Why do I humor these people again?
First, before ranting, this weekend has been awesome so far. Saturday we had the traditional family picnic. The usual uncle barry, aunt liz and uncle glen, sandy, grandmom, grandpop, and us. Only this time round I invited Kathleen and Chris. We had tons of food, lots of fun watching Lilly and T-Bo (Tee-bo? Tbo? T'bo? T-bow? Tboe? T-bone? I have no idea. The pronunciation is T Bow but this looks weird written down...) play. After the food and such Dad brought out the old home movies my grandpop filmed. Dad got some one at his work to convert the old film strips into a DVD so we watched some of them. It was fun as I was with people who mostly knew who the featured relatives were. Well, some of the time anyway... It's weird to think that someday I may be sitting as the oldest relative looking through Dad's home movies trying to remember who people are...weird..
Then, yesterday I went with the parents and beth to the PA Renaissance faire. Fun times I must say. Even if I did get somewhat sunburned. :D
Today should be fun too as the Kathleen will be appearing eventually so we can go galavanting about the countryside (aka possibly out to Franklin Mills mall just to be random).
That brings me to this .
To set the backstory:
Over the last several weeks I've been running my water samples through the dionex (ion chromotographer) which basically analyzes the ions in a sample and breaks out by mass how much of each you have. Such that a water sample that has a high conductivity might come out to have 100 mg/l chloride, .02 mg/l fluoride, 0.2 mg/l nitrates and so forth.
The machine of course is new and since I didn't know how to run it I had G help me run them. Only after 4 runs do I now think I'm confident enough to run them (well if it weren't for his presence. I swear he is the most unsettling man I've ever encountered). On serveral of these occasions G asked me if I would give him the data - he seemed interested in the first round as we have high calcium. High enough to think that the reported bedrock might be fishy.
At first I was like alright, but decided to hold out until all of the samples were through. I didn't want to be bothered with emailing it again. I was under the assumption that he only wanted the raw data. Which is cool. I have no problem with this. However, knowing that I wanted to minimize the amount of work involved in getting him this stuff I asked him right then and there what format he wanted it in. He sort of laughed it off - in his characteristic way and made some non committal comment. This is typical and I took it to mean just get it to me and don't worry about particulars.
Apparently that wasn't the correct interpretation. Last week I did email him the data - after having to clean up the file due to the myriad of charts and calculations I've already started with it. He then emailed me back telling me to put all the data in 1 worksheet, ditch the standards, add the anc data and start looking for correlations between things. This can be taken several ways:
1. He's really picky/ changed his mind on specifics and is too lazy to bother formating the data as he wants it - and was just asking a simple questions about the ANCs.
This annoys me as I asked him this already and was trying to avoid this. But, it would be a typical professor thing to assume the student can just read their minds and it is a typical thing of these people.
Anoying but livable
2. He's trying to be helpful by suggesting how I can start processing the data. He might be under the assumption that I just typed it up and haven't looked at it. I suspect this has a lot to do with my usual aura of lack of confidence and who my advisor is. G doesn't really want to see me fail at life and so in his own special way is trying to help.
This is endearing but infuriating at the same time. I did start analyzing the data. I didn't give him those files as I was under the assumption that he wanted the raw data. Why would I send him the mess? I suppose I should be greatful for the suggestion but this view could come off as a slap in the face of "oh, she's a dumb student so I should be nice to her". I highly suspect this was not the intention but that was my first reaction and so has left me pissed off. I mean who would do that? Especially as I am not his student so the good advice almost comes across as directives. (gnashes teeth angrily)
Again, probably not the intent but that's how it comes across. Which means I need to react by explaining how I do have some analyses started, thank you very much.
3. He's not only lazy and want's the extra data his expectation is that I will do extra analyses that will aid him in whatever he wants the data for. Similar to position 1 and 2 only with a self serving purpose as uposed to trying to help me out. This was basically my second thought on this and aided in me being pissed off. I said I would give him the data not that I would analyze it for him specifically nor work on some project of his even if it will help me in the long run. That's not the point. I could have very easily not given him the data but I'm a nice person.
This would be the worst of the views and would leave me very angry and have less respect for him. That and the response would be more difficult. Accept this and take it? vs blatant objection with possible consequences? vs more tactful dancing via email. Aka way more work that the whole deal is worth.
I suspect that 1 or 2 or some combination is the actual motivation. IT would be like G to want the data specific and not tell me first as well as try to be helpful by not understanding that the data I sent him is only the raw data no analysis as that's what he initially asked for.
Still though, it annoys me that regardless of the motivation such a simple process is now more complicated then it needs to be.
Professors make me twitchy...
Then, yesterday I went with the parents and beth to the PA Renaissance faire. Fun times I must say. Even if I did get somewhat sunburned. :D
Today should be fun too as the Kathleen will be appearing eventually so we can go galavanting about the countryside (aka possibly out to Franklin Mills mall just to be random).
That brings me to this .
To set the backstory:
Over the last several weeks I've been running my water samples through the dionex (ion chromotographer) which basically analyzes the ions in a sample and breaks out by mass how much of each you have. Such that a water sample that has a high conductivity might come out to have 100 mg/l chloride, .02 mg/l fluoride, 0.2 mg/l nitrates and so forth.
The machine of course is new and since I didn't know how to run it I had G help me run them. Only after 4 runs do I now think I'm confident enough to run them (well if it weren't for his presence. I swear he is the most unsettling man I've ever encountered). On serveral of these occasions G asked me if I would give him the data - he seemed interested in the first round as we have high calcium. High enough to think that the reported bedrock might be fishy.
At first I was like alright, but decided to hold out until all of the samples were through. I didn't want to be bothered with emailing it again. I was under the assumption that he only wanted the raw data. Which is cool. I have no problem with this. However, knowing that I wanted to minimize the amount of work involved in getting him this stuff I asked him right then and there what format he wanted it in. He sort of laughed it off - in his characteristic way and made some non committal comment. This is typical and I took it to mean just get it to me and don't worry about particulars.
Apparently that wasn't the correct interpretation. Last week I did email him the data - after having to clean up the file due to the myriad of charts and calculations I've already started with it. He then emailed me back telling me to put all the data in 1 worksheet, ditch the standards, add the anc data and start looking for correlations between things. This can be taken several ways:
1. He's really picky/ changed his mind on specifics and is too lazy to bother formating the data as he wants it - and was just asking a simple questions about the ANCs.
This annoys me as I asked him this already and was trying to avoid this. But, it would be a typical professor thing to assume the student can just read their minds and it is a typical thing of these people.
Anoying but livable
2. He's trying to be helpful by suggesting how I can start processing the data. He might be under the assumption that I just typed it up and haven't looked at it. I suspect this has a lot to do with my usual aura of lack of confidence and who my advisor is. G doesn't really want to see me fail at life and so in his own special way is trying to help.
This is endearing but infuriating at the same time. I did start analyzing the data. I didn't give him those files as I was under the assumption that he wanted the raw data. Why would I send him the mess? I suppose I should be greatful for the suggestion but this view could come off as a slap in the face of "oh, she's a dumb student so I should be nice to her". I highly suspect this was not the intention but that was my first reaction and so has left me pissed off. I mean who would do that? Especially as I am not his student so the good advice almost comes across as directives. (gnashes teeth angrily)
Again, probably not the intent but that's how it comes across. Which means I need to react by explaining how I do have some analyses started, thank you very much.
3. He's not only lazy and want's the extra data his expectation is that I will do extra analyses that will aid him in whatever he wants the data for. Similar to position 1 and 2 only with a self serving purpose as uposed to trying to help me out. This was basically my second thought on this and aided in me being pissed off. I said I would give him the data not that I would analyze it for him specifically nor work on some project of his even if it will help me in the long run. That's not the point. I could have very easily not given him the data but I'm a nice person.
This would be the worst of the views and would leave me very angry and have less respect for him. That and the response would be more difficult. Accept this and take it? vs blatant objection with possible consequences? vs more tactful dancing via email. Aka way more work that the whole deal is worth.
I suspect that 1 or 2 or some combination is the actual motivation. IT would be like G to want the data specific and not tell me first as well as try to be helpful by not understanding that the data I sent him is only the raw data no analysis as that's what he initially asked for.
Still though, it annoys me that regardless of the motivation such a simple process is now more complicated then it needs to be.
Professors make me twitchy...