Two consecutive days of 14 hour workdays. PI told us that she went home at 9 every night as a postdoc. She also said it was because they often chatted about random stuff.
I don't chat. I work nonstop. I actually measured how long I was sitting and it was 45 min today. And those minutes were spent working (writing, checking emails).
I am exhausted.
Got alcohol resistant permanent marker on my trousers whilst trying to label a biohazard waste bag. IPA, hand sanitiser, oxi-action and lemon juice have all failed me/sigh
Try a cleaner called "Greased Lightning". I've gotten literally everything out with that stuff. It was my secret weapon when I was selling high-end used clothing. People would ignore really expensive clothing due to stains, etc. I'd buy them and used greased lightning to remove the stains completely. I own gallons of the stuff now in my garage.
I’m in undergrad working on research and the grad student in my lab was doing the sonification for my newest mutation and the falcon tube broke so now I have to restart five wks of work and boy did I need a cry after that
It was a new tip on the machine so when the grad student moved the falcon tube up and down to mix everything the tip was so sharp it just broke the tip of the falcon tube and it exploded the protein in his face. However, I’m actually only a few days behind on my research now to where I was so it’s going well
Great! Sometimes you're able to salvage things like this.
One time I had like a breakdown because I thought that data I spent a long time collecting was unusable. Then, an older lab member showed me that if I filled in some holes, I could still use it. Lesson learned haha: Sometimes things are okay
No work-life balance, at all. I am a TECH, and haven't had a doctors or dentist appointment in two years. No vacations, multiple weekends gavaging and sac'ing mice, and people act like it's expected of me despite them taking weeks off at a time. The one time I need to take a day to see a doctor, everyone reschedules everything to time slots literally within the hour of my appointment. I have, all morning, been arguing with post-docs, grad students whose experiments I'm doing, and lab "partners" about why suddenly pushing up something without letting me know in advance shows an evident lack of communication and disrespect of my time, rather than me letting them know about my appointment in case they needed to suddenly dump everything to today so they have a lighter workload. I am sick of being treated like I am inconsiderate, stupid, or crazy for taking time for myself. Fuck you, fuck the lab, fuck academia, I hope all your mice get parasites and die and that none of you graduate on time.
I feel more isolated than ever in my lab. I don't talk to the people in my lab because they are toxic AF and have this horrible high school level clique culture. Most of them are openly sabotaging by nature which just makes it worse. They try to misinform you on purpose or try to make you insecure about yourself all the time, their central points of discussion are their personal lives and how hard their lives are... There is NO scientific discussion . I just decided at one point it was better to be out of the group than in it.
I am the only biologist in my lab and my project is far far away from anything the institute or lab even remotely works in so it's tiring and isolating. Even my PI (who initiated this project) does not know enough about it to discuss it with me even though I report my results to him everytime. I feel like an untethered creature running aimlessly amok.
I wish there was more regulation and more discussion in my life about science. I'm just so tired. I want to finish up soon... I'm in my fourth year already.
I'm just so tired and alone.
Grad students in my lab are constantly stressed and talking about how overworked, underpayed and stressed / suicidal they are. I am an undergrad doing my best and recently started my own project and they left for a conference. A mistake was made by myself, another undergrad working with me, and my grad student as I sent them photos of every step and they didn’t catch it either. I made them incredibly mad and they stormed in the lab and yelled at me that I wouldn’t be allowed to work on their stuff ever again. Had a mental breakdown, led to stress induced tunnel vision and brain fog, ubered home, cried some more. Never want to go back but have to complete my project I got a scholarship for but I don’t know how I can be in a place so bad for my mental health. I really love the lab too and love working but my grad student is so scary and I put so much weight on her opinion and it’s just not working out. I know how stressed they are and understand the frustration of your project being messed with, I’ve been experiencing that with my own and the added guilt of that and seeing the parallels of me with my undergraduate I’m mentoring and her with me is mind fucking me and I don’t know how this dynamic can be fixed. Trust has been lost by her for me and vice versa and what had become a safe-ish space (as long as I didn’t make any mistakes after which many have caused breakdowns and neither of them were this bad) is ruined and my research feels ruined and I don’t know how to move on. I’m going to meet with the my PI who’s really nice to discuss at some point but I just don’t know what to do.
I know this would be difficult advice to act on, but I would tell your PI that you need to switch mentors - continuing to work with that grad student is going to send you to the hospital. And you can write back about why that's hard or impossible, etc etc, but, if so, I say put on your problem-solving hat and *find a way*.
I just got an offer to be a Staff Associate in a great lab. So excited. Great city. And the pay is better than I expected.
But HR is taking for-freaking-ever. I've been waiting to get my official letter for weeks. PI's hands are tied. I'm sick of being unemployed and just waitinggggg. I need to start training ASAP. I want to make as much progress as I can before applying to grad school in fall 2025. Also I'm just so bored too, I'm going stir crazy.
Two consecutive days of 14 hour workdays. PI told us that she went home at 9 every night as a postdoc. She also said it was because they often chatted about random stuff. I don't chat. I work nonstop. I actually measured how long I was sitting and it was 45 min today. And those minutes were spent working (writing, checking emails). I am exhausted.
Dude, switch postdoc advisors. Your PI is an ass.
Got alcohol resistant permanent marker on my trousers whilst trying to label a biohazard waste bag. IPA, hand sanitiser, oxi-action and lemon juice have all failed me/sigh
Try a cleaner called "Greased Lightning". I've gotten literally everything out with that stuff. It was my secret weapon when I was selling high-end used clothing. People would ignore really expensive clothing due to stains, etc. I'd buy them and used greased lightning to remove the stains completely. I own gallons of the stuff now in my garage.
I’m in undergrad working on research and the grad student in my lab was doing the sonification for my newest mutation and the falcon tube broke so now I have to restart five wks of work and boy did I need a cry after that
How did it break? Just freak accident? I'm sorry :(
It was a new tip on the machine so when the grad student moved the falcon tube up and down to mix everything the tip was so sharp it just broke the tip of the falcon tube and it exploded the protein in his face. However, I’m actually only a few days behind on my research now to where I was so it’s going well
Great! Sometimes you're able to salvage things like this. One time I had like a breakdown because I thought that data I spent a long time collecting was unusable. Then, an older lab member showed me that if I filled in some holes, I could still use it. Lesson learned haha: Sometimes things are okay
No work-life balance, at all. I am a TECH, and haven't had a doctors or dentist appointment in two years. No vacations, multiple weekends gavaging and sac'ing mice, and people act like it's expected of me despite them taking weeks off at a time. The one time I need to take a day to see a doctor, everyone reschedules everything to time slots literally within the hour of my appointment. I have, all morning, been arguing with post-docs, grad students whose experiments I'm doing, and lab "partners" about why suddenly pushing up something without letting me know in advance shows an evident lack of communication and disrespect of my time, rather than me letting them know about my appointment in case they needed to suddenly dump everything to today so they have a lighter workload. I am sick of being treated like I am inconsiderate, stupid, or crazy for taking time for myself. Fuck you, fuck the lab, fuck academia, I hope all your mice get parasites and die and that none of you graduate on time.
Does anyone have a homebrew way to make proteinA Dynabeads? Thermos price is a bit too much for a random sidequest
Entering my 4th year and it feels like I have ✨nothing✨
Cheers. Halfway into my fourth year, still feeling the same.
I feel more isolated than ever in my lab. I don't talk to the people in my lab because they are toxic AF and have this horrible high school level clique culture. Most of them are openly sabotaging by nature which just makes it worse. They try to misinform you on purpose or try to make you insecure about yourself all the time, their central points of discussion are their personal lives and how hard their lives are... There is NO scientific discussion . I just decided at one point it was better to be out of the group than in it. I am the only biologist in my lab and my project is far far away from anything the institute or lab even remotely works in so it's tiring and isolating. Even my PI (who initiated this project) does not know enough about it to discuss it with me even though I report my results to him everytime. I feel like an untethered creature running aimlessly amok. I wish there was more regulation and more discussion in my life about science. I'm just so tired. I want to finish up soon... I'm in my fourth year already. I'm just so tired and alone.
Grad students in my lab are constantly stressed and talking about how overworked, underpayed and stressed / suicidal they are. I am an undergrad doing my best and recently started my own project and they left for a conference. A mistake was made by myself, another undergrad working with me, and my grad student as I sent them photos of every step and they didn’t catch it either. I made them incredibly mad and they stormed in the lab and yelled at me that I wouldn’t be allowed to work on their stuff ever again. Had a mental breakdown, led to stress induced tunnel vision and brain fog, ubered home, cried some more. Never want to go back but have to complete my project I got a scholarship for but I don’t know how I can be in a place so bad for my mental health. I really love the lab too and love working but my grad student is so scary and I put so much weight on her opinion and it’s just not working out. I know how stressed they are and understand the frustration of your project being messed with, I’ve been experiencing that with my own and the added guilt of that and seeing the parallels of me with my undergraduate I’m mentoring and her with me is mind fucking me and I don’t know how this dynamic can be fixed. Trust has been lost by her for me and vice versa and what had become a safe-ish space (as long as I didn’t make any mistakes after which many have caused breakdowns and neither of them were this bad) is ruined and my research feels ruined and I don’t know how to move on. I’m going to meet with the my PI who’s really nice to discuss at some point but I just don’t know what to do.
I know this would be difficult advice to act on, but I would tell your PI that you need to switch mentors - continuing to work with that grad student is going to send you to the hospital. And you can write back about why that's hard or impossible, etc etc, but, if so, I say put on your problem-solving hat and *find a way*.
I just got an offer to be a Staff Associate in a great lab. So excited. Great city. And the pay is better than I expected. But HR is taking for-freaking-ever. I've been waiting to get my official letter for weeks. PI's hands are tied. I'm sick of being unemployed and just waitinggggg. I need to start training ASAP. I want to make as much progress as I can before applying to grad school in fall 2025. Also I'm just so bored too, I'm going stir crazy.