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This Open Thread is the Only Place I Want to Be

As I’m writing this, the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, and I’m just about ready to head to the lake. Days like today are the epitome of perfect. Sure, I was up at 4 a.m., but I spent the morning dressing windows, and didn’t even have to deal with a single disgruntled customers! It’s been a fabulous day all-around.

Here’s a little song to get you in the mood:

Let’s commiserate in the comments!

By [E]queSarahSarah

Part-time artist, full-time crankypants who dabbles in knitting, running, and burpees.

35 replies on “This Open Thread is the Only Place I Want to Be”

I am MOST annoyed.  I have 29 days left working in this job.  I have several projects that I need to finish before I leave.  They all require my boss’ time and guidance.  She cancelled our standing Thursday meeting yet again.  This is exactly why I am leaving.  I seriously sit here bored all day, slowly getting things ready for her to review only to have our meetings pushed back days, cancelled outright, or shortened to 15 minutes from the hour that I need.  She totally doesn’t get it and I do NOT want to leave things unfinished here.  shitpissfuck

Our poor associate director would be the next in line to take care of these things, but she’s beyond overloaded and I adore her. If I bring these things to her, she’d still have to get them reviewed by our director who is the problem here.

I have honestly thought about just dumping printouts of my work on her desk, but it would be purely symbolic – they’d get moved to a pile and then another pile, then another . . .

I brought this complaint to her a couple months ago – how I feel like I have this growing stack of work that’s going nowhere.  She told me that was my fault.  That I should have insisted that she review these things.  Pretty hard to do that when she won’t meet with me.  blergh.  And she wonders why I’m leaving . . .

That is a great article, thanks for sharing. I’ll probably pass it on to the boy, but I don’t think I’ll bother with the sister. She is… not what I would call someone with a lot of concern for those around her. Prima Donna would not be a misapplied term here.

Feminist boyfriends are awesome! But yeah his sister… Most of the time she’s pretty  fun to be around, but every so often some very narrow minded stupid shit comes out of her mouth, and I don’t always have the energy to correct her, because she doesn’t like to admit that she is even capable of being wrong.

This all came out of my boyfriend losing it over some bullshit a Bishop was spewing in an interview on NPR. I was very proud.

Okay, Pmagioneers! Life-threatening problem here!

I’ll be baking chocolate chip muffins. But what kind of icing to put on (no icing is not a likely option. Because: icing)
a) plain
b) chocolate
c) forest fruit ~experimenting

It’s a treat for my colleagues so I don’t want to be to ~out there~ but am I really crazy or does forest fruit/chocolate doesn’t look so weird?

I’ve had a really great couple of weeks in the last little while- everyone’s treating me like gold because we’re amping up to leave and now actually packing and everything. But now it’s less than a week- we’ll be in Edmonton this time next week, and now? I’m so sad.

I keep thinking ‘This is the last time I’ll do/see XYZ until the Christmas hols’ and sad sad sad. We’re going to our last pre-move party on Saturday, going out to dinner with 4 of my friends beforehand and just… ugh. I don’t want to go. (I do want to go… but I don’t want to leave.)

Bawww ;_;

Downsides of my week thus far: My boss apparently does not believe in the Oxford comma, and I have 6 months of his training presentations to get through. My office has workplace drama. My uterus hurts. And this being employed thing has seriously cut into my PMag time :-(

Upsides of the week: My standmixer is here, and I have made gluten free lemon meringue cupcakes to celebrate!

There should be some kind of standardized Oxford-comma-intervention for those who refuse to use it. After working with a colleague to publish a paper (she who does not use Oxford commas, I am rabid about them) I think I actually converted her (or at least when she’s around me). It is possible!

I’d like a poll of grad-school peeps out here in the interwebs, really, anyone else who feels like chipping in. Here is the situation: I am heading to an ecological modeling workshop (it’s what I do, but science is irrelevant to this poll) on the other side of the country next week with roughly half my lab. I am the lowest on the relative totem-pole (least amount of schooling under my belt), my lab advisor is the guy who got the grant to fund this, and everyone else going from our lab was expected to contribute a little presentation during the event (being relatively new to this, I was exempt). Today, during a lab meeting, lab advisor asked me if I could put something together, too- doesn’t have to be in-depth, basically just explaining my research and it’s relevance to a specific kind of model that I’ll be using down the line. So less than a week to put something together on something I don’t *really* know well for a group of people who write the books on this stuff. Little freaked out, little stressed, but also pretty exciting. I told this to SO and he gets angry at my lab advisor- how dare he spring something like this on me at the last minute? We’ve been planning this workshop for months! 

Remember: I have no problem with this short timeline. I work well under pressure and I give a good presentation. SO was also angry because he thinks my lab advisor does this kind of thing to me “all the time”. Which I don’t see, or I just accept as part of the deal since they give me money to do this work so they are allowed to ask me to do some stuff on a deadline. Science works on a deadline a lot. I figure this is pretty much how things work.

So poll question: Do other grad students get last-minute requests from their advisors? I am correct in thinking this is a usual thing? (@Ailanthus-Altissima I’m looking at you here.)

As a former grad school student (long story, heh), it seems like that it’s an attempt to test your boundaries.  From what you’re describing, though, it seems like it’s just not a very nice thing to do.  I understand that grad school is supposed to be a pressure cooker x 10, but in my experiences, it’s just something that isn’t done because an advisor is supposed to get how the student works (HINT: Most people can’t put everything together at the last minute all the time) and then go from there.  Then again, it might depend on the discipline (social science? “hard” science?) and the level (master’s? Ph.D.?), but I just don’t get a good feeling from what you’ve written.  I hope this helps!

I am an academic (social sciences) and this sounds par for the course to me.  In fact, I think it is a good thing.  This way you can introduce yourself and your research to the other people not from your lab who will presumably be there.  Also, and this might sound harsh, but if you could not do it, it would be a sign of larger problems with your research agenda (depending of course on how long into your program you are).  By forcing you to do this on a short timeline, it helps you put your future research in perspective and also allows you to share it with some important people.  So, maybe crap move on the short timeline, but overall an expected and probably ultimately good thing.  (Just my two cents).

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