Undergrad researchers

[Melalvai]

Need to vent a bit and I'm ever so thankful TE is here for me right now.

I'm moving at the end of May. (yay!) I accepted an internal award that goes through December. Since it is internal it can't go with me. We're going to transfer it to another investigator so the project can continue.

I'm afraid now that was a mistake. The other professor is a clinical guy and is "in name only". I'll still be running the project, but my name won't be on the grant. (I'll get the papers & preliminary data, if any.)

I'm training 4 undergrads to replace me. I'm looking for a technician to coordinate them and be in charge. I'd given up on the tech, when yesterday I finally got someone who is much more than a tech and more than capable to run this. She's helping me out because she feels like she is returning a favor.

The problem is the undergrads. Of the four, #1 and #3 aren't getting along. I've had #1 for over a year, but he's not a nice person. #3 is whiny and thin-skinned. Drama has ensued because #1 accidentally sent #3 a text intended for his cousin who has the same name. #3 went ballistic and is attacking #1. I don't know the details of the text, if she knows it was a mistake, etc.

They've both done several things to annoy me, but #3 much more so. For example she made a serious mistake in the lab. That in itself isn't a problem but she's blamed it on everyone else, including me. She said I hadn't ever explained the project to her. I said I had--and it nearly dissolved into a "yes I did" "no you didn't" argument.

I would never speak to a supervisor that way. Nor would I talk for two minutes straight while my supervisor was trying to interrupt me. Or blame my supervisor for not telling me how to fill out a time-sheet to the 3rd party who had just trained me on filling out a time-sheet.

#1's problem is he says loudly and frequently what he thinks I should do. That complicates that particular option, because it puts me in the position where if I do that it seems like I'm going along with what he said. He makes fun of people way too much, and it isn't just teasing. It is mean-spirited.

[edit--I meant #2] #2 is very kind but flaky and unreliable. I can't count on him to do anything. He's also been with me for over a year (the unreliability has been getting worse, it wasn't so bad at first), so he is well trained and I'm reluctant to lose him. He's leaving at the end of July anyway.

#4 is fantastic. Reliable and mature. He's older than the others and has a wife and baby on the way. He's in the army and has been in Iraq a couple times. He'll be gone for a month over the summer for officer training. He's new, so relatively untrained, but picks up stuff quickly.

So, I've made my decision, I'll fire #3 and scold #1. And tell myself over and over, that if the project crashes & burns I've only wasted my dept's money and the students' time. There will be other opportunities for me to get the data.

And if this fails, it's not a personal failure, it's a failure because I attempted the impossible. So I won't take a self-esteem hit from it.