So, it is now 5:46pm on a Wednesday evening and I am exhausted and feeling a bit down. Besides the fact that I am a part-time graduate student in the Master in Public Health program, I am also working full time in a research lab. It is tiring, but at least I'm happy. I'm happy that I'm back in school after a year of break. I'm happy that I am working towards a goal and not just routinely going to work and getting off work.
However, I was a bit afraid these classes may interfere with my work. Today I had so much to do, and I try getting all my experiments done efficiently. But, maybe its because I am tired or that I am "trying too hard" or that I may not be used to this type of schedule yet, but I have overlooked certain details that have led to my mistakes. However, I also have to take into consideration that I am working with new, unfamiliar experiments and maybe should just cut myself some slack.
Anyways, my boss made me feel a little guilty and dumb about my errors. I could never estimate my time correctly. And since the gel that I poured out contained the wrong sized combs, I had to do another one, which puts me back 1/2 to 45min behind my schedule for the day. I thought, "well, that's ok because I can still get it done and have my boss run the gel or come back after class to do it". He wanted to run the gel with me because the markers were smeared in the previous runs. Anyways, I apologize but reminded him that I had class at 2:45pm. He said he had a meeting at 3pm and gave me the most exasperated look. I apologize and of course felt guilty, because I'm the type of person that punish myself spiritually for my mistakes. To tell you the truth, I don't even need people to scold me for my mistakes because I punish myself or feel so upset about it. I guess I set high standards for myself.
But anyways, I felt a bit guilty and thought about it for the longest time in class. But the more I think about it, the more its not entirely my fault. Sure, it was my responsibility to set up the gel and it was my mistake to use the wrong sized combs; however, he should remember that I have class every Wed. at 2:45pm. And I hope he does not mention that school is interfering with work because that is the only class interfering with my work schedule. I usually get off at 3:30pm, so its only 45min. early and I make up my time on other days. Even though I have class at 4:30pm on Tues & Thurs and 4pm on Monday, those are after working hours, so he should not take them into consideration in the argument of whether they are or are not interfering with work. I like this job and I love learning but since this is a job, my purpose during those 8 hours is to do my experiments diligently and efficiently. From time to time, I would make a mistake or two, but that's completely unacceptable and understandable. However, I am not obligated to work overtime (which I do and I don't keep tab of my hours, so I don't remember to leave early to make up for those overworked hours). This is what they say the craze of "academica" because of working in an academic research lab.
*sigh* he is really not a bad boss but I think he is under a lot of stress and pressure and is more irritable than usual. This means I need to watch what I say, how I say it, and what I do.
I didn't even tell him that I accidentally added the wrong drug additives, well they were not wrong but I added them too early. Good thing I realized it minutes after adding it and I transfer the media to other wells and changed its media. However, I didn't wash it with 1xPBS, which would wash off the drugs. But the more I think about, it may do more harm because the conditions would make the cells unhappy. And by adding new media, the drugs conc. is miniscule. And I don't think it will affect the results by much (hopefully) because I would be adding the same drugs at the same conc that I added today on Monday next week. And since it was incubated for only a little while (minutes) and I removed the media immediately, I don't think it would cause a large effect. Of course, the optimal result from this experiment would be to do this correctly from beginning to end, but you can predict accidents.
