The Official "WWWD?" Thread

[DukieInKansas]

Should we start sending BM information from the St. Louis visitor's bureau and Chamber of Commerce? Perhaps we can convince her she would like to change jobs and move to your old lab. Sounds like it would be a match made in heaven.

[ArkieDukie]

Should we start sending BM information from the St. Louis visitor's bureau and Chamber of Commerce? Perhaps we can convince her she would like to change jobs and move to your old lab. Sounds like it would be a match made in heaven.

actually, I wouldn't wish BM on my former coworkers - only NuBarbie is bad. Everyone else is great. I think she's an ideal fit for PPI's lab. We would then get the celebrity death match between BM and Minion.

[DukieInKansas]

Should we start sending BM information from the St. Louis visitor's bureau and Chamber of Commerce? Perhaps we can convince her she would like to change jobs and move to your old lab. Sounds like it would be a match made in heaven.

actually, I wouldn't wish BM on my former coworkers - only NuBarbie is bad. Everyone else is great. I think she's an ideal fit for PPI's lab. We would then get the celebrity death match between BM and Minion.

Let me know when the tickets go on sale for that - I want front row seats.

[lawgrad91]

Should we start sending BM information from the St. Louis visitor's bureau and Chamber of Commerce? Perhaps we can convince her she would like to change jobs and move to your old lab. Sounds like it would be a match made in heaven.

actually, I wouldn't wish BM on my former coworkers - only NuBarbie is bad. Everyone else is great. I think she's an ideal fit for PPI's lab. We would then get the celebrity death match between BM and Minion.

Let me know when the tickets go on sale for that - I want front row seats.

I want a seat next to DinK!

[ArkieDukie]

Things are about to get majorly interesting. Okay, you know how BM was key in HGS' departure from my colleague's lab? Well, I had a surprise visit in my office today from my colleague's other grad student. I'll call her Brilliant Grad Student (BGS). BGS came into my office to vent because she's fed up with BM. Apparently, since BM managed to run off HGS, she has moved onto picking on BGS. It's the exact same game that was played with HGS - right down to trying to take credit for things that BGS's work. Problem is, biyotch seriously underestimated the target. BGS is onto BM's dishonest, manipulative ass and has been for a while. BGS has quite the paper trail to back her claims of unacceptable behavior from BM. BGS has finally had it up to her eyeballs and scheduled an appointment for late this afternoon with my colleague. She's issuing a bit of an ultimatum: either my colleague does something about BM, or BGS switches research groups. Trust me, my colleague does NOT want this to happen; grad students like BGS do NOT come around every day.

BGS also requested that I talk to her boss and tell her of my issues with BM. This would give N=3 for people having complaints against BM, and BGS is concerned that it will be another case of her boss siding with BM. As much as I want to avoid it like the plague, I think I may need to have a chat with my colleague. Should I tell my colleague that I'm chatting with her on BGS' behalf, or should I leave her out of the mix? I think my best bet is to say, "I wanted to stay out of this, but BGS asked me to say something." Based on previous conversations that I've had with my colleague, I suspect she knows that BM is a problem. I'm just not sure she realizes how big the problem is. Any thoughts/advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

Man, I sure manage to get myself into some interesting situations...

[windsor]

BGS also requested that I talk to her boss and tell her of my issues with BM. This would give N=3 for people having complaints against BM, and BGS is concerned that it will be another case of her boss siding with BM. As much as I want to avoid it like the plague, I think I may need to have a chat with my colleague. Should I tell my colleague that I'm chatting with her on BGS' behalf, or should I leave her out of the mix? I think my best bet is to say, "I wanted to stay out of this, but BGS asked me to say something." Based on previous conversations that I've had with my colleague, I suspect she knows that BM is a problem. I'm just not sure she realizes how big the problem is. Any thoughts/advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

Man, I sure manage to get myself into some interesting situations...

I would say that BGS had come to you with her issues. Let Colleague know that normally you would stay out of it, but since you have observed/experienced similar behavior you felt the need to speak up on BGS's behalf and express your own concerns about BM. Express your concerns, with specifics. Done.

[ArkieDukie]

I had a second visit from BGS today. I will be chatting with my colleague this afternoon. Vibes, please.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I had a second visit from BGS today. I will be chatting with my colleague this afternoon. Vibes, please.

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You gotta stand up for the good ones!

[Lavabe]

I had a second visit from BGS today. I will be chatting with my colleague this afternoon. Vibes, please.

[ArkieDukie]

BTW, I told BGS about "Who's the asshole." BM has resorted to baiting BGS and then running to tattle. Hopefully our favorite strategy will help.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

BTW, I told BGS about "Who's the asshole." BM has resorted to baiting BGS and then running to tattle. Hopefully our favorite strategy will help.

At some point, you could tell her about CTN and BGS could get her advice first hand... She might even become a Duke fan1

[windsor]

BTW, I told BGS about "Who's the asshole." BM has resorted to baiting BGS and then running to tattle. Hopefully our favorite strategy will help.

At some point, you could tell her about CTN and BGS could get her advice first hand... She might even become a Duke fan1

Who's the Asshole has rarely, if ever, failed me.



That all goes well. Also, when faced with bait...whenever possible laugh. Act as though you aren't taking the 'baiter' seriously. It makes their freakin' heads explode!

[ArkieDukie]

Spoke with my colleague this afternoon. I was calm and tried to be as objective as possible - even gave BM the benefit of the doubt in a couple of the stories that I relayed. I did tell my colleague that I think BM is insecure and tries to make herself look better at others' expense. I also told her of my suspicion that BM is intentionally baiting people and then getting them in trouble - a game that worked all too well with HGS. My colleague is in a very difficult spot, and I think she's trying to come up with a way to make things work and is open to any suggestions I might have. I would NOT want to be in her shoes. BM is a bit older than I originally thought (almost my age!), so that dog is a bit old to be taught any new tricks. Personally, I think my colleague needs to get BM the heck out of her lab, but I didn't tell her that. After all, it's extremely difficult to get high quality people to move here. (Not that I would categorize BM as a high quality person.)

I also mentioned our joint project and the fact that I don't really feel comfortable offering suggestions any more because of BM's behavior. Bold person that I am, I also felt that the collaboration was a bit of a one-way street in which I never heard anything at all. She has resolved to fix that. BM is definitely going to be first author on the paper. My colleague asked me to send her a list of my contributions to the project to date, and I did that almost as soon as she left. She says she'll need the list in the event that HGS causes trouble over the paper. I did not push for shared first authorship, but I suspect it might happen - especially since I stressed that I REALLY want to find a way to get my proposed analytical method to work. My colleague wants that as well, and she agreed with me that BM, for whatever reason, does not seem to want it to work. Chalk one up for me.

BGS came to speak with me again later in the afternoon. Unfortunately, she believes that her boss is siding with BM. I tried to reassure her because I really don't think that's the case. It appears that BGS is starting to fray around the edges a bit from dealing with BM. I reiterated "who's the asshole" and told her that she needed to do her best to prevent BM from getting under her skin - that's what BM wants, and getting angry makes her win. The last advice I gave BGS today was to laugh it all off as best she can, and take up a sport like racquetball. She laughed and suggested kickboxing.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

She has a sense of humor! Very good! And she realizes she has an advocate in you. Also very good!

[TillyGalore]

We need a list of what all the abbreviations stand for. This thread is beginning to read like a military report.

[ArkieDukie]

We need a list of what all the abbreviations stand for. This thread is beginning to read like a military report.

LOL! Sorry about that! BM = BarMinion, BGS = Brilliant Grad Student, HGS = Helpless Grad Student

[ArkieDukie]

I'm bumping the thread back to the top in order to tell a story and get input.

I have a new colleague who is an assistant professor, so he's above me on the totem pole. He's very much like a male version of BarMinion, except he's not really a minion if one considers rank (BM is a senior scientist but with a lower rank than me). I'll call him BarMinY for now, until we come up with a better handle. Now, BarMinY (BMY) was hired after me, but his hire was in the works far before mine. You see, BMY worked with The Boss at his former job and was a close collaborator. So, he's The Boss's protege of sorts, and The Boss seems to think this guy is the cat's meow. Here's where things get tricky: BMY's area of "expertise" (and I use the term loosely) is very, very close to mine. If BMY is not a complete and total idiot, you can see it from where he's at. Problem is, the only people that recognize this fact are myself and the two colleagues with whom I work the most closely (one of them being BarMinion's boss). He's one of those people that use just enough techno speak to make those outside the field think he's a genius, but he's really just throwing completely unrelated terms into the same sentence and speaking complete gibberish. In addition, if you actually understand his work, he rivals The Minion in terms of the scientific validity of his experimental design and analysis. So, problem is, The Boss talks this guy up to everyone and refers to him as a world expert because he believes this himself. The Boss is even getting people to collaborate with this bozo who would've otherwise been working with me. Fine; there's plenty of work to go around. My two friends and I are distancing ourselves from his work as much as possible and are keeping our mouths shut outside our circle of 3 regarding BMY's incompetence. (As an aside, I think that BarMinion and BMY are the perfect match in terms of working relationship due to similar scientific philosophies, and I'd dance a jig if BM switched to BMY's lab.)

We've been having problems with one of our analytical methods, mainly because of an instrument that was purchased at BarMinY's recommendation. It was purchased without doing any sort of instrument demo (the equivalent of test-driving a car). Even better, we purchased the newest model of the instrument right when it came out. There are some pretty serious design flaws in the instrument that make it not work well for the type of analysis that The Boss wants to use it for. We had on-site training this week and, despite the fact that BarMinY knew about it, he didn't show up once. (I'll also point out here that he cancelled on-site training for the instruments he has purchased because "he already knows how to run them," even though he's never operated the instruments he's purchasing. Can't wait to see how that works out for him.) The applications specialist worked with us on this method and confirmed what I had found. Now, other reason we're having trouble is that the person I've been working with on our method (I'll call him Dug, after the dog on Up, because he has trouble staying on track) has some nutty ideas and basically won't listen to me. If you guessed that Dug moved here with The Boss and worked with BarMinY before, move to the head of the class.

At group meeting today, the Boss asked BarMinY to work with Dug on the method I've been helping him with. It really ticked me off at first, and then I decided that I should keep myself in the discussion rather than just roll over and die, so to speak. After all, BMY has no clue what has been done up to this point, and he knows absolutely nothing about the instrument that he stuck us with since he didn't demo the darn thing and he skipped out on the onsite training (**cough**dumbass**cough**). Now, here's where things get fun. When I decided to put myself back into the method discussion rather than bowing out completely, Dug and BMY were going through the experiments that had been done to date. BMY started saying that we were doing the experiment incorrectly and that we should do things a different way. Funny thing is, he was suggesting that we do something that I had already shown wouldn't work at all. When I tried to say this, the asshat interrupted me and started telling me how I should've done it. I cut him off again and told him to let me finish, and then explained what I had done. I also told him that we had worked on this exact method with the applications specialist that was visiting this week, and that we had verified my findings. (Implicit in the discussion: he would've known all of this if he had bothered to show up at training. Dumbass.) I basically squashed BMY like a bug. As an added bonus, by the time our planning session was over, I was in the driver's seat. Now, BMY did have input, I was always careful to ask his opinion, and I was also very sure to say so when he raised a good point.

At some point during our discussion, The Boss showed up and joined in (he returned from a meeting with The Dean). When The Boss asked what was going on, BMY reported on things like he was large and in charge. Funny thing is, IMO, he made himself look like more of an idiot. Now, unbeknownst to BMY, I gained street cred with The Boss this week because one of my papers from my former job went live on PubMed on Monday. I'm way down in the "et al" portion of the list of coauthors, but contribution to the paper is exactly what we're trying to do - in fact, my work produced a very nice figure in the paper. So, when I said "Here's the problem" and based my statement on the work in the paper, he actually listened to me. Everything I've been trying to get Dug to do for the past 2 months is back on the table and is in an experiment that he's performing this weekend. In all fairness to Dug, I will say that The Boss also wouldn't really listen to my suggestions until today, and he was controlling what happened. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that we get solid results so that the project will finally move forward.

Up to this point, the only problems I've had with the new job have been related to the perceived expertise of BarMinY. Dug and another colleague, who I'll call Crush (a Finding Nemo character) always defer to BarMinY since they've learned what they know about instrumentation from him. I think the tide is starting to turn, thanks to the aforementioned colleagues who are extremely competent. One in particular is a hard-core instrumentalist, and Dug and Crush seem to respect his opinion. Since we're usually in agreement, that helps me.

Now, what's the best way to navigate this situation? Up to this point, BMY acts as though he has very little respect for me. (My sister would say "demand it," and I think I did that today.) I'm trying to keep my head down, do my job, and let my results speak for themselves. I want to win people over based upon the quality of my work, and I think this is working to some extent with the people that matter. I would consider BMY to be someone who does not matter, while The Boss does matter. My concern is that there will come a time when other colleagues (who have been encouraged to work with BMY) are going to figure out that BMY isn't as much of an expert as he thinks he is. I think that the time is very quickly coming where The Boss, in particular, is going to figure this out - especially when he sees the results of some work I've been doing over the past couple of months on a couple of other projects. My concern is that The Boss is going to ask me to bail BMY out in terms of data analysis, and his experiments would be challenging at best to rescue. My instrumentation wizard colleague has a similar fear. I may be borrowing trouble here, but how would the rest of you handle being asked by The Boss to bail out an incompetent colleague without allowing said person's incompetence to damage your own professional reputation?

[Ima Facultiwyfe]

Windsor! You're up!
Love, Ima

[ArkieDukie]

One other comment . When The Boss was involved in the discussion, he expressed his displeasure in having purchased an instrument that will not do the analysis he wants it to do. BarMinY immediately jumped in and said that HE wanted to purchase instrument Y but I had vetoed it. He then went on to say that everyone he talked to used Instrument Y for our analysis of interest. First off, I objected because my former lab has the instrument he wanted to buy, and they hate it. Secondly, I also vetoed because instrument Y is a straight-up exact duplicate of the existing sucky instrument that he pushed to purchase, but from a different vendor. Thirdly, I believe that he flat out lied about talking to anyone. Aside from that, a quick survey of the literature will reveal that he's a blow hard. I have 2 publications with a different instrument, and I think it's the one that most people use. He's simply sowing seeds to be used in arguments for subsequent instrument purchases. That goes both ways: I now know how to counter his anecdotal statement. All I have to do is search PubMed and provide a list of publications doing our assay and provide a list of instruments used.

Stupidly, I rose to the bait and disagreed with his statement. The Boss quickly cut things off when BarMinY interrupted me to argue my points, getting things back on track. I did not handle it well at all. I really need to work on that. No need for me to be defensive. In hindsight, he was probably deflecting negative attention to me, since his instrument choice hasn't worked out so well. I should've kept my mouth shut or simply made the same point that The Boss made, which is that we're stuck with this instrument and we need to make it work.

[ArkieDukie]

Results of experiment came in, and they showed that the existing method will work for what we want it to do. Ready to move forward, right? Wrong. Dug stopped by my office to tell me that he and BarMinY are changing the method completely. The part they're changing? The part of the method that was included in the first place at The Boss's request. In fact, I spent several days getting it to work. The Boss said specifically that he wanted this method finished on Friday, and BarMinY's idea for changing things could take several days of work. If I know The Boss as I think I do, he will be majorly ticked that Dug has gone off on a tangent yet again.

So, what do I do? Do I say anything at all to The Boss or do I stay the heck out of it?