Today was a really rough day for me. I had back to back meetings, and not the sit and twiddle your thumbs meetings, really intellectually intense meetings (save for one). I managed to run out and grab some lunch for about 5 minutes with AB. I picked him up on my way into town, we grabbed fast food and headed back. The entire time he kept saying "What's wrong", and "you seem upset". No, nothing was wrong, just stress and lots of it.
One of my meetings today was to select interns for my directorate. These are not "ordinary" interns, they are the "best and brightest" from around the nation supposidly. They are the students the lab will vie for when they graduate. The idea is to pick the cream of the crop now, get them to commit to us paying for their tuition in exchange for a commitment to work at the lab after they graduate (and before they realize they are a hot commodity and could get a stellar deal elsewhere). My manager asked me and a guy from the bio side of our group to sit on this committee for her. I was given 3 candidates to review and present on. I took about 30 minutes today to prepare for this and made fairly snap judgments. I went to the meeting and could have sworn I walked into the wrong place. Everyone there was my manager's level or higher and including our directorate leader, who had the only open seat next to him.
I sat down and felt very, very young and inexperienced. I knew two of the other managers there and made small talk asking one of them about his daughters and that I heard a rumor that they are starting to babysit. In fact they are! Score! A 14 and 15 year old in one family! (Preparing for when Tabi leaves for college.)
So we started reviewing candidates and I realize how underprepared I am. I didn't print up applications or resumes, just a few notes and my keep or dump recommendations. Enter feeling of major self consciousness as my directorate lead loans me his copies of their resumes. *blushing* I just had no idea the gravity of this decision. I should have thought about it... really, it isn't just a summer intern, but also a full ride scholarship.
Then I sat there ashamed of my own background as I heard comments of "well this person is just from a state school and their GPA is *only* 3.4" and "this person is a senior yet he hasn't done any undergrad research!!" (I didn't do any during my undergrad because I had a real job, paying for my way through college...) I kept my comments to myself.
I left (running to my next meeting), vowing to be better prepared for the subsequent meetings and wondering if my manager really had any idea what she was delegating to me.
I arrived, panting, at my next meeting a mile away. This was for the big project I proposed then co-wrote with another guy due to my "youthfulness" and it was funded at $1.8 million for 4 years. But tasked under a lab fellow for his oversight. I ran into my meeting where my co-PI (also a 3) sat with a number of 5's and a few 6's who have interest in the running of the project.
I knew there and then it was bad news for me. They will *never* let me run any part of this. We worked our way through the meeting and towards the end I decided I needed to pipe up. I directed my question to a "5" who had essentially been tasked with a major portion of the project by my co-PI. I asked him how he was for time? He looked at me and said he was very busy. I said that I would like to propose that since he is busy, that he serve as a consultant to me and allow me to lead the task. (Ok, so I heard myself saying this, I don't actually remember due to the dizzy feeling I had from even asking this of someone so senior.)
He paused a minute and admitted he had no idea when he was going to find time for the task and would really appreciate someone else taking the lead, but keeping him in the loop and also asked that I work with two of his underlings in managing this. PHEW! I did it. I have successfully maintained a foothold in my project.
At one point my co-PI started making plans for this particular task and I was very shocked to have one of the lab fellows, the one that I feel very intimidated by, jump in and say "That's fine, you go ahead and do that, but then I think it is time for you to back off and let NM take the lead on this, she seems quite capable."
I was elated.
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