lol there's so much about this guy, because I've known him for so long and at such close quarters in lab. I just wrote this whole long post, but it was a wall of text so even though this post is long, it's actually about half as long as what spewed out when I started thinking about this guy. I'll probably mention him again in this thread. I'll call him PPMC because "pretentious pre-med c***" is a great description of this guy.
Alright, some background. We're the same year, although I've been working in the lab for longer. We are actually both going to be attending the same medical school
barf
this fall, so RIP me I guess. This guy has been problematic since day 1. He doesn't listen to what the grad students tell him, he acts like he knows better than us, when someone explains something to him, he never responds "ok," instead he always says, "well, but as far as I know, shouldn't we do it this way?" We originally thought he was a misogynist because he did it to all of the women in our lab, but then when he started working with the single male in our lab, he did it to him too, so he's an equal opportunity jerk, which is better, I guess.
- PPMC liked asking me how I was doing in biochem every time he saw me even though I told him I wasn't doing so well (so in the same vein as the premeds freedoctor and foxy just referred to), but joke's on him, because I didn't have to re-take the MCAT like he did.
- I got into medical school through an early acceptance program in sophomore year, so this year when he mentioned interviews during lab meeting, my PI was like, "hey, why don't you ask dragon for help, she's obviously been successful at med school interviews in the past!" and he looked like he'd been asked to swallow a frog.
- He just cannot take criticism, at all. Like he's not one of those harmful, cutthroat premeds, he just seems to have low self-esteem that requires constant affirmation, and he gets defensive at the slightest criticism. I'm just like, "good luck, dude. If you can't take constructive criticism from these really nice people in undergrad, have fun dealing with med school and residency, where a lot of people won't bother pulling any punches."
- So last year, I signed up for an undergrad poster conference on campus; I had never made a poster before, so I went to the communal office to ask one of the grad students about making a poster. She gave me some solid advice and said, "Here, I'll send you a poster that I presented at one of the conferences I went to last year." PPMC is also in the office. He calls me over and goes, "Dragon, I overheard you talking to [grad student]. I have a poster that I made for my honors chem lab last year for our final project, and I think it could be really helpful. I got a really good grade on it. What's your email address, I'll send it to you." He was honestly trying to help, but he acted as though his little class project poster was equivalent to the poster that a 5th year PhD student had presented at a national conference. This is so common with him. He just thinks he knows more than everyone.
lol sorry if that was long. This isn't even everything. The problem with PPMC is that he isn't a bad person per se, he's just really bad at social cues, seems to have very few friends, is a gunner, and has low self-esteem coupled with this weird egotism. He wants to be friends with all of us, and we try to be nice, but it's so hard to be nice to someone as annoying as him. So then I feel bad hating him. And it's difficult to explain to people why I hate him so much. He's one of those people you just have to know to really dislike, but if you guys knew him, I am 99% sure you would hate him too. He just rubs people the wrong way. We got a new grad student and she jumped on the PPMC-hating wagon within 2 weeks of joining.
I just ended the conversation there because I didn't have enough patience to keep going. Maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt since she's a teenager, she'll learn.... hopefully.
