How Lab Politics eat you and your project:(

Most of the posts I come across are about supervisors and their bad attitude which is no doubt a big problem and hinders progress, makes you mad and destroys you and your career. In addition to that, even if your supervisor is good and Lab fellows are not, it's equal damage. So today's post is about that...

Generally, the present work, when you start is new to you and you will ask questions from seniors and also try to help lab-mates with their work so that your could learn and earn good name, but if request you make to them to teach you is met with hostile remarks, you are in wrong place. Unfortunately, nothing much can be done about this hell at official level. Highlighting them would make you more vulnerable if you are not with someone to stand at your back, teach you to manipulate them and sometimes supervisors seem to aggravate the situation and mostly they don't care. Some inside people will fan the situation for fun. I don't know about European countries but it is a typical mind set here, leg pulling and make one a target for fun. I have seen Labbies even yell at new comers for no reason, just to make sure that they are considered more knowledgeable, more powerful and more established.

Communication is sometimes indirect, sometimes direct but mostly unclear, controlled, and often manipulated. Breakage/equipment failure is not reported and one is made scapegoat in front of the supervisor/management...:(

You are kept isolated from their company and in the dark about what is going on.They back stab you in front of supervisor/management.

Your supervisor  kind of blames you for your attitude in most cases!
This definitely makes one mad due to unfair situation, there is a limit for misunderstanding and conflict.
Best solution is to change Lab. You deserve more than you are getting. Don't leave hope and let yourself be vulnerable.The damage done to your mental and other health as a consequence would be far greater as compared to the six months or a year you waste while searching for some other proper Lab. Please don't play with your life.

I seriously think that there should be an International body governing/aiding all scientific activity and serious Laws to protect the victims and punish the culprits. 

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Lab confessions

Hahahaha!
You think I 'm going to confess here?
Not in a million years,but your effort of opening this tab shouldn't go to waste entirely so here is a piece of entertainment for you,relevant to the topic:)

A little while ago,someone on twitter started the #LabConfessions trend. Loads of scientists from all around the world tweeted the absurdities committed by them in Lab.Some of them are compiled here for your enjoyment.You can add to the list in the comments section:)

Happy reading:)

1.The last sentence on the last page of my PhD thesis says 'Well that's what I think anyway". Nobody's noticed yet.

2.I wet my shorts right before my first conference talk of my career

3.The worst letter from an editor: "Unfortunately, I must accept the paper for publication because three reviewers said so."

4.As a postdoc, I discovered that ciliates are phylogenetically closer to cows than to one another. Gave up wet science.

5.I saw a grad student jump into a bush to avoid my advisor and I told

6.I published a techniques paper just so I could say "arse" in presentations at conferences.

7.I once gave terrible honours student tubes of water to pipette rather than valuable cDNA for PCR. Did real expt myself

8.I often forget to take the lid off Petri dishes when pouring agar plates

9.I often label wrong side of petri plates b4 pouring agar

10.Once stuck my Prof to the toilet floor by throwing liquid nitrogen under the cubicle door

11. Interesting,back then in my first days at the lab, I was given pH strips with a tiny comparison chart to check the pH of my buffer. Instead of dipping the clear red strip, I dipped the whole comparison chart in the buffer thinking the specific color change will occur at one of the pH points on it. My PI entered the room and was looking at me. Felt bad the whole day coz he thought I knew and I screwed up.....with a basic pH test, still feel bad now that I've remembered.

12. I 'm not positive but I might have ruined the lab manager's Saturday night by misreading the thermometer.I was working late, and no one else was around, and upon opening the -20 freezer I happened to check the temperature and noticed it was well above -20. I panicked. I ended up calling the PI and the lab manager, and the lab manager drove 30-45 minutes from home to get to the lab in case we needed to move all the stuff out to other freezers. But by the time she arrived, the thermometer was pretty close to -20 again. I don't know if it's because I had been opening and closing it a lot while I was working, or because I misread the thermometer in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius (why would a Science Thermometer even have Fahrenheit gradations?), but I noticed Fahrenheit was the side that was currently exposed.

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Hah:)

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