Google is an amazing tool; some people should use it more often
New Professor hired a post-doc a couple of months ago.
The post-doc needs help learning his project. Okay, fine. There's always a learning curve.
He borrowed some antibody from us. Actually, I gave it to him. When he had problems, he came and asked me for help. He needed some plasmids, and I gave them to him.
Then he came and asked me - no lie - "How do you figure out which E3 ligase is the one that modifies your protein?"
Uh. Go read the literature; there are a few strategies. I'd start with whatever signaling pathway your protein is in/effected by, and try known ones, and then if they don't work, go from there.
So he borrowed more plasmids. And asked more really basic questions, questions that he should be able to answer without my help if he just READ THE LITERATURE.
Again. And again. He came to my bench with his notebook and asked me to help even when I was obviously in the middle of something. And some of it was stupid shit: what molecular weight is X-protein?
IDK, why don't you fucking Google it? Or ask if I can stop what I'm doing to help you do something a first year student should be able to figure out.
Fine. But today he asked me to explain the relationship between TGFb and X-protein, and I was like, "Uh. That is your project. Perhaps you should read the literature, rather than asking me to describe it to you." And he looked at me and asked, "What papers should I read?"
... O.o
I told him to go search TGFb at PubMed. That was, perhaps, a bit mean. He's going to be buried under papers from now until Christmas if he doesn't narrow his search.
But seriously? He's a POST-DOC. He should be able to figure that shit out for himself, not ask someone who isn't working on his project, who isn't even IN HIS LAB to explain it to him.
The post-doc needs help learning his project. Okay, fine. There's always a learning curve.
He borrowed some antibody from us. Actually, I gave it to him. When he had problems, he came and asked me for help. He needed some plasmids, and I gave them to him.
Then he came and asked me - no lie - "How do you figure out which E3 ligase is the one that modifies your protein?"
Uh. Go read the literature; there are a few strategies. I'd start with whatever signaling pathway your protein is in/effected by, and try known ones, and then if they don't work, go from there.
So he borrowed more plasmids. And asked more really basic questions, questions that he should be able to answer without my help if he just READ THE LITERATURE.
Again. And again. He came to my bench with his notebook and asked me to help even when I was obviously in the middle of something. And some of it was stupid shit: what molecular weight is X-protein?
IDK, why don't you fucking Google it? Or ask if I can stop what I'm doing to help you do something a first year student should be able to figure out.
Fine. But today he asked me to explain the relationship between TGFb and X-protein, and I was like, "Uh. That is your project. Perhaps you should read the literature, rather than asking me to describe it to you." And he looked at me and asked, "What papers should I read?"
... O.o
I told him to go search TGFb at PubMed. That was, perhaps, a bit mean. He's going to be buried under papers from now until Christmas if he doesn't narrow his search.
But seriously? He's a POST-DOC. He should be able to figure that shit out for himself, not ask someone who isn't working on his project, who isn't even IN HIS LAB to explain it to him.