Must be chilly down there

biomaj5 · October 2012

He apologized, and actually sounded sincere when he did it. He said he's been working on how he says things, and still has some work to do. He said he effed up and didn't mean for what he said to come across as a personal attack on me, my lab manager, or my boss.

I hope my face didn't show my inward lol'ing when he said that my time is valuable, and that the reason he said the things he did was because he didn't want me to waste my time infecting cell lines that we don't need. I've spent the last 3 months or so infecting cell lines for a project for him that he's not doing anything with. Three months.

The project we were discussing was a method for infecting fresh cells rather than frozen ones. I can't infect a person's cell line if they only have one vial of cells, so infecting them before they are frozen down would give us access to more cells that we wouldn't have otherwise. I did an initial experiment using various numbers of cells to determine the minimum number of cells needed to grow a culture in a decent amount of time. He shot down the idea immediately, saying that we need to think things through more before implementing this plan. It's an early experiment to see if this would work; doesn't mean that we are starting it tomorrow. Also, the idea was born because I couldn't start several cell lines for his experiment above because they only had one vial. So this was brought up to benefit him.

Sidenote: A cold front literally just moved through, and the temp outside dropped about 15 degrees F.

cowgirltu · October 2012

First off, its a little creepy that your temps did actually drop lol. Luckily its fall right now, way more creepy if it was summer.

Secondly, good for him to make a sincere apology. Hopefully he actually follows through with changing how he talks to people.

joshandpanda · October 2012

cowgirltu:
First off, its a little creepy that your temps did actually drop lol. Luckily its fall right now, way more creepy if it was summer.

Secondly, good for him to make a sincere apology. Hopefully he actually follows through with changing how he talks to people.

this!

that is creepy, but nice that he was actually sincere about it!

biomaj5 · October 2012

joshandpanda:
cowgirltu:
First off, its a little creepy that your temps did actually drop lol. Luckily its fall right now, way more creepy if it was summer.

Secondly, good for him to make a sincere apology. Hopefully he actually follows through with changing how he talks to people.
this!
that is creepy, but nice that he was actually sincere about it!

When I told my lab manager what was said, she said that she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the past, nice comments from him generally mean that he is going to try to have you fired shortly thereafter. I guess I'd forgotten that since I just ignore his existence now. But in the past, if he's nice, you need to watch out for the other shoe to drop. We're also wondering who said something to him to get him to do these apologies.

The lab manager is a little pissed that he said that no one in this lab plans things, when in reality, he is the one who doesn't plan things. Also, she said he nearly cried while apologizing to her yesterday. All of it is highly questionable.

bugandbibs · October 2012

I'm glad you got an actual apology. Maybe he was told he needed an attitude adjustment or his job would be on the line. In my experience, when people act like this all the time they eventually cop an attitude with some one higher up who squashes them like a bug.

biomaj5 · October 2012

bugandbibs:
I'm glad you got an actual apology. Maybe he was told he needed an attitude adjustment or his job would be on the line. In my experience, when people act like this all the time they eventually cop an attitude with some one higher up who squashes them like a bug.

That might have been what happened, although he's generally very nice to those above him. My big boss is also his boss, so maybe she picked up on his attitude. Generally though, she is on his side. People below him are nothing to him. There was an incident last year that went to HR, so perhaps he's learning. Or at least he's learning to say the right things later, even if it's not actually genuine. Who knows. All I know is that I'm used to the way he talks to me, I generally ignore it, and I don't trust him.

bugandbibs · October 2012

biomaj5:
bugandbibs:
I'm glad you got an actual apology. Maybe he was told he needed an attitude adjustment or his job would be on the line. In my experience, when people act like this all the time they eventually cop an attitude with some one higher up who squashes them like a bug.
That might have been what happened, although he's generally very nice to those above him. My big boss is also his boss, so maybe she picked up on his attitude. Generally though, she is on his side. People below him are nothing to him. There was an incident last year that went to HR, so perhaps he's learning. Or at least he's learning to say the right things later, even if it's not actually genuine. Who knows. All I know is that I'm used to the way he talks to me, I generally ignore it, and I don't trust him.

I think that is key. Know who people really are so you don't get blind sided.

CandaceMM · October 2012

Well, I'm glad you got an apology.

And ps- I'm a little jealous that the temp dropped where you are at. I live in FL so we don't get Fall. Also, it is the end of October and we are currently under a tropical storm watch. That is the only perk to living here I guess; the entertaining weather.

Tigger & pooh · October 2012

Out of random curiosity what is it you do? My brother is doing his post doc in molecular neuroscience so to a novice like me you talk about similar things as him.

biomaj5 · October 2012

Tigger & pooh:
Out of random curiosity what is it you do? My brother is doing his post doc in molecular neuroscience so to a novice like me you talk about similar things as him.

I'm a lab tech in an autoimmune disease genetics lab. I process the blood and tissue samples from our clinic, as well as run some quantitative tests on the serum. I also infect the patients' lymphocytes with a virus to make cell lines.

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