Disgusted with myself. Advice on how to deal with letting down your mentor.

[BNSN]

I am disgusted with myself. I am irresponsible and a terrible undergraduate assistant -- a leech on my lab and mentor.

Atleast, that's how I feel right now.

First off, I have missed a deadline for a paper. My mentor is ok with it. As long as I get it in sometime tomorrow, it's ok. But I still hate it. I've gotten so much support and help yet I continue messing up. What is wrong with me?

Second, he wanted to take a brief look at another paper I was writing. This is finals week so I haven't had time to do a very good job, but I sent what I had in anyway and he was utterly underwhelmed. I knew it wasn't good. I told him it wasn't good. He knew it wasn't going to be good. I just wanted him to take a brief look and he just wanted to say if it was ok overall. But I still feel horrible, as if I wasted his time by asking him to read something so obviously terrible.

Third, I have been so unproductive in lab this semester. My western blots fail and fail and fail. And when they work and I think I'm ready to run a big experiment they fail again. I've used up a lot of antibodies and gels to no real avail.

We had a meeting earlier this week and I told him how I felt about my performance, but he disagreed and said I was doing ok -- that he'd give me an A for the semester if I was taking research credit. But I still think he's being nice for the sake of being nice.

Ugh.

What do you do when you feel like this? When you feel like you're a waste of resources, that your mentor would be better off without you wasting all his time with nonsense papers and stupid experiments.

Stupid academia.

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[QofQuimica]

What do you do when you feel like this? When you feel like you're a waste of resources, that your mentor would be better off without you wasting all his time with nonsense papers and stupid experiments.

Two things:

1) Unless your PI is a habitual liar, take him at his word. If he says that you're doing ok and he'd give you an A, then you're doing ok. End of discussion.

2) After you get your paper finished and your finals done, take a week or two off from the lab. You're really, really burned out.

 

[GWD]

I think a lo of us tend to be hypercritical of ourselves, but in a way I think that helps us to push ourselves and get the best out of ourselves.

I feel this way often, but if you put your foot down and commit to turning things around, after a few good productive days, I tend to feel much better.

As far as the blots go, I was still failing blots in my PhD rotations. I wouldn't sweat it unless you are just being lacadazical (sic) about trying to figure out what you are doing wrong. A lot of techniques are very sensitive, and often take a lot of practice and repetitions to become competant. That's why people continue to train in the capacity of a post-doc even AFTER they've gotten their PhD.

Since you are only an undergrad, I'd say you are already off to a good start. Just don't let your feelings of inadequacy snowball.

 

[MedRower]

Definitely be happy that your PI is so supportive.

This link seems appropriate as a cautionary tale, given the sentiment in your post. Don't let it get so bad.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9D00E5DB1F30F93AA15752C1A96E958260

 

[orrghead16]

I have met very few PIs that blow a lot of hot air when they know you well. Most let you know what they think. At least in my experience. They got to where they are now by being critical. Even if he secretly is a little POed that you have not made much progress, he is keeping positive because he likes you. More likely, he is just telling the truth and being understanding.

All this kind of makes me think of a good story. If you think you have slacked, wait until you hear some other stories.

A few summers ago, I had a reaaal late night during a weeknight after a few of my good friends were in town. Fall asleep, set every alarm I had to make sure I wake up on time to get into the lab.

I wake up to my cell phone ringing. My eyes first fall on my clock. It is almost 2 in the afternoon. I start freaking out and check to see who called. It was my PI. Freak out more, start cussing up a storm, and run up to throw some clothes on. After I am somewhat ready, my phone goes off. It is my PI again. I shout some expletives before I answer my phone.

Me: "hhello..." (trying to sound somewhat tired/sick/I don't know, I already knew I was screwed)
PI: "Nice to hear from you. Glad to know your alive."
Me: (SSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!TTT) "uhh, umm I, I..."
PI: "Where the F-bomb are you?!?" (obviously PISSED)
Me: "Uhhh, I uhh overslept, I will be there in five minutes"
PI: "Don't Bother." Click

I lay back down. Try to suffocate myself in my pillow. Scream a lot. Bang my head against the wall. Consider my life and dreams over, etc.

Finally work myself up to write him a long-winded apology by email and send it to him. No reply. Go to bed that night figuring I just got fired. Start throwing away my dreams of going to grad. school. Start thinking about going into construction for the rest of my life.

Wake up the next morning and debate whether I should call him or just go into work to get the final boot. Muster up enough courage to just go in, apologize, and get my stuff.

As I am walking into the lab, the PI walks out right into me. He has a look of pure anger. I freeze for what must have been a minute and have no idea what to say. I am sure my face went pale and I probably tried to mumble out something.

Out of no where, the PI just starts dying of laughter. Cannot stop laughing. I sit in silence just looking at him (WTF??? Is he going to kill me or something?). He finally regains himself. "If you are going to play Hookey, at least wait till a Friday. Just let me know so I don't have to worry about you. Understand?" I stammer off another apology. "Just get something done today." And walks away giggling. ?

Stupid freshman mistake. No excuses, completely irresponsible. We are still fine, and I have ended up on two of his papers, first author coming out, yada yada. At least you didn't do something completely irresponsible, a lot worse things can happen than being bogged down by finals. Don't beat yourself up over something you don't have so much control over. If you think you are a leech, look at my sad butt.

 

[kami333]

Oftentimes deadlines are just a suggestion (especially with book chapters, no one really turns them in on time so it's set like a month before the "real" deadline, if you do meet the first deadline, prepare for a lot of revisions since the editors have nothing else to do), and most PIs are frantically working on things right up until the deadline. I've only met one or two that actually plan ahead, some I've met don't start until the day of (case in point, my lab yesterday was scrambling to finish a grant in time for the Fedex guy, our PI didn't tell us about it until the morning).

Western blots failing? Never... My gf's been having massive trouble with her westerns all year, so now her PI wants to send her to Paris for a month to learn how to do it correctly (apparently they have this supersensitive method), lol.

Meh, it's science. Stuff never works correctly on time.

 

[Maxprime]

I am disgusted with myself. I am irresponsible and a terrible undergraduate assistant -- a leech on my lab and mentor.

Ridiculous. You're working in a field containing some of the brightest people on the planet - unless you purposely blow up the lab, no reason to feel disgusted with yourself. I don't mean this as an attacking remark, but you're an undergrad. The reason you don't get full tuition support and a stipend is because you're there to learn. If you already could do it all really well, you'd be a PI. (insert joke here)

First off, I have missed a deadline for a paper. My mentor is ok with it. As long as I get it in sometime tomorrow, it's ok. But I still hate it. I've gotten so much support and help yet I continue messing up. What is wrong with me?

What's wrong with you? You're just like the rest of us - too much stuff, not enough time, etc. - all you can do is your best - it sounds lame, but it's tough to refute.

Second, he wanted to take a brief look at another paper I was writing. This is finals week so I haven't had time to do a very good job, but I sent what I had in anyway and he was utterly underwhelmed. I knew it wasn't good. I told him it wasn't good. He knew it wasn't going to be good. I just wanted him to take a brief look and he just wanted to say if it was ok overall. But I still feel horrible, as if I wasted his time by asking him to read something so obviously terrible.

If you learned something, you didn't waste his time.

Third, I have been so unproductive in lab this semester. My western blots fail and fail and fail. And when they work and I think I'm ready to run a big experiment they fail again. I've used up a lot of antibodies and gels to no real avail.

1) Experiments fail all the time - despite what we tell ourselves, it's probably rarely our fault.

2) YOU'RE AN UNDERGRAD - you're supposed to be unproductive in lab. If you could do perfect Westerns 100% of the time, I'd be pissed off that I was wasting my time "teaching" you as you show me up.

We had a meeting earlier this week and I told him how I felt about my performance, but he disagreed and said I was doing ok -- that he'd give me an A for the semester if I was taking research credit. But I still think he's being nice for the sake of being nice.

Scientists are short on time and warm feelings - what they say about your performance is often pretty accurate of how they feel.


Take some time off - it's the end of the semester, we've all earned it. Stay away from SDN, the lab, even your inbox - go to the beach, slice up an orange, and crack open a blue moon. 🙂

 

[Gfunk6]

Ridiculous. You're working in a field containing some of the brightest people on the planet - unless you purposely blow up the lab, no reason to feel disgusted with yourself.

I could not disagree more. You have dishonored not only yourself, but also your lab, your mentor and the entire field of biomedical research.

Your only alternative at this point is to commit seppuku.

P.S. I'm kidding. I agree w/ Maxprime -- you are being uncessarily hard on yourself.

 

[Decepticon]

Hey, I like this thread.

I can see myself in the opening poster, as I have several times felt like my motivation hasn't matched the impression I wanted to give others, or the motivation wasn't sufficient to get results to pay back others' confidence in me. But not just that, I am also plain sloppy, and keep oversleeping, or just turn up late. I don't have any real research experience as a med student, so it is kinda funny that I can give some advice here, there is a gem of a book called "when I say no, I feel guilty" by Manuel Smith that deals with how to cope assertively with your own flaws. I think it is the best book I have ever read.

Here is an excerpt from the book: Mom is late for a shopping round with her daughter.

SARA: Hi! I'm late. (negative assertion)
KATY: You sure are! I've been waiting for you for over half an hour.
SARA: That's irritating when you have to wait. I don't blame you for being mad at me. [fogging]
KATY: What have you been doing to take you so long getting here?
SARA: Nothing. It's my fault entirely. I just didn't look at the clock and made a late start. Just a stupid thing to do.
KATY: Well, I wish you would be here when you say you are going to be here. You are always late.
SARA: I am, aren't I? That's dumb for me to be careless when you were waiting for me. [FOGGING and NEGATIVE ASSERTION]
KATY: (silent)
SARA: Where do you want to start first? The U.N or Contempo?


Why don't people just come forward with the situations they are fearing, then maybe we all together could find practical examples on how to deal with the situations? I mean, you could tell me I shouldn't show up late, but there is no chance in hell that is gonna happen, so let's try to find a way to be more comfortable in the situations that arise, whether it is oversleeping, killing a thermocycler, sucking cell culture too far into the pipettes and so on?

 

[Decepticon]

Ridiculous. You're working in a field containing some of the brightest people on the planet - unless you purposely blow up the lab, no reason to feel disgusted with yourself.

It is not ridiculous. People usually feel sorry + feel the need to let others know they are sorry when they screw up, even if unintentional. Actually, chances are you wouldn't bother feeling sorry if you screwed up intentionally, as you would probably have accepted the consequences in advance.

I think people apologize and feel sorry, because they are afraid, and being apologetic is a defense mechanism. We are brought up learning that we should feel sorry when we cause situations that cause harm to other people. And we should repent.

But biologically, this doesn't do you any good. It doesn't cause the problem to go away. It is just like a program that orders you to feel bad, being anxious, and get a headache. I can't see much good about having a headache, unless you are a sadomasochistic neurologist. 😉 Actually, stop using the word sorry altogether. Wipe it off your vocabulary. Instead, use NEGATIVE ASSERTION, FOGGING and SELF-DISCLOSURE to deal with problems.

I wake up to my cell phone ringing. It is my PI again. I shout some expletives before I answer my phone.

Me: Hi.
PI: "Nice to hear from you. Glad to know your alive."
Me: Yeah, I didn't make it to work this morning. I should have called you earlier.
PI: Yeah, damn right you should have. Where the **** are you?
Me: I am at home. I overslept.
PI: Whaddaya mean, you overslept?
Me: I just woke up when you called me. I can totally understand you would be upset. This is very unprofessional of me.
PI: You oversleep again and again. I want you to get your *** in here on time.
Me: I understand. Do you still want me to come in today?

Try that next time. There will be a next time.

 

[Jorje286]

It is not ridiculous. People usually feel sorry + feel the need to let others know they are sorry when they screw up, even if unintentional.

Yes, but the point is that he couldn't have screwed up that much if his PI thinks he deserves an A for his work. I'm pretty sure he's not saying that for the sake of being nice.

I think the OP is primarily not living up into his own expectations of himself. So what he needs to do is simply lower his expectations of himself and start working on time management skills. And no it doesn't happen overnight. Some people just don't have good time management/organizational skills, and it takes time to get better in those. I can sympathsize because I think I'm one of those people. I learned though that I can't do 10000000 things and be excellent in all of them.

 

[GWD]

(case in point, my lab yesterday was scrambling to finish a grant in time for the Fedex guy, our PI didn't tell us about it until the morning).

You think that's bad? That's like S.O.P. for our group. You should see some of the ridiculous stuff that gets pulled in our lab.

On the last grant we submitted (actually it was a BARDA proposal), we cut it so close that the PI, Study Director, and one of the post-docs pulled an all nighter to get it finished in time, and then it was PHYSICALLY FLOWN out to Washington and hand-delivered so that we would meet the submission deadline.

I swear to God sometimes that surgeons have a compulsory need to work under conditions of pressure and drama!

 

[BNSN]

Thanks, guys! I really appreciate everyone's responses. I read each and everyone of them.

1) Unless your PI is a habitual liar, take him at his word. If he says that you're doing ok and he'd give you an A, then you're doing ok. End of discussion.

2) After you get your paper finished and your finals done, take a week or two off from the lab. You're really, really burned out.

He's not a habitual liar. In fact, he's really straight forward and to the point. He doesn't mess around. He told me that during out meeting.

As for 2...yes, I should. In fact, my PI told me I should take a break and made fun of me a few times for being in lab today right after finals ended. But I really feel the need to be productive. So I'm gonna not need your obviously correct advice.

I think a lo of us tend to be hypercritical of ourselves, but in a way I think that helps us to push ourselves and get the best out of ourselves.

Bingo. I think it's just hypercriticism of ourselves based on our own criteria, not others.

And, MaxPrime, I think you're spot on. Especially about experiments failing but it not being our fault. Some antibodies just don't work!