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Work is awful
13 May 2025 20:51I came in yesterday to a note on my desk from my PI explaining how one of the steps in the protocol wasn't necessary. OK, dude, but you keep on telling me that each reaction costs $100 and to be very careful, and now you're telling me to disregard the manufacturer's protocol? Whatever, I guess. Tears of rage in an empty office.
And today just got even worse. I can't detail it all, but basically Elena is a goddess that can do no wrong, and who gets to decide that we need to toss$400 $3000 worth of reagents to buy new ones because she doesn't think the old ones are working. I asked three months ago if I could toss those reagents because I didn't think they were working and was told that no, they worked I was probably just doing something wrong. I'll add that the experiment that I failed at twice? Elena has now failed at twice as well, but for her, it's something wrong with -you guessed- one of our reagents, but me, it's just that I don't know molecular biology well enough. Note that the implication was that I'd done something to the reagent, left it out on the bench or thawed it at 37C or some such. UGH. But Elena was trained by the PI's wife when she worked in the lab, so of course she's perfect. Oh and Elena gets to do work on the neurons one week and the week we don't have pups, she gets to do molecular biology, working "with me" on my project. It's, however, very obvious to me that with the time I have in the lab each week, there is no time for anything other than fucking lab manager work. I've worked two full days and not a bit of time was spent on anything other than the routine tasks, made worse by the fact that people left a mess in the lab for me last Thursday and Friday... namely: emptied all the ethanol bottles, didn't refill. I've pre-diluted the 200 proof stuff, they'd just have to pour it in. Someone left bottles of reagents empty but put away so I didn't notice until I needed one that it was empty, there were discarded gloves all over the place, and oh, someone -the PI I think- broke glassware and left most of it in the sink. Just because I got fucked with the lab manager job does not mean I am the maid. We're all adults. Fucking clean up after yourselves.
There is a very clear division right now: the three of them are the researchers, and I'm the support person. They chat together in a manner that feels like it deliberately excludes me. And often, they speak -of research- in Spanish, completely cutting me out of the conversation. I grew up in a multicultural and multilingual environment. I don't take offense at people speaking a language they prefer even if I do not understand it. However, at work? Make a fucking effort. Also, I'm pretty good at determining if a language is being used because of comfort versus to exclude. This feels like the latter. Or maybe not exclude as much as... I'm not worth the effort of switching to English.
And the killer thing, the last straw that might make me quit? There is a white board by my desk, one of the three or four in the lab. PI told Elena and Nahuel that if they needed something done or bought, they could just leave me a note there. Which Elena promptly did. Way to make me feel like the hired help, not even worthy of an ask, but instead, just write down a list of things to do for the clearly inferior person. For some reason I cannot seem to articulate, that just seems like the final insult, the one that is clearly meant to make it obvious where my place it, at the service and beck and call of everyone else in the lab and certainly not as someone worthy of the respect of a "could you please...?" Up to now, Nahuel has been great about being polite and asking and is getting better at asking in a timely manner (or understanding that I can't make bacteria or cells grow instantaneously!), it'll be interesting to see if this board changes his behavior.
I feel alienated and excluded.
Sorry about the whining. I've spent the last few days in tears more often than not. I hate crying and I hate it even more when it's tears of rage and frustration.
And today just got even worse. I can't detail it all, but basically Elena is a goddess that can do no wrong, and who gets to decide that we need to toss
There is a very clear division right now: the three of them are the researchers, and I'm the support person. They chat together in a manner that feels like it deliberately excludes me. And often, they speak -of research- in Spanish, completely cutting me out of the conversation. I grew up in a multicultural and multilingual environment. I don't take offense at people speaking a language they prefer even if I do not understand it. However, at work? Make a fucking effort. Also, I'm pretty good at determining if a language is being used because of comfort versus to exclude. This feels like the latter. Or maybe not exclude as much as... I'm not worth the effort of switching to English.
And the killer thing, the last straw that might make me quit? There is a white board by my desk, one of the three or four in the lab. PI told Elena and Nahuel that if they needed something done or bought, they could just leave me a note there. Which Elena promptly did. Way to make me feel like the hired help, not even worthy of an ask, but instead, just write down a list of things to do for the clearly inferior person. For some reason I cannot seem to articulate, that just seems like the final insult, the one that is clearly meant to make it obvious where my place it, at the service and beck and call of everyone else in the lab and certainly not as someone worthy of the respect of a "could you please...?" Up to now, Nahuel has been great about being polite and asking and is getting better at asking in a timely manner (or understanding that I can't make bacteria or cells grow instantaneously!), it'll be interesting to see if this board changes his behavior.
I feel alienated and excluded.
Sorry about the whining. I've spent the last few days in tears more often than not. I hate crying and I hate it even more when it's tears of rage and frustration.
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