Willpower

My horoscope today: "They have to invent a whole new metal to describe your strength of will now."

Willpower... I have it, Hans has it and Leif inherited it from both of us evidently. Man, he is a willful little turkey. Why screaming at the top of your lungs for 70 minutes is preferential over sleeping I will never understand. Winning the battle is NOT everything, dear Leif. (Well to Daddy and I it is everything right now.)

Leif is in his crib, in his room. Ok, most of the night. Until 3:45 am when we are so fed up and tired that delirium sets in and he is carried back to our room to ride out the rest of the night. So right now we are "practicing". Come Wednesday, it is the real thing bubb. Daddy will finish up month end reports, mommy will have survived another weekly teleconference and preparation. It is a long weekend, so by next Tuesday morning, you WILL be sleeping the night in your crib. Resistance is futile. (April=Geek)

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I had a "run in" with my former post-doc advisor (aka PPM - pissy project manager) last night. 4:50pm he walks into my office. I now have to pick Leif up at 5pm - hard timeline, now that he is in a different school and not the more flexible daycare. So deviating from this schedule does not thrill me.

He asks for status on the two tasks I have on his projects. I repeat essentially the same words I said last week, we are waiting on some vacuum adaptors that should ship anytime now, once I have those I can pump the system down and see what the ultimate pressure is, which will dictate how accurately we can measure the leak rate. He reminds me that there are 5 weeks left in the year and that he needs measurements done. Yes, I know. We talked about this last week.

I took the opportunity to say "did you see my proposal was funded?" I knew I had to leave, but needed to hear congratulations come out of his mouth. *My* needs were not met. The jackass instead started talking about how when *he* thought up this project he had a different concept, we missed the mark on so many levels and well, the proposal didn't come out how *he* envisioned.

Right there, point 1, *I* went to him with the idea. He walked me to the relationship manager and said, "tell him what you told me". I remember it, as does the relationship manager. He wrote up a statement for my SDR to this effect. It is in writing. So this statement from PPM, should do no more than just annoy the crap out of me.On that level, he succeeded.

Point 2, the proposal went to him for comment no less than 3 times and was never returned with comment.

He goes on to tell me that he doesn't think I have an idea what a big project this is, afterall it is over 2 FTE's. How am I going to find people to work on it? What is your plan to direct something like this?

Point 3, I scoped the project I *know* it is 2 FTEs, you self-riteous SOB.

Point 4, I will find people to work on it just like he does, put the word out that I have $$ to spend. He actually has trouble finding people to work for him based off of how he has treated people in the past. I have met a big list of people who say they refuse to work on anything he manages (add me to the list). Me, otoh, just yesterday I had a post-doc in another group come talk to me about working on any projects I might have available.

Point 5, the lifecycle plan details how it will be managed, broken up and tasked, read it.

Then the straw that broke the camels back, he says, "I really want to direct this project, but I am not sure I can find the time."

Ok, I admit it, he got my goat there. This was what killed me. But reality, first off he doesn't have the time to direct his own projects between those and his team management duties. Second, the project was "tasked" under another, outside of our division, lab fellow/manager. PPM will, under no circumstances, stoop to running a task under this guy. Why would he? He has his own program! He is just pissy it wasn't tasked under his program/projects. Leads me to think that the relationship manager actually DID know what he was doing by letting this project go under this other one.

Yes, post doc advisor and I have our pissing matches. It used to be every 6 months or so we would blow up. Now it is when we speak to each other. I think back to my desperate-ness to get a job, to avoid an academic post-doc, post 9-11 when positions (other than academic post-doc) were scarce. I got a post-doc that was not in academia, it paid well and it lead to a permanent position where things are going well now. In one sense I think about what a mistake it was for me to come and post-doc here under PPM - the signs were all there it wasn't a good fit, but I didn't listen, I was enticed by the big money post-doc position. I think about how well things are going right now and how it was ME that turned them around, that did what I needed to do to be hired on, and have worked myself onto projects I enjoy. So I guess maybe in the long run, I wouldn't change anything. It has been a learning experience.

Come October 1, I am going to have a hard time waving bye to PPM with all 5 fingers up.