Principal's Office

Seeing as how my projects had reached a (very temporary, apparently) lull, I decided to use this morning to take care of some necessary banking. After much discussing, Husband and I decided to throw all caution to the wind and just merge all our finances together – none of this keeping our own separate side accounts. I know there are proponents for each side (combining all finances vs. having one joint account and maintaining separate side accounts vs. maintaining only individual accounts) but what the hell, we just figured if we can’t live under the same roof starting in June, at least our money can all cohabitate under the same bank account number.
Since I was expecting my experiments to be on the lighter side (a rarity), and I confirmed that my direct deposit for July kicked over into my new account, I figured it was the perfect morning to swing by the bank when it opened at 9 and close out my old checking account. No problem.
I took my time getting ready this morning and was enjoying a relaxed pace when an email pops up from my PI. No body to the email aside from his normal signature, and a subject line merely stating “PLEASE COME TO MY OFFICE WHEN YOU GET IN.”
Uh-oh. Panic. What does this mean?! No further explanation. Regardless, this does not sound like a good situation. First, we have the all capital letters. Second, absolutely no indication of what we need to discuss. Third, an email asking me to come in (often, my PI just leaves post-it notes on my desk asking me to drop by if I’m in the hood or elsewhere in the building). I keep going back and forth – do I go to the bank because this is the ONLY day I can likely go and close my account (and because my account is now at under $5,000, I will get fined $100 if I don’t close it out by the end of the week) as planned, or do I rush into the lab to face whatever evil punishment is waiting behind my PI’s door? I panic. Seriously, I felt like a kid being called down to the principal’s office (well, in theory… I wouldn’t know in actuality, I was a goody-two-shoes).
Suddenly, Husband’s voice pops into my head (seriously, how does it get in there, and how do I get rid of it?) yelling at me that I let my PI control my life too much and if I’m averaging 12+ hours/day and I need to go to the bank one day at 9am, I am allowed to go into the lab late. Finally, I suck it up, and make the decision to go to the bank, and email my PI and let him know that I will be in a bit late, as I have to stop at the bank at 9 to take care of some business.
He promptly e-mails me back and says “Great. Please bring your laptop so we can discuss [small molecule] results.”
@#$*@#%*!@!!! 15 minutes of my panicking over what sort of trouble I’m in (have I not been working hard enough? am I not spending enough time helping the summer students? am I not distributing my time properly on projects? did I forget to lock the lab last night and our $300,000 BIAcore was stolen? am I going to be beaten with a birch switch??) I’m in, all because he couldn’t take the 6 seconds to extend the email to include “so we can discuss your small molecule results.”

Thanks a lot, PI, for ruining my one morning of relaxation. Apparently, a girl can’t get a break around here.

Also, provided I have time to get around to it this week, because the meeting involved significantly more than just discussing data, and ended with roughly 3 months worth of work which I have to complete in 2 weeks, of course, a preview of posts to come….

1) Julie is a Smart-Ass… or, the post in which you get to see Julie’s home-made wedding “video”
2) 99% of Humans are Morons…. or, Julie’s uterus is closed for business

Stay tuned!