quarter century
Dec. 30th, 2002 11:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraIs my birthday. Also the birthday of the woman who does Unicorn Jelly, which I somehow forgot to read for like ten days, which mystifies me, since is v. good and in compelling storyline.
Pretty good day overall, punctuated by work unhappiness. Feel like I have license to ramble because it's my birthday, but will go to
So I felt like I had just gotten a great birthday present when the day started with my boss totally failing to complain at all about my not having gotten enough done last week. Also I had colonies despite half-assed plating. Day continued pretty well, I thought, as I managed to [long list of completed lab procedures cut to spare non-biogeek readers].
I was hoping to catch the 5:30 train, my boss having said he could finish/freeze the mutagenesis if it was running late, so when he returned around five (having made a "quick trip" to his car that lasted over an hour) I asked if he could pop them in the freezer when they were done at 5:25. Big mistake. He sat me down and we had a highly unpleasant conversation along the lines of:
boss: if you show up at 10:30 you have to expect to stay here until 6:30
me: Um, I was here at 10
:10:20, I've been making a point of looking at the clock when you walk in, anyways, an eight hour day [am pretty damn sure it was 10:10 at the absolute latest]
me: seven
him: long, with much repetition of "no one punches a clock here", but to the effect that a) the 35 hours on my paycheck assumes an hour lunch, which I *never* get, but which he feels is distributed throughout the day, and b) "we all work really hard here", and don't worry about time, in other words, yes, he totally is saying he can and will require me to work unpaid overtime, and c) "I'm not sure you get the concept." Very clear implication of general dissatisfaction in tone.
And, what could I say? I did *not* in fact understand that he was willing to come out and say (well, strongly imply while still refusing to actually say bluntly) that he expected me to work more hours than I get paid for. I did *not* realize that he really wanted the mutants transformed tonight and not frozen. I did *not* realize that he felt that time when I was checking my email or whatever counted as "lunch break distributed through the day"... I had sort of figured that if I was in PCR cycle 7 of 16 and my gel was running and I had made buffers and had everything ready to go, I was still on "work time" even if I was just waiting for things to run, as demonstrated by my readiness to instantly close my email and go do something else if informed of another task. I did *not* realize that he was really that dissatisfied overall, or that he really didn't think I work hard enough - okay, yeah, ironic in light of last Thursday and Friday, but, like, [long list of today's procedures]. And also, if he was so pissed off that I was late, why the *grep* did we stand around for about half an hour having a conversation with an officemate about placentas being large and gross, and childbirth being dangerous, and antibiotic-resistant TB being on the rise, and old treatments for TB involving shoving ping-pong balls into the lungs, *none* of which had *any relevance whatsoever* to work? "Hey, listen to this really gross thing about TB" did *not* communicate a message of "I don't think you're working hard enough", and I feel that it was unfair of him to then go off all "I don't think you understand the concept here" on me.
Anyways, so in summary, my boss is an asshole and I wish I believed in karma because boy I think he deserves a smackdown of his own. Work-related morale is very very low and unfortunately I don't think there's anything I can do except suffer and vent on lj - he's said what he expects, and, really, I know I have it really, really good, it pays well, I have benefits, I'm in a well-lit, heated building, 98% of the world's population would do the dance of joy to have my job. I just wish I could leave at the end of the day without feeling like, hey, it wouldn't be so bad if he fired me and told my advisor not to take me back, I could get the HELL OUT of this FUCKING INDUSTRY and go punch a clock somewhere without so much "no one punches a clock here, but I'm nevertheless going to give you constant shit about your hours" bullshit.
Or skip the job rant and hear about my evening:
Despite birthday-ness, ended up having a pretty low-key evening by myself as a break from the social whirl of the weekend and upcoming New Year's Eve and stuff. Did open cards and presents from my family (including Brit editions of HP:PS and HP:CoS!), and talked to my parents, who are back from the UK. Funny-obnoxious conversation with my mom about one of my Christmas presents - she apparently had to go to six different stores to avoid getting me what I really wanted. ::smacks forehead:: I really wanted totally plain jersey sheets, ideally in green, brown, purple, or blue; what I got were that sort of athletic-"heather" grey? She claims that they're green and that "she just didn't like those flat colors"; I had (of course) claimed to like them but had been assuming she just hadn't been able to easily find anything better... I like them much less now that they're explicitly what she wanted me to have instead of what I wanted. But I don't feel like bothering to try to exchange them, so, once again, the moral of the story is, never put something on your Christmas list that involves aesthetic preference. Oh, and also she decided that my always saying I'd like "music that (the gift-giver) likes" meant a pirated copy of something, which she was already upset I hadn't listened to yet; I have no idea what to do about this.
Also my sib's Christmas card finally showed up (was worried, since my birthday card got here ages ago and she said she mailed them together), and I forced myself out into the cold to go withdraw some cash, and it ended up being nice and refreshing, which I suppose should be some kind of lesson.
Bleah, and really I should just be trying to forget all this stuff instead of ranting about it. Oh, and packing. Should be packing.
Really, was much nicer day than am probably making it sound.
Pretty good day overall, punctuated by work unhappiness. Feel like I have license to ramble because it's my birthday, but will go to
So I felt like I had just gotten a great birthday present when the day started with my boss totally failing to complain at all about my not having gotten enough done last week. Also I had colonies despite half-assed plating. Day continued pretty well, I thought, as I managed to [long list of completed lab procedures cut to spare non-biogeek readers].
I was hoping to catch the 5:30 train, my boss having said he could finish/freeze the mutagenesis if it was running late, so when he returned around five (having made a "quick trip" to his car that lasted over an hour) I asked if he could pop them in the freezer when they were done at 5:25. Big mistake. He sat me down and we had a highly unpleasant conversation along the lines of:
boss: if you show up at 10:30 you have to expect to stay here until 6:30
me: Um, I was here at 10
:10:20, I've been making a point of looking at the clock when you walk in, anyways, an eight hour day [am pretty damn sure it was 10:10 at the absolute latest]
me: seven
him: long, with much repetition of "no one punches a clock here", but to the effect that a) the 35 hours on my paycheck assumes an hour lunch, which I *never* get, but which he feels is distributed throughout the day, and b) "we all work really hard here", and don't worry about time, in other words, yes, he totally is saying he can and will require me to work unpaid overtime, and c) "I'm not sure you get the concept." Very clear implication of general dissatisfaction in tone.
And, what could I say? I did *not* in fact understand that he was willing to come out and say (well, strongly imply while still refusing to actually say bluntly) that he expected me to work more hours than I get paid for. I did *not* realize that he really wanted the mutants transformed tonight and not frozen. I did *not* realize that he felt that time when I was checking my email or whatever counted as "lunch break distributed through the day"... I had sort of figured that if I was in PCR cycle 7 of 16 and my gel was running and I had made buffers and had everything ready to go, I was still on "work time" even if I was just waiting for things to run, as demonstrated by my readiness to instantly close my email and go do something else if informed of another task. I did *not* realize that he was really that dissatisfied overall, or that he really didn't think I work hard enough - okay, yeah, ironic in light of last Thursday and Friday, but, like, [long list of today's procedures]. And also, if he was so pissed off that I was late, why the *grep* did we stand around for about half an hour having a conversation with an officemate about placentas being large and gross, and childbirth being dangerous, and antibiotic-resistant TB being on the rise, and old treatments for TB involving shoving ping-pong balls into the lungs, *none* of which had *any relevance whatsoever* to work? "Hey, listen to this really gross thing about TB" did *not* communicate a message of "I don't think you're working hard enough", and I feel that it was unfair of him to then go off all "I don't think you understand the concept here" on me.
Anyways, so in summary, my boss is an asshole and I wish I believed in karma because boy I think he deserves a smackdown of his own. Work-related morale is very very low and unfortunately I don't think there's anything I can do except suffer and vent on lj - he's said what he expects, and, really, I know I have it really, really good, it pays well, I have benefits, I'm in a well-lit, heated building, 98% of the world's population would do the dance of joy to have my job. I just wish I could leave at the end of the day without feeling like, hey, it wouldn't be so bad if he fired me and told my advisor not to take me back, I could get the HELL OUT of this FUCKING INDUSTRY and go punch a clock somewhere without so much "no one punches a clock here, but I'm nevertheless going to give you constant shit about your hours" bullshit.
Or skip the job rant and hear about my evening:
Despite birthday-ness, ended up having a pretty low-key evening by myself as a break from the social whirl of the weekend and upcoming New Year's Eve and stuff. Did open cards and presents from my family (including Brit editions of HP:PS and HP:CoS!), and talked to my parents, who are back from the UK. Funny-obnoxious conversation with my mom about one of my Christmas presents - she apparently had to go to six different stores to avoid getting me what I really wanted. ::smacks forehead:: I really wanted totally plain jersey sheets, ideally in green, brown, purple, or blue; what I got were that sort of athletic-"heather" grey? She claims that they're green and that "she just didn't like those flat colors"; I had (of course) claimed to like them but had been assuming she just hadn't been able to easily find anything better... I like them much less now that they're explicitly what she wanted me to have instead of what I wanted. But I don't feel like bothering to try to exchange them, so, once again, the moral of the story is, never put something on your Christmas list that involves aesthetic preference. Oh, and also she decided that my always saying I'd like "music that (the gift-giver) likes" meant a pirated copy of something, which she was already upset I hadn't listened to yet; I have no idea what to do about this.
Also my sib's Christmas card finally showed up (was worried, since my birthday card got here ages ago and she said she mailed them together), and I forced myself out into the cold to go withdraw some cash, and it ended up being nice and refreshing, which I suppose should be some kind of lesson.
Bleah, and really I should just be trying to forget all this stuff instead of ranting about it. Oh, and packing. Should be packing.
Really, was much nicer day than am probably making it sound.
