Witnessing idiocy

It seems to be part of human nature that we all think we're smarter than somebody else at least once in our lives.

Some of us feel that way all the time. Some will argue ceaselessly even when they're wrong.

Some days I feel particularly stubborn and irritated by stupidity.

One of the things that drives me nuts, especially common among academic types, are people who take things too literally or will argue over mechanics when they're missing the larger point I was trying to make. And they're not patient or open-minded enough to try to see where I was going, they just start nit-picking in a way that doesn't get anybody anywhere nearer to enlightenment.

Sometimes I get really frustrated at my own inability to communicate what I think, or just not being in the right position to say what I think at any given moment.

For example: replying to comments on my blog, not being able to come up with the right way to illustrate a concept in a persuasive way and being told I'm doing it all wrong, when that really wasn't the point in the first place

Or, seeing people stretching the wrong way at the gym. It drives me crazy knowing they're getting nothing out of it and will probably injure themselves, and here I could totally prevent that but it's not my job, I shouldn't butt in

Dealing with stupid self-checkout at the grocery store that is designed really poorly and doesn't work very well or make any sense. Wondering if I'm taking it all too literally. But then seeing that not only am I frustrated, but also overhearing the guy next to me asking the supervising cashier perfectly reasonable questions about things we've seen real cashiers do at their stations but the machines won't let us do at the self-checkout station

Getting home and realizing I forgot something I needed at the grocery store

Isn't it funny how some of us are expected to remind everybody else of everything they're supposed to do, but nobody reminds us? And I'm probably only that way because my mother always reminded me of everything and it drove me nuts when I was growing up, but now I do it and people take it for granted that I'll be the reminder? The rememberer? So if I actually do forget something, they assume it's deliberate and I'm mad at them?

I don't really want to remember everything all the time. I really don't.

Some days I can't stand even witnessing personal conflict from afar, like watching friends ranting on Facebook and realizing that while they have a point, the person they're mad at might be crazy or uncomprehending and I just feel so bad for how hurt they are but there's nothing I can do. And knowing at the same time that ranting on Facebook isn't going to help their case at all, but I can't say that, I shouldn't butt in

One of the things I hated most about being a postdoc was watching people fuck things up on a daily basis, but knowing they didn't want my advice and wouldn't follow my protocols even when they asked me for them

And yet, it seems to be an inescapable feature of adult life. I put all this effort into learning how to do things, and I would dearly love to save other people the trouble of learning the hard way. But that knowledge and experience is essentially useless because nobody wants to hear it from me

Which is another reason I wouldn't want to have children. My parents thought they knew everything, and even though I frequently suspected they were wrong, what choice did I have as a minor? To run away? I had to live by their rules, their expectations, their advice and their control

Another thing I see on Facebook, and that I'm seeing more of lately, is my friends having children. And realizing that some of them are really great parents, and some are not. And it is hard to watch people I dearly love, as friends, fucking up their children's lives almost from day 1. And I don't know how to respect that, how to be accepting, or how to say to them gently "Um, you know, maybe it's not fair to be such a controlling perfectionist about your kid, even if that's how you do everything else in your life and that's okay because it's your life"? And knowing that it's not my place to butt in

But wishing there were something I could do to save those poor kids from growing up the way I did, just wishing somebody would please butt in

and stand up for me because we can't always stand up for ourselves

And how modern psychology would probably say this is what I kept hoping for in my career, for somebody to hear me say I needed help and butt in

But our culture seems to think that's somehow impolite, that you should keep to yourself, even when you see things that are unfair or unethical or inhumane, you should just remember it's not your place to butt in

How to fail again

I was talking to a friend of mine this week about the disappointment of not making progress with therapy. She said she finally, after several years, stopped choosing the wrong kind of guy. And how she finally realized that she wasn't just making mistakes, she was seeking out and attaching onto things that were bad for her.

I was saying how part of what my therapist wanted me to do was stop blaming myself for my current predicament, since that kind of thinking obviously worsens depression. However, there's a logical paradox when you're also telling me, if I understand it correctly, that according to this kind of psychology, I got myself into this situation by choosing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.

So of course I've been over and over and over my decisions, obviously, trying to figure out what I could have done differently, knowing what I know now. Trying to hash out for myself, what were my motivations at the time, did I really do everything I could have done given the circumstances, etc.

1. Was I presented with better options that I passed up?

Not really, no, I don't think so.

2. Could I have waited longer and looked around more?

Sure, I guess so. You usually can look harder if you can afford the time.

3. Would that have made much difference in where I ended up?

Maybe. But the statistics being somewhat against me, I think I probably would have many of the same problems no matter what lab I joined.

When I said this, my friend and I talked some about the whole "where did we go wrong?" thing and the improbability of finding a good lab. And I had to laugh my ass off at something she said. I think she'll forgive me for posting it here (although I'm not sure if she even reads this blog).

So we were saying how, if you go into grad school with even a vague idea of what you want to work on (let's say you want to research Cheeseburgers), you're already limiting yourself tremendously. So here is what she said (more or less):

First, you apply to a bunch of schools and maybe you get some offers so you have some choice about where you live, etc. and you pick one based on how the interview went.

By picking one school, you've just limited yourself to X number (let's say a few hundred or at most a couple thousand at a huge school) possible science labs on that campus.

Of those advisers, let's say only 50 or at most a few hundred are in your Graduate Program and have space in their labs or whatever.

Then, of those in your Graduate Program, only about 5 of them work on anything related to what you want to do with Cheeseburgers.

And, of those 5:

1 is completely crazy
1 just found out they won't get tenure and they're leaving
1 will lose their funding in two years and one day they'll suddenly say they can't pay you

and the other two were married, but they're getting divorced, and the guy is sleeping with his postdoc (and they'll all three be embroiled in the lawsuit over child custody for the next several years)

Granted, she was joking, but it was funny because it's SO TRUE in academia that it's really hard to find a good "mentor" who is also not going through a personal or professional crisis of some kind.

As graduate students and postdocs, we're not supposed to have any ideas, much less the desire or ability to work on them (and certainly not the resources!). But nobody tells you, as much as they want you to succeed, that it's almost statistically impossible to find someone who is smart enough, sane enough, funded enough, and supportive enough to really be a good mentor.... oh yeah and then there's all that stuff about personalities meshing and biases and whatever else that means even if you do find someone who isn't a wreck, you might not really mesh.

So the chances that you'll find an amazing mentor who not only lets you think and work on your own ideas and guides you but doesn't squelch you and ALSO likes you enough to really promote you and not just take credit for your work but actually give you credit and support?

Very slim chances indeed.

Oh yeah, and you don't only have to do this once. You have to do it, in most cases, at least twice. Once as a grad student, and at least once as a postdoc.

Yeah, good luck with that. Roll the dice.

So it was kind of reassuring to hear my friend do this math out loud in such a logical, funny and accurate way. It made me think a little less of it is really about choices and blame. It's just a totally illogical statistical game.

But having already thought about Cheeseburgers and the Burger Kings who run my field, I had already concluded that one source of my problems has been the field that I chose.

Having said that, I'm still not really interested in switching fields, at least not for a nonscientific reason. That just seems completely spineless and stupid to me, considering that I'm still interested in what I work on.

Nor am I entirely convinced that any of the other fields I am peripherally interested in wouldn't be just as bad (or worse) once I spent enough time there to know what's really going on.

And I'm not convinced, no matter how simple it might sound as a solution, that quitting science would magically prevent me from ever getting into these kinds of situations again.

That's the psychology way of looking at it, anyway. According to that model, I am choosing my own hell, basically, even if I'm doing it unconsciously, because it feels familiar after growing up in a totally dysfunctional household and blah blah blah.

I'm just not sure I buy it. I don't know if I was "meant" to be a scientist, or whatever. But I think it was something I chose for perfectly valid reasons. I just don't see why I should be getting blamed for the sad fact that science as a career is mightily fucked up. Especially when nobody tells you that.

Nor do I see why nobody's doing a single fucking thing* about it.

*And no, blogging does not count.

Response to PiT

PiT wrote a couple of long comments, a couple of posts ago. Here is my response. Okay, so I'm in a pissy mood today. But let's be honest. It's a blog, and I don't have to be nice.

PiT,

I appreciate that you're trying to be blunt. I applaud that, actually, and encourage you to keep it up.

With that in mind, I'll do the same.

I gotta say, if you've really read my blog, then you know - and so does everyone else - you aren't saying anything new. In fact, I'm kind of astounded at your complete lack of creativity. Is this really all you can come up with?

Because it's like, um, a cliffs notes version of EVERYTHING I'VE ALREADY HEARD AND BLOGGED ABOUT???????????

I never used cliffs notes. And I'm sure as hell not going to start now.

So let's be totally blunt. If you had actually read my blog, then you would know that there's a real possibility that I might be happier quitting science completely than continuing on with any sort of lame-ass bullshit.

Industry lame-ass bullshit or more postdoc lame-ass abusive fucking bullshit. FUCK. THAT.

What's the point, anyway? NOBODY CARES what I have to contribute to science.

NOBODY CARES. NOBODY. I mean, seriously. I don't get one fucking shred of positive feedback on my work for months at a time, and then they wonder why I'm having career doubts.

I mean, Seriously????

And having said that, I will say what else I feel like saying today:

Fuck you, NIH and grad school.

And oh, by the way America? This is the cause of the so-called 'shortage' of scientists in this country.

PEOPLE WITH PhDs ARE EITHER FORCED OUT, OR DROP OUT, OUT OF SHEER FED-UPness.

I'd rather work in a fucking donut shop. I mean, seriously. There's more creativity in designing patterns of colored sprinkles than I see from most employed scientists.

Why does the thought of quitting make me cry?

Today, I want to quit. I really really want to quit.

But for some reason, that makes me sad. I don't know why. I guess I feel defeated, or something, and I hate to think I'm quitting because I give up?

But I do give up. I am SO gave up. I don't have anything left to give. And I get nothing for it. So why should I keep doing it?

Do I want to quit for the wrong reasons?

Am I hating science because I'm not good enough at it? Or am I not doing as well as I could because I never liked science as much as the successful people do?

I'm definitely angry. It doesn't help that I've confirmed, in the last year, that contradictory data were deliberately left out of at least two papers whose conclusions I know to be false. And those papers are preventing me from publishing what I've been working on.

Yeah, that's fair. I'm angry that there's no justice in the world, but especially in science.

I pulled out some of my career change books that I re-read every few years (at the end of grad school, for example).

I guess this is the part where I go through and tick off transferable skills and think about what I want to do.

I've decided that what I hate most about science is the general lack of integrity. I'm watching grad students who will do anything to get their work published, even if they know their own data are crap. I'm watching PIs who will go to any lengths to hypocritically rationalize their unethical behavior.

Everyone just says it's "playing the game."

Ironically, so far this morning I got an email saying that something I ordered is coming in today or tomorrow; a collaborator sent me some reagents I needed; and a friend emailed me about a job opening in her department.

Once upon a time, those three things would have been enough to keep me going.

Meanwhile, my bench mates are crowded around a computer watching You Tube.

My PI is back to thinking my project is crap.

And I'm wondering how the hell I'm going to get through the day. I can't decide if it would be better to cry, or try not to.

Oh fuck it. Maybe I'll cry first, and then get on with pretending like I don't mind being here. No sense in quitting until I have health insurance lined up.