No wonder

Here I was, tinkering with the layout, then going to see my page loading stats, and thinking, "hmmm, no one has read my blog in two days. They must be having a good Christmas holiday! Yippeee!", then today realising that no one had accessed the blog in like one week.

And then belatedly realising that with the new layout, I had forgotten to put in the code for the counter...

10 things to do before next X'mas

(1) Lose 10 kilos of my flab and get into the other half of my wardrobe

(2) Run 5 miles without dying or stopping

(3) Swim longer (more than 1km) and better

(4) Learn how to drive

(5) Buy new pairs of glasses

(6) Get a dentist

(7) Get a job

(8) Read at least 10 books - and make a dent on my "to read" bookshelf

(9) Start playing the stock market

(10) Gain more miscellaneous knowledge

Be more active

Maybe I should sell my Wii after reading this.

Not that I would be swayed by a study which wasn't published in mainstream scientific journals.

Baseball star in UK

Hey, it seems that Kevin Milwood is gonna be in London on holiday. Is he planning to go to the X'mas sales or something???

Merry Christmas!!

To all of you readers, as I belt out Sade's "Smooth Operator" on the SingStar I got for X'mas.

Music

I like Daft Punk, especially the song in their second album Discovery called "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". I'm sure you have all seen the great YouTube video, "Daft Hands" - I believe it has been nominated for the People's Choice Awards (that means nothing to me, as I live in England and I don't watch telly all that often). If not, I suggest going to see that - it's good.

Anyway, I thought this when I first listened to the song, but it is like a Theme and Variations, similar to one someone like Beethoven or Schubert would write. A great evolution on a theme.

Shooting myself in the foot

I have to admit, sometimes I wonder whether my mentioning that "I prefer NOT to be a PI" hurts my chances. At what? Ur, I am not sure. But I have mentioned this to the BigBoss, ex-boss, new PIs I have met whom I am friendly with, postdoc colleagues, PhD stduents...

I wouldn't suggest that everyone who has any doubts in science in academia to do the same.
It probably is not a good idea. I only do it because I am certain I don't want to be a PI. And I am also certain that I am intelligent enough and take my postdoc position seriously, and that attitude seeps through. I also prefer being in the supportive role, in helping someone else (i.e. the PI) do the job well - I find my value and happiness in that. I am confident, and will not back down if challenged, but I am not a "ME ME ME" person (like the CheshireCat, for example).

Anyway, if this new postdoc position comes through with BigBoss, then that means I would have been postdocing for over 6 years. Sounds funny, that I used to say I didn't want to be a postdoc forever (with a touch of derision), and that I always had a foot out the door.

Why I don't want to stay in Academia part 2

I went to a seminar series about various careers, and one of them was on Medical Writing. Medical writing is a career I am seriously thinking about. I can see myself doing that, and enjoying the variety of work.

So at this session, we had a presentation (in this case it was an overview of the industry, not just what you do, but what kind of people you deal with, or what they expect from you - it's a "service" industry after all!). And with any presentations, you have a Q&A session at the end. And you can tell so much about the audience just by listening to the questions....

One person asked whether you (i.e. medical writer speaker) have had any ethical problems - i.e. the client pushing the writer to write something unethical. Which, to me, makes no sense. Apart from the fact that it is regulated (and any writing that the medical writer is expected to do, would have gone through rigorous checking with regulations and laws, because the client is a pharmaceutical company for crissakes), you are actually getting paid to do a job.
I was a bit appaled by that question - how naive are you to think that, even if you are still a PhD student or a postdoc? Then of course, I went back and had to ask myself whether I was being too harsh. Wasn't I ever that naive about the cut-throat business world? Maybe.

There was a general sense that the audience didn't seem to warm to the idea of medical writing as a career. Apart from thinking "then why the hell did you turn up?", I was wondering what these people were going to do after their student and postdoc days were over.
I mean, look at Mr.Strauss who is hitting 40 and is somehow still in dreamland. I sometimes wonder what he thinks he will be doing in 3 years time, when his contract is well and truly over. I haven't heard anything indicating that he is applying for a fellowship, and I have a feeling that he is too proud to go for a lectureship in an ex-polytechnic new-University. Anyway, I digress.

I'm beginning to wonder if people don't realize that the work environment in a University is relatively protected. Like a bubble. A lot of the time, things don't get done, people faff about, because there is no ulterior motive - like making more money and driving up profits - so nothing is really serious. Your job is often not on the line, you don't have to be driven for a goal for the organization. PIs and lecturers are different, but managers are in this lukewarm sea of indifference...

Middle managers galore (why I don't want to stay in Academia part 1)

I was speaking to our glorious secretary Moneypenny the other week, moaning (as ever) as the imbeciles who are running the place. She mentioned this TV programme where Gerry Robinson tried to fix the NHS, and pointed out one of the things he said - that there were "too many middle managers". And that if this (NHS) was a business, it would have been bankrupt a long ago.

Me and Moneypenny have been moaning about the inability of people (above us) in implementing things that would make our life easier. You know, little things like getting a technician, or making sure our bosses have a secretary, or making sure that the ordering department orders things on time (and follows it up). Little things that will make life so much more easier day to day, and actually make the people do their jobs - not someone else's job.

I totally agree that there are too many middle managers. No, actually, there are too many managers, full-stop. The Telegraph article mentions the Governement's "strange belief that coming up with a policy is the same as implementing it". Seen that before. And HE Institutions (institutes and Universities) are so like the NHS in that way.

I have never worked in a company so I wouldn't know how it works in the corporate world. But I can see and understand a waste of resources when I see one.

Hungover...

My tummy don't feel too well.......no more red wine followed by a bourbon chaser for me.......ugh.

Thick skinned?

Thinking about what I wrote before, after a couple of glasses of wine and a nice tumbler (old-fashioned glass) of Maker's Mark, about being thick-skinned...

Well, to go back a bit...

At the X'mas do (of my old workplace), I was telling a few new-ish PIs about my idea of a "good" postdoc. And I said that I appreciated someone who was professional - someone who knew good science, someone I can have a debate with about current scientific matters (e.g. the Hwang scandal), someone who is able to think logically scientifically, and someone who is professional. Read, someone who knows his stuff, but someone who is happy that this is work (not entire life).

And then, Mr.Strauss said, "you just treat this as a JOB, right?"

....hmmm, bombshell. I took that rather personally, rather insulting, and went on about how it is different (for me, than for him).
You see, I like bench science (maybe more on that later). I am proud of the work I do. I like working in the lab. I guess I don't mind so much, the teaching of students (because even if it is not in the job description, I am supposed to do it....and hey, I want a good reference! and some comfort in my conscience). But, I guess that when it comes down to it, I am willing to give up my 9-to-5 schedule for that "little bit more".

I found it insulting to be insinuated, by someone less professional (from my point of view) in his "fulfilling his job duties", that I only took my job as a "job". It is a job, I want to enjoy my weekends. (Okay, there was a part of me...actually, a biiig part of me thinking I wasn't a 40 year old postdoc desperately trying to hang on to his youth, trying to get a lectureship somewhere and living in cuckoo land of "pharmas are all evil" land)

I guess I don't particularly take a rejection of my work (e.g. a paper or a grant), as a serious attack on my personal composition. Well, I guess I try not to. I guess I want to NOT come in during the weekends, to start an experiment. I guess I don't really care if I am working to cure cancer by finding that one, important, ground breaking cure (because frankly, cancer ain't going to be cured by finding that miracle gene).
But that doesn't mean I don't think about my work, or take science seriously.

And I think it is important to treat a job as it is. You are expected to do your job, nothing more, nothing less. But you have to understand where you want to go with your life.

I just think, that as a PI, in a 21st century University (or any place where a PI has to apply for external funding), that you have to think in your mind, that you are actually not "entitled to be funded in what you are interested in". You have to justify yourself, and you have to communicate and convince others that your project, your topic, is important to mankind (to put it OTT). And actually, this is a bit PR like. You have to basically sell yourself to the grant givers. (That nicely leads on to how some (or dare I say "most") academic people are naive, but that is for another post.)

That's the same with papers. Just because a journal rejected it, doesn't necessarily mean you are shit. Maybe your work is not up to their standard. Maybe the reviewer doesn't like your work. Maybe the referees are working on the same thing and doesn' t want your work published. Maybe it is personal, for the reviewers.

But in the end, if it isn't published, then it isn't read. And it has nothing to do with your personal attitude/belief/personality whether your body of work, however much you think is important, is rejected.

Rant over, off to bed.

Things to put on the CV when you're bored

I was wondering, since I'm supposed to be officially looking for a job (in the New Year), what kind of transferable skills and stuff I have. What will I be proud to put on a CV?

Well, I can touch-type at 70 wpm (75 if I concentrate hard enough).
That comes from my experience as a disgruntled PhD student. I was emailing friends, moaning about the lab. And I thought, "well, if I am going to use email, I might as well learn to type properly". So I started putting my fingertips on the ASDF-JKL; keys. Fast forward 10 years later, and you have one smug postdoc, looking at her bosses as they type using two fingers (a.k.a. hunt and peck). Actually, it is amazing how many people don't actually touch-type - I've noticed it more now, since I have had a few occasions to observe people in offices.

And as for tech/computer savvy-ness, can you put down that in your household (of male partner and female me) that I am the one sorting out the ISP, the broadband modem, Wi-Fi, connecting the various games gadgets and PCs to the modem/router, tearing my hair out because the router misbehaves, getting info on various routers, choosing the right one, and setting it up.
Going on a tangent, this is all his fault. You see, we have a PlayStation3 console in our house. And we both like playing online games on it. However, the beloved PS3 didn't agree with something - at that point, I didn't know whether it was my modem/router or the ISP service. We were having problems with a reliable network connection to the PSN.

Then, with great timing, my WiFi modem/router conked out. It just died.

So I bought a new WiFi modem/router, still had similar problems. It just will not stay connected. At first I thought it was a router problem, so I went through everything with the customer services, setting things like port forwarding, which I never knew about before this incident.
And I changed ISPs after learning that my ex-ISP was not very nice to online gamers. They traffic shape during peak hours, which leads to our frustration when trying to play online games after work.
So in the end, I returned the new WiFi box and bought another one. Our online game life (and hence, sanity) has been restored, and we are a happier couple.
Let me tell you though, that the NetGear modem/router is a good product - it just wasn't "loose" enough for online gaming purposes for me. There might have been a hardware problem, but I think that if I didn't want a router for online gaming, it would have been okay. I particularly like the MAC address filtering feature on it, which I can't seem to find on my new D-Link one.

Hey, I even know how to change a fuse. And I have enough problem-solving skills to gather that when an electrical equipment fails, a fuse is the first thing you check. That was something a married female colleague of mine didn't know.

Thick skin

So the paper we submitted to the Journal of Everything (a.k.a. J B C) got rejected.
Okaaaaay....Next!

Funnily enough, although I cared more for this paper than my first first-author paper, I was surprisingly not as dejected/depressed/upset as I thought I would be. Is this because I have thick skin? I don't think so, I'm pretty sensitive to criticism or comments. Okay, I did have a twinge of disappointment reading through the rewiers' comments, but after 15 minutes, I had changed my mindset to "What can I get out from this?" - hence I emailed BigBoss with a suggestion that we resubmit to another journal, and/or write a PhD grant from it (to fund the study further). See, the one comment both reviewers had was that the paper had "preliminary results" and "interesting observations", i.e. more work needs to be done.

So just before dashing off, I went to talk to BigBoss as these things are better dealt with immediately to stop me from ruminating over it (and then it fermenting and me getting depressed as a result). He agreed that we should resubmit a.s.a.p. to another journal, and threw in a name of a journal - so I said I'd reformat it. Also that he thought there were basis for a postdoc grant instead of a PhD grant.
Now, whether he has time to think about it, discuss, and allows me to write a grant, is up to him. All this, I guess, we can worry about it later, if and when I come back to work for him again...

Interesting Reading

I am currently reading the Mitchell Report, the long awaited report on steroid use in baseball.

I love watching baseball. I've watched it since I was little (thanks to my grandfather), and it is one game I really understand (and try to understand) how it is played. I only got in to Major League Baseball in the late 90's, just in time to experience when Mark McGwire was at the top of his form (so to say).

From what I have read so far, the Report is very interesting reading - it is a chronicle of what happened, and basically puts everything in one book. It reads well too, and it is an easy read. It is also interesting in that you see what the media was saying (at the time), what players were doing, and how the internal politics within the game of baseball were playing out whilst us, the fans, were watching from outside (and getting the bullshit from the insiders).
Some people within baseball come out very badly indeed, some with a bit more respect. But I was surprised that Clemens' name was made public within the report. I wasn't surprised that he had taken it, but more surprised that it was made public.

Dickheads of the world unite!

Since I'm reading random blogs (because my router is out of action), let me go back to my favourite subject, Mr.Strauss! I was reading this over on FSP, which I admit I never read normally. But that post reminded me of the time when Mr.Strauss accused me of being biased because I was a woman...I think the term he used was "oh, this sisterhood thing".

Anyway, I was there with our brilliant technician and Mr.Strauss, describing the antics of the GQboy, to our new postdoc Gable. Now, GQboy was going out with Minnie, who I used to sit next to in the old office. Minnie with all her faults, was a nice girl - she had her own little troubles, but can always drum herself up to do stuff; she was just a really pleasant, nice person to have in the lab (and sit next to).
Now, GQboy and Minnie split up, about 9 months before she left. Minnie was single for all that time, but has now found a new boyfriend. GQboy has been out of luck.

Enter Mr.Strauss. Never really known Minnie (I don't think their paths ever crossed, but I may be wrong), but got talking to GQboy (because he was taking SO LONG to finish off his sorry PhD). Mr.Strauss, being dumped himself, automatically sides with GQboy, and slags off Minnie.

Now that is what I take offence to.
He didn't know Minnie, so why is he slagging her off like that? Most people who knew the two always thought she was too good for him anyway. I mean, GQboy is someone who:
(1) thought the white bits in black pudding were lymphocytes, and
(2) when a professor of andrology came to see his poster at a meeting, replied "what, is that a study of robots?" (instead of sperm).
(There are other famous tales about him but I can't remember, to tell you the truth).

You know, you shouldn't really slag someone off like that in front of a person who never met her. And I mean slag off. Like saying "oh yeah, she dumped him and just went out straight with another guy (not true) and keeps calling him back when she's around (not true also)". Jesus, what, are we 12? Mr.Strauss is 40 for fuck sake. He should know better than playing these playground stuff.
It's just because he was dumped. And he stalked her for a while, and has this major bitter thing going on against women in general. And the thing is, no matter how many times people insinuate that he is sad/pathetic/a loser, he won't do something about it.

To think I am going back to that...but at least I won't be in the same office...

Paper? What is paper?

Reading this over at the Pipeline reminds me of my PhD days. They weren't that long ago though.

I used to be able to walk down the aisles of the library, actually picking out 100-year old volumes of the Journal of the Chemical Society Transactions. There were old German Angewandte Chemie volumes lying around (which, ur, I couldn't read, because I never took the "German for chemistry" class in my 1st year. I wish I did...). Surprisingly, they didn't have it in storage, which thinking about it now, is amazing. Yes, the spines were a bit brittle, and there was a fine layer of dard dust (scarily similar to soot, I guess) on the top of the book.
I used to read the Chemical Abstracts, you know, those paper "five-yearly" volumes. And have to cross reference them to another book, and would be sitting at the table with like 10 volumes out. I did cough from the amount of dark dust on it too.
I never did any searches on Beilstein, because I wasn't an organic chemist. But it looked cool.

Regarding that re-invention of a 102-year old reaction...I agree with Christl really. It is poor form not to do a thorough literature search, especially if you are in an older subject such as any form of chemistry. You should suspect that someone might have done it before. Hell, in my PhD I was making a compound that was described in the 60's and 70's. And the synthesis actually gave me decent yield. Thinking about it, I think that was the only synthetic method to give the compound (without extra stuff like pressure and solvents).
Actually, I'm assuming that 100-year old articles are catalogued electronically now. When I was a student, it wasn't (or it was and it was expensive) so you had to do the (literally) dirty work.

In a more recently developed field such as molecular biology, I guess it is easier to do a literature search, plainly because the field only really developed in the last 30 years. Hence, there isn't as much papers and articles to get through, and they are more bound to be catalogued better.
In fact, if anything, in my field of cell/molecular biology, people aren't really in the habit of doing searches. Out of habit, I still go and fish out a paper from the 80's, just to get my hands on the original paper that described some obscure technique. I'm a sucker for these things, and nowadays it is SO easy to get a paper that old. Often, you don't even have to have a trip to the library (and beat off all the stupid undergrads out of your way). On a side, papers from the 80's are so much more of a joy to read. So much more simple grammatically, and you can feel real appreciation for what they had to do in the 80's which you can do on a tip of your finger nowadays (i.e. push a button).
And this also goes back to all these young whippersnapper(molecular biologist)s pretending to be really great by finding out things that are never done. Grrrr.

Keeping schedule

Following on from the previous entry, I am a fan of the paper diary. Personally, I like the "week on two pages" format. But what do I put in in my diary?
I used to use my diary a lot more, as in putting in dates and times of major seminars or lab meetings. I don't do that anymore, but use Microsoft's (pah!) Outlook for meetings. What I use my diary for, is to plan experiments (actually it is stupid to use Outlook for half the things, because I can't gather how busy I am going to be just by looking at my paper diary).
Using the experimental numbering system, I can make small notes and plans accordingly. So if I am working on that experiment 234 (and another experiment 235), the entries will look something like this:

Monday: 234 - split HEK, 10000/ml, 3 x 96w
Tuesday: 234 - transfect; 235 - split cells, 20 x 60mm dish
Wednesday: 234 - Luc assay; 235 - starve cells
Thursday: 235 - treat, lyse.

A "week on two pages" A5 sized diary gives just about enough room to make those kinds of notes, and to keep me abreast of what I am doing.

So apart from my experimental notes file, and my diary, what do I use? I always have a small spiral notepad handy for small calculations. I tend to keep an old one for a while, as I do tend to make notes and stuff on it which might come in handy in the future.

Keeping notes

As you can see, I am so bored that I am blogging more. No, I don't currently have an ADSL connection. My router/modem fucked up so I am forced to use my little USB modem which I got with my first ADSL connection a few years back. It's slow, but it does its' job. But I can't play on the PS3.......

Anyway, how do people keep experimental notebooks? There's a PropterDoc entry about it, which reminded me about how I was thinking about writing on the topic.

I used to keep a proper experimental book, but when I started my postdoc, my supervisor then was more keen on looseleaf binders. So nowadays, I just write notes on a notepad, and when the page is full, I put on those ring stickers (so that the pages don't rip out easily), and shove it in the "Now" file.

The good things about this method, is that for me, it is convenient. I'm a person who does experiments which takes a few days to do (from setting up the plates to lysis), then run a western, say a week later. It helps to keep together all the notes from one experimental set up. It also means that I can go back to the experimental lysates and re-run the experiment a few months later, and keep all the results together. Ultra convinient. But probably won't work when you are working with something patentable (and aiming to get a patent).

All the westerns films (we still use films I'm afraid) are kept in a clear plastic pocket with the slit on the top, with my own made first sheet - like a fax first-page info sheet, but details of "lysate number", antibody used, dilutions of primary antibody, blocking agent, and ECL reagent (some of the information is not necessary, but it is my own designed "westerns" sheet I've been using for a few years, and I haven't bothered to change it).
Results of reporter gene assays, I normally do my analysis on Excel and print out the graph, then shove it in the file.

So how do I keep track of all the experiments I have done? Easy. I number them from 1 (one, un, uno, ein, ichi...) and keep increasing the numbers until my contract is up. In the last contract the numbers went up to the 160's.
Every first page of an experimental entry has a small sticky tab on the side with the number on it (an index), so that I know that all pages behind that page is to do with that experiment.
In my file, I also have an index page at the front, to detail things like "experimental number", cell-type, type of experiment (transfection/reporter gene assay, westerns, IPs etc) and treatment used.

Computer files are similar.
If I am doing a reporter gene assay, for example, I will have a first sheet entry in my file with the experiment number, and date. When I come to do the analysis, normally what I do is use a filename with date and experiment number. So if it is a Luc assay, for experiment 234, done today (10th of December), then my filename will be:
"071210 234 Luc".
For the corresponding Renilla assay, the filename will be
"071210 234 Ren".
If there are more than one plate of each, I will put a subsequent alphabet - A, B, C.
And a similar system ensues for other computer files that may be generated.

You might be asking, why do I use a yy-mm-dd format, when in England it is normal to have the dd-mm-yy format. The answer is simple - because of the way computers display the filename. Doing it the yy-mm-dd way, when you come to finding your files in your harddrive, it will be arranged chronologically. Yes, you can actually do that by clicking on the "last edited" tab, but this way the names are already chronological. And you don't have to worry if you actually did alter the file afterwards.

Actually, that naming system is only for the raw data. When I do analyse it, I make a new file, but this time with the experiment number at the front. So in the case above, any analysis will be done by pasting and copying the raw data into a file named
"234 Luc assay" (for example).
That Excel file will contain all the raw data, but also the analysis. This is so that I know that the raw data will remain easy to find, and also unadulterated.

After a few weeks, your "Experiments Now" file is starting to bulge. In that case, I transfer the older experiment pages into another Lever Arch File, and keep on doing that until the file is almost full. Then just put a record on the spine to remind you which experiment numbers are in there (like "1 - 36"), stick the Index page into the Lever Arch File, and it can sit on your shelf. Until your supervisor is interested in seeing your results from half a year ago that even you forgot you did.


Why go through all the trouble? Simple. I have shit memory. I can't usually remember what experiments have been done, and when. So it is a good way to just put everything in order.
I can see that this method probably won't work for synthetic chemists, whose work (I guess) actually flows from one day to another. It works for me, because I do a lot of work which are more like units. One doesn't necessarily follow the other.

Experience counts

Our PhD student, Mac, had his viva recently. In England, most Universities have a viva voce examination as a doctorate exam, whereby the student, an internal (i.e. from the institution) and external (i.e. not from the institution) get cosy together in a little room, and go over the thesis in minute detail.
Normally, it is a simple affair. The student is obviously nervous. The external is obviously enjoying it. The internal is (normally) there to curb the external's enthusiasm for grilling the student (okay, there may be exceptions...).

Anyway, Mac had a new lecturer - let's call him Snaps - for his internal examiner, someone who I am quite certain that this was his first occasion as being an examiner of any kind for a PhD.
So the viva went well, the external examiner was mostly happy with Mac's work, bar minor alterations. As in, typos, or adding a couple of sentences in. In our lingo, major alterations means you have to do more experimental work, and you have to resubmit. (And pay to resubmit). It's a big thing, and time consuming. This obviously shouldn't have applied to Mac. All there was left to do was for the internal to fill in the form, and hand it back to the School Office who will process it.

However, Snaps didn't read through his "Internal Examiner's Handbook", because apparently he filled in the form wrong. As in, instead of ticking on "minor corrections", he ticked on "major corrections", thinking that typos and doing one page worth of corrections were the kind of corrections that involved re-doing experiments, re-writing the thesis, and re-submitting the whole damn thing (and taking a few months, not a few hours).
And thank God for Mac there was someone out there, because one of his supervisors (he had two, by the way) went storming into Snaps' office to check what he meant. She was surprised as hell at the choice of tickboxes he ticked, and went in to clarify what he meant. Sure enough, he realised his mistake before the form had been forwarded to the School Office.

I went for a drink with Mac to celebrate his thesis - there was really no doubt in anyone's mind that he shouldn't have passed anyway - but this only came to light recently, when I was walking back from the canteen with my lunch in my hand, only to see his female supervisor. I chatted to her a bit, and it was quite funny... I think she wanted to tell someone about the whole brouhaha!

Well, Snaps apparently went back and apologized to Mac about the whole thing (and putting Mac through some unrequired stress!). But me thinks he isn't going to go for a round of golf with Mac anytime soon...

Is there an Englishman in the house?

Are there any British PhD students/postdocs/PIs who have an anonymous blog which criticizes the whole system? I'm reading a lot of blogs from across the pond, but wouldn't mind reading a mind-numbingly devastating account of a life over here.
Any suggestions and pointers welcome.
Doesn't mean I'll link to it, but hey.

If only I had half a talent

To do something like what Yahtzee Croshaw can do with game reviews. (Halo 3 review is one of my favourites)
I mean, doing something like that for a life of a scientist will be good.

The unbearable lightness of the RAE

I went to my old (but soon to be new) workplace's X'mas do, and got talking to a new-ish lecturer in my lab (I'll just refer to the old-but-new-but-workplace as my lab. What the hell.).

She joined out lab about... a year-and-a-half ago. I think. I can't remember. And ever since she joined, her tenure has been nothing but problems. She is unhappy (but pragmatic enough to keep on going) with her position. Well, she would be, since she moved from a highly-respected-European Institute in the continent, which I thought weird - I mean, who would want to move to Britain, ay.

Apparently, things were looking a bit dodgy from the start. When she came for an interview, they showed her around this fab new building - which they surely knew that she won't be housed in. First of all, that building belongs to a different School from her Department, and her Department does not have any right to be in that building (unless they pay, and no one wants to pay). Secondly, that building was full (I know that now they have some empty spaces...).

Then, when she started, there were more peculiar things. She basically moved to this Uni because her previous institution didn't have anyone working in her particular area of Development (and I mean, development as in organism). She came here because there was someone else in the department working in that particular area of development. Lets call him Richie Rich (shouldn't really, he's a prof...must show respect...).
Now, when someone new starts, who doesn't know anything about the way British Universities are run, you sort of think they would take you under their wing to show them around. Not this particular person. Apparently, her suggestion of having joint lab meetings were turned down (which doesn't make sense, when there's only two groups working in the area). He asked her to organize seminars, which he cancelled after going to two of them.

There were things I heard about RR, which I didn't tell her (because it won't really add to anything more).
What I know, is that his wife (I think), who is also a lecturer working in a similar field (never got that independence from him, and she is highly reliant on him for ideas - I guess the more cynical would say that it is his ploy of getting double the grant money!), used to be his technician. They got romantically involved, then she was guided through her PhD, and look at her now - a cushy position in the same department. A department he has a LOT of power in.
He also has a habit of picking a favourite female worker in his lab, and making them his girlfriends. Not that he keeps it secret. I have bumped into him at the cafeteria, always with his girls, and the same one next to him all the time. Anyway, I don't have much respect for how he is (can't say much about his scientific work, but his wife's work is not particularly interesting or good).


Anyway, getting back to the new lecturer, she suspected that the reason why she was given tenure in this Uni was due to the RAE (Research Assessment Exercise), which I am inclined to agree.
For those working outside Britain, RAE is a study done by the government to see how effective each Higher Education (HE) institution are in research. It is a life and death matter for HE institutions, as it determines government funding (and indirectly affects student choices of HE institutions).
As you can imagine, places like the big London University Colleges (Imperial, King's, UCL etc), Oxford and Cambridge gets good press. And that is also why the high powered (read, rich) institutions are keen on poaching each other's PIs. They play the RAE game.

You see, what the University such as this one does, is that about 3 years before the RAE deadline they start recruiting. They try and recruit people with good publication records, which means postdocs with famous PIs (which was the case with my previous boss a few years ago), or someone with a good publication record from another institution (the case with the new lecturer).
They are playing this game, as publication records (especially first and last authorship of a good paper) are carried over from your previous institution to where you are now. I admit that I am not sure how the RAE really works, but as far as I know, and from what I hear, that seems to be the case.

So what happens? In our institutions, what happens is that you have a glut of PI recruits, every 5 years or so. The last one happened around 2-3 years ago (that's around the period when lecturers such as the WankerBoy and GorrillaGrrrl were given the position, and just before the new lecturer came to us). The one before, when my preivous boss was employed, must have occured around 8 years ago.
Actually, GorrillaGrrrl only came to our institution because her partner was given a chair (i.e. prof-ship) here. From the work that I have seen her do, she is not a particularly good fit in our group, or in our School for that matter - but I guess they had to give her a lecturership in some department to entice the partner to move.

When these new PIs arrive, what they find, is nothing. Often with no or little lab space, no money, hence no equipment or people. They are left alone to write grants and get money and get the funding.
From the Institution's point of view, what is the point in giving these people money? You see, all the Institution is interested is, is their publication record. If the new PI is not happy with the situation, and decides to leave in 4 years, well, then that's their problem. The Institution has achieved what they wanted - a decent RAE score from the person.

Same old shit

Went in to work today, and the same old people piss me off. In the space of two hours, both Mr.Strauss and the CheshireCat manages to piss me off.
And here I was thinking that I don't need this blog anymore coz I am more...patient and don't get too pissed off.

Ugh. And I'm really thinking about coming back???