*yawn*

[moonwise]

Lazy rainy morning. My husband, for once, wasn't in a hurry to get out of bed and so we had a very sleepy, pleasant morning snuggling and listening to the rain fall. It was a trial to get up, of course, considering the late night, but I hauled my protesting rear end out of the bed and went to work.

Rob came back to putter around in the lab so we've been filling him in on lab dirt and what our advisor has been spouting about this time. We had a Lecture on How to Be a Good Graduate Student on Friday, with the corollary of You Should Visit Your Advisor More Often. While we can't say it to him, what we're all thinking is, "well if you want company, perhaps you should not shoot our ideas down and then bring them up later as this great idea you just had." This has happened for several techniques and/or equipment suggestions. What pissed me off the worst was the Kugelrohr. I'd been trying to get one in the lab for two - count 'em, two - years, and I finally wore the boss down with two postdoc's support to get one. Then, all of a sudden, it's this Great Thing after the two years' worth of bitching over how no one will use it.

Advisors. Can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em.

I really must get started on this grant work but it's so much more fun to not work on the grant work. And it's only a crisis because F-squared left his grant renewal off for so long... blah.

Comments

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

>Then, all of a sudden, it's this Great Thing after the two years' worth of bitching over how no one will use it.

You know, your bossman sounds so much like the worst kind of bossmen I heard about when I was a grad student... ppl would say exactly the same things as you do, that they're unsupportive, dismissive of students' ideas and snag ideas for themselves later on. Very difficult to work under. And it makes you wonder how common this is for grad students. All advisors have their faults but some definitely seem to have more than others. At least you know that you're not the only one who sees what he's doing, the other ppl in the lab see it too.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

This is what's frustrating us all right about now. Our advisor is 58 years old, he's not likely to change, and it's damn annoying when we try to bring things up and then it gets roundly shot down. But yes. The postdocs just about pull their hair out and the rest of us go hide.

Were either of your bossmen like that? I hope not. The guy in Bergen didn't sound like a charmer, am I remembering that right?

[fireceremony.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you can't do much about what the bossman does... that's part of why so many grad students are frustrated... it's hard to change the bossman's routines. But I think if you had made a united front all of the students in the lab and talked to the bossman, at least you'd have gotten it off you chest and given him some signals that you all dislike his working methods... but that is difficult to get ppl to do.

I recognize some of what's happening in your lab with how things were in Bergen, same kind of problems there. Ours wasn't as bad though, and he did have a whole bunch of students to look out for, plus he had some problems with the politics of the institute, lots of bad things going on there, so ppl worked and didn't say much about it.

[hidetomatsumoto.livejournal.com]

That's one thing about my boss that I do like--despite some of the differences we've had in the past--he will listen, and if he likes the idea, he always makes sure to give credit where it is due.

If you don't get that grant work started and finished, I will send a singing gorilla gram to remind you, I swear! =P

[ssilverfish.livejournal.com]

Mmm... lazy rainy morning sounded nice. Those are the best! Though definitely makes it difficult to go to work. :P

Ugh. I hate the "How to Be a Good Graduate Student" lecture. It makes me want to turn around with the "How to Be a Good Mentor" lecture, although as you say, it's hard to teach these old dogs anything. They think they know all, they are entitled to all, and what they say is gospel. It's sickening. It's good to realize that you can't change them though, because then you won't spend your life trying... many of my labmates are still trying, and it's getting them nowhere.

Good luck with the grant work. (Gee, always fun to have to pull someone else's nuts out of the fire, isn't it?) Are you having to rush experiments or produce writing for it? Or both? (I may have missed this if you mentioned it before).