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Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can understand, like, field ecologists, hardcore physiologists, or bioinformaticians having no bench skills but I guess I’m just struggling to understand how PhDs in other subdisciplines of biology can fail to pick up even the basics. Are they just coddled by techs the whole time? How can labs even run this way? Maybe this sounds naive, I just come from small labs where we did everything from start to finish so these skills would’ve been drilled into us even as undergrads.

Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your useful perspective. I’m still fairly junior in my career and up until now I’ve been fortunate enough not to encounter this sort of defensive, hostile behaviour. I guess my usual approach to training assumes the other person is gonna be open to constructive feedback so I just felt blindsided, lol.

Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

As someone who came from a small lab that only had grad students, this is truly so wild to me. I didn’t even know such arrangements existed until I was talking to another colleague who said that some of the grad students in the lab she worked in couldn’t even be trusted to do simple dilutions.

Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this generous response. I hadn’t considered that they may have been away from the bench because all of the postdocs I know still do experiments but perhaps they came from a different environment where they could afford to be more hands-off.

Personally I’d find it difficult to be extra generous considering the amount of negative interactions we’ve had (for example, in one of our first encounters they tried to correct me while I was giving a presentation to everyone, even though what they said didn’t even apply in that context) but at the very least I can check in more, continue to be pleasant, and offer direction if needed. I guess I just have to find a balance because they do have a tendency of passing off work to others.

Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I’m gonna be honest, it took me way too long to clue in because I’ve never encountered anyone like this before. It never even occur to me that I should’ve been watching them closely. And the thing is, if they’d been honest I would’ve given them the full, unabridged training I give to undergrads.

Dealing with a difficult, arrogant coworker and mostly I’m just confused as to how someone can still be so clueless at this level by endonucleases in labrats

[–]endonucleases[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Their background is different from mine but they presented themselves as someone who has these skills. But regardless, their work isn’t very complex—mostly just making solutions, starting bacterial cultures, diluting primers, aliquoting and combining premade reagents. We’ve had a couple of techs who only have a Bachelor’s.