Sunday, July 13, 2014

The well is dry, and now you're thirsty?

 
How someone could think that the 10 years it took me to fine tune my expertise in Chemistry/Biochemistry/Pharmacology could be gained by a barely English speaking computer scientist in 2 weeks, I'll NEVER know. But what I learned last week is that the "sassy" female (of course) Assist. prof my group works with, thought exactly that. Really? NO REALLY??? Yeah, really!

There are some aspects of my current position which I purposely choose not to talk about on my blog because I didn't want too much "negativity" in print. But it turns out that sassy prof tried to convinced my PI that another member of my group could do the work I was brought on to do, as well as I to do it, while our PI was out of town for a couple weeks. Of course, when the guy fell so flat on his face during his presentation on Friday that he left a dent on the floor, my value to the group and her idiotic thinking, came to light. So after he failed to explain all the nuances of the chemistry involved in the project, our PI asked if I could do it with NO NOTICE. And why was I able to do this with NO problem? I'm ALWAYS prepared for this kinda thing because I seem to ALWAYS be in these situations. So to say that my presentation was a slam dunk is an understatement, my PI and the other members of my group, were quite pleased and praised my hard work. And yeah, I "keeps me" a presentation on "standby" of whatever I'm working on as this is part of my "Research for a Minority 101" of things that must be done to do stay "winning" in the research game!

Of course, none of what happened was a surprise to me given that sassy prof grilled me thoroughly during the interview and made the comment: "If this task is taking you so long, why should we hire you?". Now the fact was that if she had a better command of the English language, I would have better understood what she wanted me to do during the interview. And being the professional I am I didn't say that (although I wanted to), but I did respond with this:  "Well, you need to hire me because I'm the only one here with both the education and expertise in Pharmacology and Chemistry to support your research". 

Now with that type of an "introduction" to the group, I haven't been surprised that she's far from being my biggest fan. And this type of thing has been "par for the course" in my research career since forever, so it barely bothers me anymore. Fittingly, her thinking that my knowledge/expertise could be gained in 2 weeks, resulted in our PI not only getting into her arse after the meeting, but also into the poor guy who was assigned one of my tasks during the meeting after his presentation. And to think sassy prof had said to me at a meeting earlier in the week, in front of the ENTIRE group: "I  don't think we need you anymore", only to get her a$$ handed to her at weeks end, LOL!!!!

It's clear now that my PI realizes my value to the group, so I have some decisions to make, although the decision of NOT getting a PhD with this group is already made, it ain't gonna happen!!! The thing is that I really like what I'm doing/learning and I also wanted to present at national meetings this fall and next spring. Obviously if I change groups now, the fall meeting is likely out of the question, and possibly the spring one as well. So at this time, I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I will definitely be praying real hard about my next move before I make it.

So after my group meeting on Friday, I went to talk to my "main" graduate advisor, who is more like a grandfather to me in the years we've communicated both before I joined the department and since my matriculation. And after telling him the details of my experience (I hadn't mentioned anything until Friday), he gave me a LONG list of potential PI's he knows with slots available this Fall, including a few at one of the top 10 Universitys in the US. He then advised me to do some homework looking at all my options before making a decision. We also discussed my "timeline" for the MD/PhD and so far I'm right on schedule!!! And in a rather rare occurrence in my career, I can tell that not only is he very supportive of me, but immensely proud as well. And that kinda of support is worth it's weight in gold!! :)

Now I know this song by Fantasia is about her former relationship with that woman's husband, but I think my current group situation is apropos as well, ROTFL!!!



3 comments:

  1. Why don't you just get up and go to med school already! It seems like the working world is treating you badly.

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  2. Thanks for your comment......I think, LOL!! I'm not in a "job" in the traditional sense, I'm in a graduate assistantship in support of my PhD program in Biomedical Informatics. The unofficial plan I have with a med school and my department is to matriculate into the MD/PhD program in the fall of 2016. So as it stands right now, this "minor annoyance" is a required one for the PhD portion of my program.

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  3. One more comment, "bad treatment" seems to the be name of the game in most research environments. But I LOVE my work, so I "make it to what it do"!! :)

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