montage

Do they not realize how immature they are?

I've already sent out an email to Janey, but I have to wonder what's going on their minds right now. Are they even feeling sorry? Do they even realize what it is that they did wrong?

There are specific things I do in lab, certain things I do as favors to help people with their projects. When you come in and order me around, saying, "Is it finished yet?" I refuse to be pushed around by pompous graduate students. I don't appreciate being taken advantage of, and I certainly am not responsible for ANY part of your project. I'm not here to optimize all of your experiments just because you're too lazy to do it yourself, so stop waiting until somebody else does your job for you.

If I offer you backup stocks from over a year ago, and I advise you to verify the stock by performing a simple restriction enzyme digestion overnight, you do it. Even if you didn't do it that night, you had all day the next day to perform such a simple task, yet you decide instead to go running, leaving lab for over 3 hours in the afternoon before coming in right when you need to perform your experiment, and not being ready for it.

You could have prepared days in advance to check if all the reagents were available. This is something you should be doing for all of your experiments. Leaving in the middle of the day to exercise does not excuse you from being responsible for your own project. You cannot expect all reagents to be there when you come back. You could also be checking before you go to see if anything is missing.

Yelling at a coworker in a public place is inappropriate, unnecessary, and unprofessional. Do not butt into matters when it's none of your business. Raising your voice will not change any of my behavior because I do not fear you. This is embarrassing behavior that should never have happened.

It's hypocritical to blame people for not restocking reagents. It has been days since you two used up the last bottle of one reagents, and opened up the last box of large flasks. Neither of you have put in orders for either reagent. The only people you two help is each other- nobody else. Every time, when it's one of you who has used up a reagent, you find no fault with each other, but when it's somebody else, it's not okay.

I am not here to babysit you and hold your hand through graduate school. You should be responsible grad students by now after your first year in lab, yet you aren't. I don't have to be at work at 7:30 PM as a lab tech. Therefore, I again shouldn't be responsible for you if you choose to come at such a late time. Just because I'm the only person in lab with the foresight to have backups does not mean I will allow you to take advantage of me. Like my lab mate said, this relationship has been heavily one-sided, with me performing favors for you all the time. I am not responsible for an antibody that you require at midnight. You should have checked this in advance as well before beginning your immunostaining.

Since I'm leaving in June, I have been trying to teach you two to not depend on me so much. I cannot save you every time you are not ready to perform your experiments, yet every time, you always have to depend on me to bail you out of troublesome situations. You need to start learning to plan your experiments ahead of time.

This incident has lasted since Thursday night, so it has been about, what, 5 full days? I think they try from time to time to talk to me, asking small questions like, "Do we have more of this?" or, "You're running the half-marathon, right?" I need at least a week, before I even begin to say what's on my mind to them.

How can people one year younger than me be so irresponsible? Sure, I was like this in college, but not anymore after having been in the workforce. Maybe they need some more growing up to do.

There was this instance in lab, around 8 PM, when my mind just started jogging through memories of me and that lab mate, when times were almost... fun. And in just an instant, all that was, is gone.