Well this is the second time this month that I've had my ass handed to me by a boss/colleague. Yep, LL ass met your hand. Get comfortable because this might be what is like for you during the next month.
Ass/hand #1:
My lovely B-o-s-s is repopulating the world which means I've been primarily working with other team members. No problem, except the approach is much different. I haven't worked in that kind of academic in environment in years, where people really take the hierarchical approach to delegate work to employees. This is in stark contrast to the team-based approach I'm used to. Anyways, my ass met my hands earlier this month when I was told very directly to get some work done that I had been putting off. My post-doc colleagues was also put in her place with what specifically she could be doing.
Ass/hand #2:
This semester I've been taking a pass/fail grant writing class for two credits, which has yet again reminded me that I don't have the strength/energy/passion to be in classes anymore. I refuse to let myself to do much which means I am getting enough work done each week but not going anywhere near my normal standard of over and beyond. And what is worse is I've been angling for a new job and so I want to show the teacher that I am capable. The teacher, who I greatly admire, has mentioned interest in some of my ideas and putting it into a pilot grant. I'm not sure if this is just encouragement or something that he is actually planning. And of course this last month has been more difficult to spend my entire weekends doing work because my gay husbands were around and you know I was raising over $12,000 for the Lupus Foundation. Well yesterday in class he handed me my ass.
The gist of it went a little something like this (in a dumb down paraphrase): me "I just need a C to pass", him "you have to finish the entire grant", me "well I've wrote alot in each section", him "you have to finish the entire grant or I'll fail you." Yep, apparently I need to write an entire NIH grant, in full, in order to get a passing grade. Apparently this includes filling in each section of the already outlined in my 20 page justification. Crap, I wonder if I hadn't outlined these sections completely, that it would be good enough at this point.
I'm not stupid, I'm on to you. Here you have a class with 2 students, and one of them is a faculty who is voicing the desire to move up and forward in your organization. You and I both know I've done enough to get a passing grade, but why not push a little more to get her to finish it so that you can perhaps use it later. Right, right? She has the potential and with two weeks left, you are going to threaten poor grades to get what you want.
OK OK I get it. I took a couple hours, built a fecking bridge, then got over it. I sat my ass down last night and wrote my revision for the thesis article acceptance to get it off to WA, and continued revising the other work related revise/resubmit. I'm going to get my confidence up and this weekend I'm going to be fecking nose to the grindstone. No HH, no yoga, no happiness in LL's life. It is going to be straight fecking grant writing. I'm going to want to kill myself by Monday but I'm NOT taking an incomplete and I can't fail it otherwise the University will also hand me my ass.
Alright that was well-played, professor. Point and advantage, for the smart colleagues who know me too well and know how to hand my ass to me in ways I don't back down from.
PS, next time I start talking about making myself a better professional or person, someone shoot me in the head. Seriously, I'm not allowed to do this to myself anymore!!!
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