Aug 19, 2008 01:07
I started work in the new lab on Monday and it has been spectacular! Sigh. Just brilliant!!
My boss, Leslie, is a gem b/c of his opinions. I realized straightaway that I was duty-bound to historically preserve these quotes and thus made a point to jot them down along with my meeting minutes. I can also look back at these and bring a smile to a dull day. Such philosophical treasures as "thinking is too much like hard work", "i don't bother planning ahead", "why do people get huffy if you take their stuff instead of getting your own?", and "porn on your PC is ok, as long as it isn't child pornography!" None of these were deliberate jokes, they were dead-set honest opinions. At the moment I sit back, observe, say nothing .... and estimate a good time to run for the hills ... :) other than his unique world view and value system, he seems very laid back which is good. For me but not for the rest of the lab. B/c of his massive explosive blunder last year ....
The backstory to this is certain interwoven events which occurred starting a few years ago. Back then, Brad was in charge of recruiting new students to his institute and I heard from him of a student applying for a phd with them. She'd terminated her phd in the eastern states b/c of differences with her supervisor but Brad turned her down b/c "something just didn't feel right". He tried contacting her previous lab for a referral but all they said was "look her up on google". That does NOT inspire confidence so turned her away. Life moved on. She started a phd with another institute here in perth. A year later she again contacted him b/c she'd terminated the 2nd phd under contentious circumstances & wanted to work with him. The place she'd been at was quite prestigious and alarms bells went off for him abt someone working with well known researchers yet changing phds so often.
We looked her up on google and found out she'd been terminated over east for fudging data, took the uni to court, lost the case, took it to supreme court, lost the case and eventually got blackmarked so she couldn't work there ever again. She single-handedly caused universities australia-wide re-write supervision laws for postgrad students and the case is also now studied at law schools. Law students write dissertations on this case as part of their coursework. Hence, she hadn't listed anyone from her lab as referees and Brad had called them up simply b/c he knew of them. She was the archetypal student from hell and people make offerings at the Altar of Luck that her types never cross their path. No one wants to be dragged to court :)
So he turned her down a 2nd time and she was very pushy and aggressive about it but he stood his ground. These events trickled into our conversations but since I'd never met this girl and it looked like she wouldn't be taken on, my concern level was 0 and this faded from memory. I just developed a healthy sense of foreboding about her :) I'd already worked with 2 very difficult asians and had no wish to be around yet another one (had he taken her on, she would have been working next door b/c we worked next to each other at that stage), even if she was only in the building and not in my lab. And since she suddenly disappeared from his radar, the whole thing was forgotten.
Until I started in this new lab.
Holy fuck a knuckle with fuck-sticks fuck! She was here! Living, breathing ... experimenting! That's why he hadn't heard from her again, she'd found a lab to take her! When Leslie introduced us I literally stopped dead in my tracks, both hands flew to cover my mouth in horror and I stood, rooted, staring in shock. In that instant she knew that I knew and I felt so vulnerable! But when Leslie asked what was wrong I lied and said I'd remembered something crucial I'd forgotten and I quickly moved on to terminate meet-and-greet but not before she snapped "just stay out of my way!" as I left. He told me to ignore her attitude and just carry on with my work and said he wanted to talk to me confidentially today about having to work with her. Again, that did NOT sound promising!
So today he told me that in the year she's been here she has caused so much upheaval and discontent in the lab and it was all his fault b/c he was very laid back and hadn't checked her referees. And now to save face that they'd ommitted background checks, the uni kinda had to keep her on. Plus she now claimed she has depression and was abused and therefore she comes under some mental disability category so the uni now treads carefully around her. He told me not to get into any confrontation, or even conversation, with her b/c she's volatile, unpredictable, explosive, and a huge liar.
Now I understand why they asked me so many times in the interview how I handle conflict b/c asking that Qs more than once in an interview is odd, but 4 times?! That's ridiculous. And why they checked with all 3 of my referees what I'm like. In our field, employers will usually check with just one.
Anyway, I'll continue this wicked story later. Yes, there's mcuh more where thi is coming from but I'm tired and off to bed. Tmrw I must remember to tell you about her adventures in this lab and our student who's a duke and owns his own castle and dungeons and the other one with partial-paralysis. I'm not sure what's happened to the font here. I had to save it in word b/c I'd timed out and it just didn't paste very well.