A Case of the Mondays
Man oh man, it's only 11:00 am on a Monday and already this day has been Teh Suck (TM).
I was not moving so well this morning. I ache all over: my quads, my hams, my calves, my shoulders, my arms, my back, my butt, my neck... and what doesn't ache itches like mad from bugbites. It wasn't that sunny, and I put on sunscreen, but driving and hiking so much in the sun has given my forearms a faint sunburn.
All this, taken cumulatively, means that I must have had a good weekend.
It was rough just climbing out of bed - I sleep in a loft. I ended up riding my bike to work, because although it means it's going to hurt going home, it did mean that I could just sort of sit and coast to campus, and I didn't actually have to move my legs very much. Walking isn't terribly fun right now!
I called up my dentist's office to get an insurance billing error straightened out, then finally hauled myself into work. First off, I stopped in at Estelle's office to talk to her about the changes in my project, take her off my committee and thank her for being on it before headed upstairs, where I discovered that my keycard no longer worked to let me in to my hallway. I'm guessing that, as I no longer need the access to the microbiology labs, they shut off my access to those and inadvertantly shut off my access to my own hall and labs, too. So I borrowed my advisor's card, found an old water bottle someone had left, and I've been carrying that around with me to wedge open the hall door for when I need to go in and out.
Coming into the lab, the first thing that struck me was the smell: there was the remains of close to 100 dead blue mussels in the biohazard trash bag, some of them having sat there for the better part of four weeks. Nasty. After asking April, I found that I didn't have to call anyone to come have it picked up, I just had to haul it up to the penthouse myself. So I tied up the bag and taped up the box (which is as tall as my waist and probably 2 feet square or more) and put it on the cart, heading for the penthouse. The elevator doors had just closed when I realized that I didn't bring a card with me, so although I could go up to the penthouse, I wouldn't be able to get back to the 2nd floor. Dammit. I dropped off the waste, picked up a new box and biohazard bags, took the cart to the elevator and took the elevator to the third floor, went down the hall to the lobby elevator, took that down to the second floor, went and borrowed my advisor's card again to get into the hall, hauled the cart and new box into the lab, and then realized I'd neglected to write the PI name and lab number on the box. So I got a black sharpied and headed BACK up to the penthouse, did that, came back down, got the water bottle, jammed open the door again and returned my PI's card to him.
I then noticed that Dr. Aaron was in his lab, so I stopped in to say, "Hi. I asked you almost 2 weeks to the day about my $ for teaching micro. I still haven't been paid. At all. I have $12 in my account, and rent and bills that need to be paid pronto, and I NEED THIS MONEY IN MY ACCOUNT BY THE END OF THE DAY, PLEASE." So he made a few phone calls, and I went down to the basement to talk to Tameson about it - I wanted to be sure that there wasn't a check sitting aroudn somewhere that I hadn't known about. The upshot is I won't get paid until this Friday (WTF, a full THREE WEEKS after I complained about not getting paid), but they've drafted up an advance for me which I have to go all the way out to the bumfrell end of campus to pick up. My legs aren't precisely pleased with that notion. I wonder if there's a bus heading out there that I could take?
After talking to Tameson, I had to go across the hall and talk to Tammy about getting paid off of Dr. Mike's grants now that I'm no longer being paid (oh, it is to laugh) off the Micro Department's funds. Tammy asked me if I knew what account it was or how Dr. M wanted it set up, and I said, "I'm sorry, I have no idea - all he told me was that I needed to talk to you, and didn't give me any other information. Which, I have to say, seems to be pretty typical of him: he'll tell me to go do something, but doesn't give me all the information I need to go do it." Tammy made a sort of grimmace as she dug through her file cabinet, and with a funny tone in her voice, remarked, "Ohhh, no comment!" This makes me think she's been on the recieving end of this sort of crap, too. I know from prior grad students for Mike - April and Jill, for example - that Mike tends to do this a LOT. (Case in point: Mike not giving me the information I needed (hotel name, phone number, research station name, name or location of someone to pick me up in the airport) to get to the conference in Cancun last year. Case in point #2: On a research trip to Australia, Jill's plane was delayed and she ended up missing the connecting boat to the island research station. Mike left without her, and left no message or anything for her. She had to flounder to find a place to stay overnight at the last minute, try to rebook a ticket for the next day, and try to reschedule all her travel plans when he actually had all of that information on him, and didn't share it. I would love to know if he treats everyone like this, or if we all get this special treatment because we're all women.)
And now it's 11:30. I want to go home and have a long hot bath, except for the part where I don't have a bathtub. Sitting in a jacuzzi would be really nice right about now: throw on a movie, get some food - argh, I need to go grocery shopping, too. But I as yet have no money for that. Whee.
For any of you out there who just might be contemplating graduate school: DON'T BOTHER.
I was not moving so well this morning. I ache all over: my quads, my hams, my calves, my shoulders, my arms, my back, my butt, my neck... and what doesn't ache itches like mad from bugbites. It wasn't that sunny, and I put on sunscreen, but driving and hiking so much in the sun has given my forearms a faint sunburn.
All this, taken cumulatively, means that I must have had a good weekend.
It was rough just climbing out of bed - I sleep in a loft. I ended up riding my bike to work, because although it means it's going to hurt going home, it did mean that I could just sort of sit and coast to campus, and I didn't actually have to move my legs very much. Walking isn't terribly fun right now!
I called up my dentist's office to get an insurance billing error straightened out, then finally hauled myself into work. First off, I stopped in at Estelle's office to talk to her about the changes in my project, take her off my committee and thank her for being on it before headed upstairs, where I discovered that my keycard no longer worked to let me in to my hallway. I'm guessing that, as I no longer need the access to the microbiology labs, they shut off my access to those and inadvertantly shut off my access to my own hall and labs, too. So I borrowed my advisor's card, found an old water bottle someone had left, and I've been carrying that around with me to wedge open the hall door for when I need to go in and out.
Coming into the lab, the first thing that struck me was the smell: there was the remains of close to 100 dead blue mussels in the biohazard trash bag, some of them having sat there for the better part of four weeks. Nasty. After asking April, I found that I didn't have to call anyone to come have it picked up, I just had to haul it up to the penthouse myself. So I tied up the bag and taped up the box (which is as tall as my waist and probably 2 feet square or more) and put it on the cart, heading for the penthouse. The elevator doors had just closed when I realized that I didn't bring a card with me, so although I could go up to the penthouse, I wouldn't be able to get back to the 2nd floor. Dammit. I dropped off the waste, picked up a new box and biohazard bags, took the cart to the elevator and took the elevator to the third floor, went down the hall to the lobby elevator, took that down to the second floor, went and borrowed my advisor's card again to get into the hall, hauled the cart and new box into the lab, and then realized I'd neglected to write the PI name and lab number on the box. So I got a black sharpied and headed BACK up to the penthouse, did that, came back down, got the water bottle, jammed open the door again and returned my PI's card to him.
I then noticed that Dr. Aaron was in his lab, so I stopped in to say, "Hi. I asked you almost 2 weeks to the day about my $ for teaching micro. I still haven't been paid. At all. I have $12 in my account, and rent and bills that need to be paid pronto, and I NEED THIS MONEY IN MY ACCOUNT BY THE END OF THE DAY, PLEASE." So he made a few phone calls, and I went down to the basement to talk to Tameson about it - I wanted to be sure that there wasn't a check sitting aroudn somewhere that I hadn't known about. The upshot is I won't get paid until this Friday (WTF, a full THREE WEEKS after I complained about not getting paid), but they've drafted up an advance for me which I have to go all the way out to the bumfrell end of campus to pick up. My legs aren't precisely pleased with that notion. I wonder if there's a bus heading out there that I could take?
After talking to Tameson, I had to go across the hall and talk to Tammy about getting paid off of Dr. Mike's grants now that I'm no longer being paid (oh, it is to laugh) off the Micro Department's funds. Tammy asked me if I knew what account it was or how Dr. M wanted it set up, and I said, "I'm sorry, I have no idea - all he told me was that I needed to talk to you, and didn't give me any other information. Which, I have to say, seems to be pretty typical of him: he'll tell me to go do something, but doesn't give me all the information I need to go do it." Tammy made a sort of grimmace as she dug through her file cabinet, and with a funny tone in her voice, remarked, "Ohhh, no comment!" This makes me think she's been on the recieving end of this sort of crap, too. I know from prior grad students for Mike - April and Jill, for example - that Mike tends to do this a LOT. (Case in point: Mike not giving me the information I needed (hotel name, phone number, research station name, name or location of someone to pick me up in the airport) to get to the conference in Cancun last year. Case in point #2: On a research trip to Australia, Jill's plane was delayed and she ended up missing the connecting boat to the island research station. Mike left without her, and left no message or anything for her. She had to flounder to find a place to stay overnight at the last minute, try to rebook a ticket for the next day, and try to reschedule all her travel plans when he actually had all of that information on him, and didn't share it. I would love to know if he treats everyone like this, or if we all get this special treatment because we're all women.)
And now it's 11:30. I want to go home and have a long hot bath, except for the part where I don't have a bathtub. Sitting in a jacuzzi would be really nice right about now: throw on a movie, get some food - argh, I need to go grocery shopping, too. But I as yet have no money for that. Whee.
For any of you out there who just might be contemplating graduate school: DON'T BOTHER.