Monday, June 13, 2011

Don't poke the post-doc

My laboratory has multiple rooms and offices spread across the floor of a rather large building. We also have a large number of students who have taken the flex-time nature of graduate school to heart and are here on an intermittent basis. My office is located near the three main rooms our laboratory and holds our lab manager, research technician and myself. Crazy workaholic that I am, I actually work normally hours (8-5) and as such get interrupted all day long by people trying to find other people, people trying to find things in the lab, people trying to find our professor, and sales rep trying to find someone to sell too. 

Apparently if I am sitting at my desk, with my headphones on, typing on my computer, this is the international sign for NOT WORKING. As the interruptions pile on during the course of the day I get progressively more bitchy. Case in point this conversation at the end of the day…

British post-doc “Do you know where the lab manager is?”

Me “He went to lunch.”

BPD “Do you know when he will be back?”

Me “No”

BPD “He usually gives me an aliquot of this highly restricted drug that is kept under lock and key, can you get it for me?”

Me “I don’t know who you are, who you work for, or what you do and I don’t know what agreement you have worked out with our professor regarding highly restricted drug so NO.”

BPD “Excuse me?”

Me “I suggest you return in 20 min to see if lab manager is back from lunch or call him on his cell phone if this is important”

BPD rolls eyes, sighs, and leaves.

Moral of the story? If you want someone to get you an aliquot of a restricted drug it is best to call ahead, and upon arrival, introduce yourself and maybe use a please or thank you somewhere in there too. Although to be fair, even she had asked politely, I probably still wouldn’t have helped her.

This past Friday after a sales rep wouldn’t stop asking me questions after I repeatedly told her that I was busy and put my headphones back on and returned to working on my computer, I actually turned to her and said “either you can leave your literature on that desk and leave or you can just leave, I don’t really care, because I am done talking to you”

Later I am going to go home and yell at the kids to get off my lawn.

2 comments:

  1. Tell them to use the pooper scooper with their dog too!

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  2. LOL - this was fun to read!

    ReplyDelete