stuff. The painful part came at the last discussion, the inventorship. Who does it go to? My project manager handed it to me, where my former team lead promptly took it and threw it out to a guy who has not participated on the project in almost 2 years. Project manager fetched it and brought it back to me saying "the other guy" has done nothing and never even filed the invention report. (I filed the invention report.) Former team lead wholeheartedly agreed, yet pointed out that we wouldn't have started down that path had it not been for this other guy. (This is the nasty part of science, taking credit.)
As much as I *hate* to admit it, he is right. I didn't come up with the idea to investigate these reactants. HOWEVER! I hope someone has noted the ones *I* have suggested and future paths *I* have proposed!!
My project manager let it be by saying that he views it as a three party inventorship - "the other guy" came up with the idea, former team lead and I (mostly me) evolved the idea, proved it and got us to this point. He said he will think on it. I know what he's going to do... he is going to go talk to "the other guy" and get his input. And I only know him somewhat well enough to think that he is going to be embarrassed to even have his name on it since he hasn't done anything with it. When I took him the invention report he stated as much then.
I like and respect my former team lead. But I wish he would support me sometimes. I feel as though my position on this project is constantly being held up as his accomplishment (look how good I was to hand this off to April) and I wonder if he will ever give me the opportunity to stand on my own two feet on this project without a footnote being attached to it. (I was selected because he needed someone, I was not sought out for my abilities. I do think this has changed...)
I got back to my office and my beautiful badge holder broke, spewing beads all over the hall. :( I thought for a minute that this was an event out of the ordinary and wondered if it warrented a call to the single point of contact. Or maybe I could just wander down to the janitor closet down the hall and find a broom and sweep the beads out of the hallway where someone might trip on them and I really do have to call the single point of contact.
Tonight is Hans' first night working nights again. It is going to be a tough night for both of us. I will go get Leif here in a few minutes. Then we will go home and fix tuna fish casserole. My comfort food from childhood that Hans cannot stand. I was excited to see that I had all the ingredients. Winny will need a walk, Leif will need a bath, I need to get tomorrow's gear ready, I will need a half bottle of wine after Leif is down... kidding... mostly.
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