Post-doc not responding to emails

[Beyonce2.0]

Apologies in advance if I sound like I'm overreacting (and also for the block of text, lol).

Basically, I've been trying to get in contact with my post-doc for about 2 months, but she hasn't been responding to any of my emails. I emailed her back in June with some analyzed data she wanted, asking about what the next step is. Then I emailed her a couple more times since then, asking for some help in thinking of a project to pursue this upcoming semester. None of this is crazy urgent, but I'm starting to worry if I did something wrong, because we've been working together for about a year, and we've had a pretty good relationship. She even wrote me a rec letter for some summer programs I applied to. The only thing I can think of is that I got the analyzed data to her a few days late, but I apologized profusely in the email, so I don't know if that's a reason to ignore me?

I should note that I also texted her a few weeks ago to see if she had been receiving my emails, and I emailed the grad student we both work with to see if he knows I could get in touch with her, but have received no response. I'm at a summer program right now, so I can't really head down to the lab to talk to her. I've also seen her send emails to the lab email list, so I know she has access to email, lol. I don't really want to email the PI because I feel like it's kind of rude going over her head like that (and if there wasn't a problem, there probably would be one then). Any thoughts or advice? Or am I just blowing this way out of proportion?

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[Beyonce2.0]

Lol I feel like the world is gaslighting me rn, anyone?


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[MetaGenomics1]

Apologies in advance if I sound like I'm overreacting (and also for the block of text, lol).

Basically, I've been trying to get in contact with my post-doc for about 2 months, but she hasn't been responding to any of my emails. I emailed her back in June with some analyzed data she wanted, asking about what the next step is. Then I emailed her a couple more times since then, asking for some help in thinking of a project to pursue this upcoming semester. None of this is crazy urgent, but I'm starting to worry if I did something wrong, because we've been working together for about a year, and we've had a pretty good relationship. She even wrote me a rec letter for some summer programs I applied to. The only thing I can think of is that I got the analyzed data to her a few days late, but I apologized profusely in the email, so I don't know if that's a reason to ignore me?

I should note that I also texted her a few weeks ago to see if she had been receiving my emails, and I emailed the grad student we both work with to see if he knows I could get in touch with her, but have received no response. I'm at a summer program right now, so I can't really head down to the lab to talk to her. I've also seen her send emails to the lab email list, so I know she has access to email, lol. I don't really want to email the PI because I feel like it's kind of rude going over her head like that (and if there wasn't a problem, there probably would be one then). Any thoughts or advice? Or am I just blowing this way out of proportion?

From my experience as a graduate student and those of my classmates there are many possible explanations. If the post-doc has a student and faculty email from the same university emails can get diverted to one account vs the other. I don't think you necessarily did anything wrong, often graduate students will just avoid their research assistants for a variety of reasons. I can recall a semester or two were I ignored the RA's emails...not because I was upset at their work...I just didn't have any tasks for them to do. My PI & post-bac have done the same to me if it's nothing urgent and eventually respond a month later.

 

[aldol16]

Post-docs are busy people - working hard to get publications, applying for faculty or industry positions, networking, worrying about their futures, etc. It's likely that the post-doc wasn't able to answer your questions immediately and set aside your messages to think about them later... and then subsequently forgot to think about them. It doesn't sound like you need something urgent from the post-doc so the best course of action would probably be to just wait until you can meet in person to speak. If you're only asking about ideas about a potential future project, he/she probably wants you to go through the literature and come up with that by yourself. That's what science is all about - forming hypotheses and testing them.

 

[Beyonce2.0]

Looks like I was just being paranoid, she just replied to my email. Thanks guys!


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