I survived and it wasn't horrid

Big elephant in room is mostly gone.

I had a half hour meeting with my former post-doc advisor and pita project manager. We started out with a brief overview of my task under his project. I made up a 6 page power point presentation with the key points, so I didn't get in front of him and go "uh uh uh". We ran through that and he didn't have a whole lot to offer except advice to watch so and so's spending, because he has a tendency to get on a project and charge time without concern. He can't multitask, and so spends 40 hours solid on a project. So check my cost runs often. I said I had enough $$ for 1 FTE for 4 weeks and he advised to make it last as there won't be anymore $$ after that.

Then we moved onto the potentially painful discussions.

He asked for one week of my time to work on his exploratory project, the one where he came up with the concept, I helped him with the logistics on how to do it, he proposed it without even putting my name on the proposal (what a mentor, huh?). It was funded and now he expects me to do the work. I just have a fundamental problem with this. And maybe I shouldn't, but I feel burned.

Put aside my better judgment, and agreed to give a week to this effort. Next week. Coincident with my SEM analyst being out and therefore also coincident with my not being able to work on shiny, happy project. Good thing about this too is getting it freakin' over with.

He asked how my shiny, happy project is going and I lamented the fact that after this calendar year it could be over, poof, gone. Or it could be dominating of my time. Rudely he gave me a "well welcome to my world". Yeah, I know, everyone goes through this.

This was his segway I suppose into his statements that "I had $3 million for this year on this project and it is mostly spent and so I will be cutting 'researchy' projects soon that don't fall within the deliverable milestones." Hint, hint, the work you are doing for Justin is going to go bye bye soon. I commented that on that project we have good data that I will be analyzing for the paper and his response was more direct in that he didn't really care because it doesn't fall in the scope of the deliverable and I seem to have plenty of other things to take up my time.

Jab.

Forget the fact that more recently he lamented to me that he budgeted for me to spend 50% time at least on the project and I haven't been doing that. So which is it? Either you do have $$ for me to finish up projects, or you don't.

We had a little small talk in there, how is the family, how are the kids, etc. He mentioned he just hired a new staff member and that her husband is in a similar situation to what Hans and I were, that he is an environmental scientist and so far has had a problem finding a job. TGM has looked for positions for him to no avail. Maybe Hans can help out? Oh yeah, we will get right on that... not. Hans chuckled at the suggestion and commented that it is a rite of passage for husbands who follow their wives here and there is another far more worthy environmental scientist out there who has put in a lot more time in the effort. ;-)

I left after 25 minutes and felt that we talked, I know where I stand. Finish up my task with existing funds, provide help on the exploratory for 1 week, expect to be cut on detector tasks and then hasta la vista.

I am happy, scared, relieved, a little ticked...