What a welcoming party
Surprisingly this story is not about my time at UVA, I guess administrative messes can happen anywhere.
The story starts during the last semester of my senior year at UC Berkeley. I interview for volunteer lab positions at CHORI, which was a research institution close enough for me to commute to during my off year. One of the labs that I met with basically told me that they just needed me to wash dishes for them, and I told them I don't mind having cleaning duties but would like to have my own project. I did not get the position.
Fast forward to the summer where it is now my first week working at CHORI in a lab that actually wanted my free services. During some sort of social gathering I am approached by the lab that had turned me down, and they basically tell me that when I had interviewed with them it was a hectic time (implying that had made a mistake turning me down) and they wanted to see if I was interested in leaving the lab I had just started working in and work for them instead.
I have to admit, although I think it is extremely inappropriate for a lab to try and steal a researcher from another lab, especially one they already passed on, these people do have some balls. It's clear that they didn't read my resume when I interviewed with them, and now that they know who I am they are trying to make up for their mistake. I'm a loyal person so I wouldn't desert a lab I had just committed to, and definitely not to a lab that had turned me down. Besides, what am I supposed to tell my new lab? Umm, thanks for the few days we had together but I think I'll go see what this lab across the hall is like?
So that was my first week at CHORI. Not much later my lab tells me that some top official at CHORI saw me in the newspaper and didn't realize that a famous student was working at CHORI. He wants me to participate in the summer program and share my vast knowledge with the students. I didn't know much about this summer program, I just knew that the students had to attend meetings and give presentations, and that they were getting paid. I ask if I'll get paid if I take part in the program. I'm told I won't. Eh, it's not much work so I ask when the next meeting is.
I show up at the next meeting and as soon as the meeting starts the person running it reminds the students that shorts are not allowed and looks right at me (I'll wear shorts and there's nothing you can do about it!). He then has some piece of paper in front of him and starts calling off the names of people who haven't turned in an assignment I'm obviously not aware of. Needless to say, my name is on the list and he again stares at me with disdain. At this point I'm sitting there laughing to myself thinking about how they really rolled out the red carpet for me.
The class finally starts and it's an extremely boring lecture on ethics in science. I'm not sure who the genius is who thought teaching ethics will improve the ethics of scientists. Does learning about religion make you religious? They then handed out a worksheet on ethics and I was gone never to return again. That's not the only time I've walked out on an ethics class by the way.
