Despite the fact that I have a Ph.D., I never really "solved" my thesis problem (I made a lot of useful, expressible, and self-contained progress, but never carried the problem to its logical conclusion)

so now my former adviser is on my case to finish it, despite the fact that I'm on a postdoc in mathematical biology and no longer give a shit about this pure math problem. so I spent like 2 months of sustained effort trying to solve this goddamned math problem, which like 3 people in the world care about (myself not included.)

there are practical reasons for finishing it (we'd two nice papers out of it) but I could probably publish my current progress as a paper (I basically derive an approximation, which somebody else could then analyze).

anyway, it's now May, and I'm drawing the line. not working on this goddamned thing anymore. if my former adviser doesn't like it, tough shit. I've done all for him that honor requires. done. still, I hate to think I've wasted so much valuable time (seriously, hundreds of hours from last August until now) on this shit.

5/1/2015 2:09:24 PM

Tell him to go fuck himself.

5/1/2015 9:09:38 PM

in effect, that's what I'm planning to do. but it's good to have that encouragement.

5/2/2015 1:03:28 AM

Many professors are slave drivers. Post docs are cheap, highly skilled laborers who would do just about anything for that first authorship. At least that's the case in the biological sciences.

5/2/2015 4:23:40 PM

^ yeah, that's largely what I've heard too..often postdocs are worked even harder and more mercilessly than grad students. I'm lucky in having a fellowship, so I don't have to answer to any particular professor. I just need to grow some balls and tell my former boss that he's no longer my boss and I no longer owe him anything.

5/2/2015 11:15:18 PM

Two points.

I am still at the consulting gig and creating a devastating blip in their system by slamming the other side with a high volume of responsive discovery due to a document process I created.

The boss's personal assistant looked at my dick on Thursday and told me to wear jeans on Friday.

Why do women look at dicks? I was told they aren't visual.

I am being harassed.

5/3/2015 12:03:56 AM

The passive aggression is strong here right now. I have no time for this bullshit at 6:00 in the evening.

5/4/2015 6:07:42 PM

Quote :

"The boss's personal assistant looked at my dick on Thursday and told me to wear jeans on Friday. "

Maybe you should stop wearing skinny fit slacks, and then your junk won't be on display. Either that or cool it with the work boners.

My current annoyance: now that the weather is legitimately warm it always takes the building A/C several days to catch up and reach equilibrium again.

5/5/2015 1:52:54 AM

If I send you an e-mail about an issue that directly affects you, I expect a reply within 24 hours. It shouldn't take a coworker this long to send back a yes or no, but if I move forward without your input, I bet you'll be upset.

5/5/2015 11:40:21 AM

make sure that you include a deadline in the email in those situations

5/5/2015 11:43:34 AM

does anyone else deal with petty clock-watching BS?

It doesn't matter how many times I stay an extra hour, hour and a half, or two hours after we close...if I come in 10 minutes late, I get the petty comments and shaming.

I used to come in early or right on time and leave at closing time without staying late, and they would make the same petty comments if I stayed 5 or 10 minutes late, like "OMG what are you still doing here after 5:30???"

So the consensus from all of the petty comments is they want me to come in early or on time, and stay late without having to pay me overtime. Yeah, not happening.

5/5/2015 12:19:31 PM

^ this is kinda relevant to something I posted on FB earlier related to this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/upshot/how-some-men-fake-an-80-hour-workweek-and-why-it-matters.html

I often hear people brag about how many hours they work in a week-- like it's a badge of honor. Especially in salaried, corporate jobs. I used to be like that, too. I don't know how many hours I work. It's irrelevant. What's important is getting results.

The people in the article who found a way to achieve results AND balance family time by working fewer hours aren't "passing" as high performance employees-- they ARE high performance employees-- certainly moreso than the 80 hour-a-week guy who spends more time to achieve the same/comparable results.

The last paragraph is key.

"In other words, maybe the real problem isn’t men faking greater devotion to their jobs. Maybe it’s that too many companies reward the wrong things, favoring the illusion of extraordinary effort over actual productivity."

5/5/2015 3:17:55 PM

Quote :

"I often hear people brag about how many hours they work in a week-- like it's a badge of honor. Especially in salaried, corporate jobs. I used to be like that, too. I don't know how many hours I work. It's irrelevant. What's important is getting results. "

Makes a lot of sense. Most people I know who work 70-80 hour weeks never talk about how many hours they work. They are however getting results. They're expected to continue working until the results are better so I've never seen any of them work less than said hours especially when on a client site. A couple specialists with a consulting firm we're partnered with literally work 9am to probably 1am every day they're on a client site to get a deliverable out. I do it occasionally but no matter how many hours we work it's not something anyone ever talks about. You talk about the results.

In fact if you're on salary the more you work the less you're making per hour so why would you talk about it?

Now when I'm home sure I try and keep it under 50 hours a week.

[Edited on May 5, 2015 at 3:33 PM. Reason : per hour]

5/5/2015 3:32:21 PM

I had to have someone from work remote access my personal computer today. It's always a little anxiety-inducing when a stranger is scrolling through your downloads folder and you hope nothing incriminating is in there. I thought I was in the clear when he was almost done, but then he switched over to my Windows dashboard and my Gmail widget was displaying an email from Adam & Eve. Of all the advertising emails I get in a day, that had to be the last one I received. Of course.

5/5/2015 7:18:04 PM

Quote :

""In other words, maybe the real problem isn’t men faking greater devotion to their jobs. Maybe it’s that too many companies reward the wrong things, favoring the illusion of extraordinary effort over actual productivity.""

This so much. If I can get everything done in 35 hours or less that it takes someone else 55 hours to do, wouldn't management want to encourage that?

But no, it's "if you're having this much success at 35 hours, just imagine what you'd be doing at 45 hours!"

No really, the benefit of an extra 10 hours of work doesn't pay off in terms of costs to me. Instead, it's an extra bit of time spent dicking around on the internet, and staring out the window wishing I were outside playing with my daughter.

5/5/2015 9:01:59 PM

^ you would think a company would want to encourage efficiency, i.e., getting a job done in 35 hours vs 55.

And in some ways, efficiency is always wanted. There are situations however, where I feel the company just wants a body in a chair doing work. Government contracting, for example. As long as there is a body in a chair doing work, the contractor gets to charge for it. In that way, 55 hours is much better.

5/5/2015 9:34:45 PM

yeah, in the billable hours model, the hours are a result in and of itself, as every hour billed is an hour of revenue. That said, there are typically checks and balances to avoid gratuitous padding of hours on a given project, but in many sectors (*cough* government *cough*), every consulting project runs over allotted hours for one reason or another.


But in regular old salaried compensation models, productivity is way too often still measured in how much time someone spent on something. Part of why i've stayed with the same company for so long is that we don't play that game. I have 16 hour days, I have 4 hour days, and all kinds of shit in between. As long as i get the job done on time, my management is happy.

5/6/2015 3:17:54 PM

Quote :

"But in regular old salaried compensation models, productivity is way too often still measured in how much time someone spent on something. Part of why i've stayed with the same company for so long is that we don't play that game. I have 16 hour days, I have 4 hour days, and all kinds of shit in between. As long as i get the job done on time, my management is happy."

That's partly what's frustrating. I'm salaried, so I know they don't care if I work over. But ALL the work we do, unlike most law firms, is on a contingency basis. So, there is no client to charge, no billable hours to track, no benefit of making it look like we're burning the candle at both ends.

Maximize efficiency and don't waste hours we don't get paid for!

5/6/2015 3:47:03 PM

I had a client rep one time that would just try to make me look bad for no reason

one time he sent me an email at 2 pm on a Sunday and then sent my boss an email complaining when I hadn't replied at 7 pm

the real kicker was when his customer asked for 20 cases of product, then when I sent the truck out, it had 45 cases on it (other 25 were headed for storage), anyway, the client said he wanted them all, and would pay for them, so said rep got pissed and said they wouldn't pay it (even though he had been paid by his customer for all 45) just because it wasn't his idea. when I told his boss about it, he got yelled at for being an idiot

so then a few weeks later, he found out I was listed as a speaker at a convention, so he moved a meeting with a new customer to that date, and told me I WOULD be there. I called the customer directly and explained that I couldn't be there and got the meeting rescheduled. So then said client rep calls the customer and gets the meeting moved back to that date, saying "I talked to Scott, and got everything worked out." long story short they had the meeting without me and he pretty much bad mouthed me saying I told him I would be there. and he didn't know why I didn't show up. he pretty much did the meeting without a lot of the technical stuff that I would usually bring, and made a fool of himself, basically trying to blame me for everything he didn't know.

long story short, the customer called me the next day and asked if they could buy direct, without going through him. I said sure, but they had to pick up over the state line, since his company had distributorship rights in that state, he said no problem, the line is 10 mins from our office. when the distributorship agreement expired, they became our distributor in the area.

of course mr rep was pissed, and called me got mad when I didn't even contact him to renew the agreement. so he said he needed to meet with me to talk about it, he set up a date with me on the phone, and actually brought in 3 or 4 higher ups in a hotel and rented the conference room. I just didn't show up. he left his company a few weeks later.

he actually applied for another job with another of our customers in another state, but after I told them about him, he didn't get the job. never heard from him again

yeah, im an asshole

5/6/2015 9:34:05 PM

Our time tracking system fucking sucks (basically a program someone not very skilled with computers created in Access) and I really want to find us an easy-to-use alternative. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives, preferably not too costly?

We're suppose to open up the file to "clock in" once we get in the office, then immediately close it the program out in case someone needs to make corrections/fixes, but I forget more than half the time (as does everyone else, especially when clocking in and out around lunch) and we constantly get emails asking us to remember to close the program out. It seems like there is an issue or bug fix every week, and it's just fucking annoying.

5/13/2015 9:48:33 AM

Toggl was a great personal time-tracker when I needed it.
https://new.toggl.com/

5/13/2015 10:20:16 AM

Damn this bitch is dumb. how do you justify your 6 -figures?

5/13/2015 5:32:08 PM

^^^ my previous job did something similar, except we had to report time in a HR/billing portal (which was relatively easy to use) and then input that shit into an excel spreadsheet so the project manager could keep track of time, or worse the manager would put that shit in for you and cheat you on lunch/break time. Best of luck!




I'm finding out how big of a believer I am in required, paid maternity leave (probably should be there for the dad too, and should begin sometime early in the 3rd trimester.) Not so much for the kid or mothers sake, but for everyone that has to work with them.

5/13/2015 5:46:44 PM

SLURRRRRP
*gulp*
Ahhhhhh
Repeat as necessary.

Loudest coffee drinker ever.

5/21/2015 9:21:24 AM

Quote :

"of course mr rep was pissed, and called me got mad when I didn't even contact him to renew the agreement. so he said he needed to meet with me to talk about it, he set up a date with me on the phone, and actually brought in 3 or 4 higher ups in a hotel and rented the conference room. I just didn't show up. he left his company a few weeks later."

How do people like this maintain employment while continuing the behavior?! I deal with several people that do very similar shit, and then some, on a regular basis and they are in no danger of being let go. I was just under the impression that it was the shit management here...and it doesn't help that the owners are some of the fuckers that present the behavior. As an aside, I honestly believe they could put management into the hands of a few of our lowest, and lowest paid, employees and see a dramatic increase in profit and efficiency. I can't imagine what'd happen if someone remotely qualified were involved.

The gripe I actually came to post, which I've probably posted before, is about my shitty management. Two in particular. One is passive aggressive as fuck and the other one, even though he's no idiot in general, is completely incompetant at management. He's constantly making the most idiotic decisions. If you bring up alternatives or just come up with random ideas in general that would greatly improve performance they alway finds a way to shoot it down while giving you attitude like you've somehow deeply offended them. Of course, when they magically come up with the same idea months later, it's the greatest idea ever and they're geniuses for it.

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 10:14 AM. Reason : qualified]

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 10:15 AM. Reason : I hate phone typing]

5/21/2015 10:12:49 AM

Quote :

"I'm finding out how big of a believer I am in required, paid maternity leave (probably should be there for the dad too, and should begin sometime early in the 3rd trimester.) Not so much for the kid or mothers sake, but for everyone that has to work with them. "

my employer just announced paid parental leave for dads as well (4 weeks paid). they even grandfathered in anyone who had a baby or adopted a child after june 1 2014, so BobbyDigital gonna get the month of july off!

I'd like to thank my dick for making this possible.

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 11:38 AM. Reason : .]

5/21/2015 11:37:41 AM

Quote :

"If you bring up alternatives or just come up with random ideas in general that would greatly improve performance they alway finds a way to shoot it down while giving you attitude like you've somehow deeply offended them. Of course, when they magically come up with the same idea months later, it's the greatest idea ever and they're geniuses for it."

Management 101. Belittle and ridicule others' ideas publicly, then present them as your own later and take all the credit.

5/21/2015 12:04:53 PM

^ haha

The problem with that, in this case (and I'm sure plenty of others), is it does nothing but engender an office space situation with literally every other employee does the bare minimum and plenty of those don't even do it properly. No one's getting fired for incompetence and you get shit on for everything, so fuck it. lol

5/21/2015 12:23:19 PM

Quote :

""I'm finding out how big of a believer I am in required, paid maternity leave (probably should be there for the dad too, and should begin sometime early in the 3rd trimester.) Not so much for the kid or mothers sake, but for everyone that has to work with them."

I'm all for paid maternity leave. And once I come back from this maternity leave, I will advocate that to my management for those after me. However, why should it begin early in the 3rd trimester? I start my third trimester tomorrow. I'd rather have 12 weeks off post-baby than 12 weeks off before. And my employer still expects me to bring in $1.12 mil in settlements before I go out. I've never had a problem dealing with coworkers in their last few weeks before delivery.

5/21/2015 12:33:24 PM

Going to work

5/21/2015 12:58:55 PM

my little girl hit her front tooth and I had to make her a dentist appt asap yesterday. the only appointment i could get this week was today during work, but I had my year end review with my supervisor. I emailed her to ask if we could reschedule as this was an urgent situation, and she refused. I feel like a father taking time off for paternal duties is frowned upon at my job ugh.

5/21/2015 2:12:42 PM

^ fuck that supervisor. she's an example of terrible fucking leadership. I'd never do that to one of my directs, and i'd immediately make it a point to undermine my boss as long as I reported to him/her if they did that to me.

thankfully, i've had a long streak of really really good managers

5/21/2015 2:34:25 PM

^ Agreed. It's not like you just decided you were in the fucking mood to take your daughter to the dentist because it felt like a cool thing to do. Emergencies happen. Fuck that cunt.

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 2:39 PM. Reason : ]

5/21/2015 2:39:32 PM

I don't understand these personality types...like where do they get it from? what are they overcompensating?

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 3:08 PM. Reason : .]

5/21/2015 3:07:59 PM

and it's definitely not an issue with my performance or anything like that. my review was good. Since she wasn't flexible I just had to miss two classes and get a sub (instead of reviewing with them for the final exam.) Yay for priorities... convenience for the asst principal is more important than student achievement on exams is the message i walked away with today.

[Edited on May 21, 2015 at 3:17 PM. Reason : ]

5/21/2015 3:16:01 PM

Being asked to change my billing on tasks from the past to a new/different task. No, I don't remember how much time I spent doing that work. These are big projects with a lot of concurrent work. I don't keep up with time per work item since it all gets billed to the same budget task... until this kind of shit.

[Edited on May 22, 2015 at 9:09 AM. Reason : .]

5/22/2015 8:46:07 AM

When someone else needs something done by COB:


When I need something done by COB:

5/22/2015 8:52:11 AM

^^Time to bullshit!!

Quote :

"However, why should it begin early in the 3rd trimester? I start my third trimester tomorrow. I'd rather have 12 weeks off post-baby than 12 weeks off before. And my employer still expects me to bring in $1.12 mil in settlements before I go out. I've never had a problem dealing with coworkers in their last few weeks before delivery."

I think you should get 12 weeks after and the last trimester off.

We are hitting prime sampling season here, that means longish car rides out to the field to bend, stoop, stand for long periods of time and lift 50ish lbs on a regular basis. So she is nearing the point of uselessness at this point. So I basically have a pregnant lady standing around, bossing me around on a job I already know how to do. Not to mention having to schedule around all of the doctor appointments.

Honestly though, I can handle all of that, I don't really see it as her fault. What I can't stand is her talking endlessly about "this is what happened at the doctor's, the baby is pushing on my bladder, I can't eat cold deli meat but its all I want right now, I don't think I could possibly get any bigger, blah blah blah blah."

So I think by giving ladies the last trimester off, we are helping moms out so they can be as healthy as possible, really plan for the birth and prepare their homes for the eventual arrival, but we are also saving everyone that works with them some measure of their sanity. Its a win-win.



(yes, I realize this is job specific and some of these problems are specific to just this particular woman, but my OP wasn't totally serious either)

[Edited on May 22, 2015 at 9:03 AM. Reason : .]

5/22/2015 9:03:04 AM

Nah, in a perfect world, that would be nice. There are a lot of doctors appointments in the last few months, and damned if pregnant people don't complain about everything. (I can say this, I'm pregnant).

5/22/2015 9:27:54 AM

Boss requested to be my friend on facebook... i find that puts me in a bind. if I don't accept it looks like a personal insult. if I do accept the boss will have a way more personal look into my life than I would prefer. ugh.

5/24/2015 11:18:05 PM

at least you have a choice. my boss added me years ago before he was my boss. he didn't work at my location and i really didn't think there was ever a chance of him being my boss.

[Edited on May 24, 2015 at 11:24 PM. Reason : i guess i could delete him. that would really be an insult.]

5/24/2015 11:24:23 PM

i'm betting the best "passive" solution would be to add her as a friend with restricted access, but i hate passive(/aggressive) tactics... i'm inclined just to go talk to her tomorrow and tell her that if she wasn't my supervisor i would add her in a heartbeat but i've always made it a personal policy not to add my supervisors as facebook friends (and we get yearly memos about keeping your social media separate from work... mostly because of students who try to add you, but also as a general best practice)

Would this come across as an insult or do you think supervisors would respect the honesty? (i know every person is different... as far as my feelings, she is a great person, but she is my direct supervisor and even though i don't have many controversial things on my facebook because i'm an old fart, who knows what info might be learned that could raise a professional point of contention?) I'm asking because i've literally never had a supervisor request to be my facebook friend (in my "real" job anyway)

5/24/2015 11:31:09 PM

you can't control how she perceives it, but communicating your desire professionally is the best you can do. I think your approach makes sense -- making it a personal policy to not mix your professional life with your personal life (unless you have a lot of random teacher colleagues who aren't necessarily personal friends on there too, which would then mean you gotta be specific about it being supervisors).


In my case my boss is a FB friend, but he was a peer and a friend before he was ever my boss, so i feel safe being myself on FB with his ability to see my posts. most of my other bosses, all of whom I have great relationships with-- would be a big fat nope.

5/26/2015 3:28:33 PM

^
sounds like good advice to me.

tl;dr This bitch stole communally-owned food from the fridge.

There was a conference today and a little dinner-reception at the end, and as always, the leftovers (of which there were many) went into the postdoc kitchen fridge for us to enjoy. In particular, there wer a bag of meatballs and a bag of mini-sandwiches.

I stayed late, and eventually the only people at work were me and this other chick, Ms. X. Now, at one point I went to the kitchen and ate a bit of the leftovers, then went back to my office and worked for a while, passing by Ms. X's office and noting, just randomly, that she was still there. Then I went to the kitchen to have more, and the mini-sandwiches and meatballs were gone! And Ms. X was gone too, so I know she stole them.

I had liked Ms. X. until this point, but I think it's really uncool to take home food that everybody has an equal right to. Communal food should stay in the communal area; eat as much of it as you like, but don't remove it from the premises.

5/26/2015 6:07:13 PM

Seems like end of day is usually end of that rule unless y'all have some specific policy

5/26/2015 7:05:31 PM

you shouldn't need a policy to know that's not cool. if it was going to go bad, or maybe if it was a Friday, it's okay, but those leftovers should have been for people to share the next day

5/26/2015 7:12:59 PM

Did just reread and see it was dinner not lunch, which changes things in this case. But there has to be SOME assumed time limit or else a fridge would fill up with shitty leftovers that go bad.

If stuff is left in common area at end of day our admins or custodians usually trash it

5/26/2015 7:16:50 PM

Quote :

"you shouldn't need a policy to know that's not cool. if it was going to go bad, or maybe if it was a Friday, it's okay, but those leftovers should have been for people to share the next day"

No joke. What a thunder cunt.

My boss is obsessed with putting food in the refrigerator. He thinks if it's been sitting out more than 2 fucking minutes it needs to go in the refrigerator or it'll turn into pure poison and kill everyone that comes within 20ft of it. I flipped shit on him for putting something of mine in the fridge once. I don't even remember what it was, but I didn't feel like eating soggy ass cold or rubbery ass reheated shit later. I left it out for a reason.

5/26/2015 10:53:57 PM

I kept putting my things in the fridge just for them to be gone later

Then, I started putting labels with my name on them, and they still got gone

Then, I brought my own mini-fridge to work and put it IN MY OFFICE, and things still got gone

So, I came in one day with a drill, and put a padlock on my mini-fridge


My supervisor rolled his eyes when he saw me putting it on

5/27/2015 10:56:51 AM

Holy fucking shit...where the fuck do you work? I would start WWIII if people came into my office, went in my fridge, and took my food. That's fucking ridiculous.

5/27/2015 12:08:12 PM