I had been looking forward to my Thursday and Friday being "open" this week. Monday thru Wednesday afternoon are my busy days. Then I usually wind down with catching up with things on Thursday and Friday. I came in this morning to two meeting requests for today (which I *hate* not having advance notice - the analytical side of me).
I am pulling my Co-PI through the "muddy waters" (her view) of optical spectroscopy and she is just about to drive me nuts with it. So often the roles are reversed as she teaches me the "intricacies" of nuclear engineering. Even though I have handed her undergrad textbooks and reluctantly loaned her my "bible" (Instrumental Analysis by Skoog and Leary) and backed off so she can learn the basics I am finding her resistance difficult. I cannot seem to convince her that to a chemist, this stuff is easy. That we don't need to go look at 10 Cary spectrophotometers around the lab... they all function the same, we just need to find one we can use or buy our own. And once you have used one (as I have many, many times) you can use them all.
She went and talked to another "expert" on Tuesday. He and I have nearly identical backgrounds but because he uses lasers she expected that he would have more experience since lasers are "optical". In all honesty, this offended me a certain degree. I resisted asking her if she would rather not work with me on this project and why she doesn't trust me. Does she really not believe me that I was in charge of maintaining one of these instruments for 3 years while I taught PChem lab and Instrumental Analysis.
Ok, so there is my whine for the week. Maybe she is coming around, I got the impression that the "expert" told her the same things I had and maybe even implied that I was perfectly capable in this capacity.
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For the last 6-8 months I have been e-mailing with a former fellow grad student. We were friends and used to occasionally go out for a beer after teaching lab. Nice enough guy, but from my experience exemplified the term "slacker". He graduated a few months ahead of me (started a year before me), went and did a 1 year post-doc at UNLV. Then came back to Reno and post-doc'd with one of our profs there. (This isn't exactly a situation that wins accolades in many circles.)
He secured a position last year at a chemical and biological weapons depot and research lab and about that time struck up contact with me again. AB said the first time he contacted me, "just wait, he is angling for a job".
AB knows him well. Yesterday it happened, after many inquiries into where I work, salary structure, what exactly do Ph.D. chemists do here, etc., he asked if I would help him get a job. I have mixed feelings on this to be totally honest. He is incredibly capable with instruments and design, very smart in those regards. But that word "slacker" keeps popping back into my head. He has the "qualifications" that make him an ideal candidate here, I think he could be hired on, even the type of candidate that is recruited easily.
Slacker, slacker, slacker.
It sucks that I know this guy. Could he have changed? Or is his job hopping indicative that this is just the way he is? Do I believe him that the woes he experienced everywhere else were just as he explained and really similar to the woes I experienced as a post-doc, and just he has a lower tolerance for such crap? Or are they indicative that he has frequently moved on before being told to do some actual work or leave? Or is it really that he just hasn't found the right situation? (Kind of like my husband?)
AB suggested I do as he asked, pass on his CV and limit it to that. Let the recruiter do his job, let the managers check his references. He is my friend, I like he and his wife. I want good things for them. I want her to be able to settle down instead of moving every year and finding work in auto parts stores. *Sigh*
(Is this one of those posts that at a later date I am going to kick myself for posting? He, or my co-PI won't possibly find this blog will they?)
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