I hate the feeling that goes with that.
But, no matter what way I think about it, it needed to be done.
This is another one of those sneaky things that you don't really learn in grad school and just have to navigate through once you jump on the TT. You are a boss. I never wanted to be a "boss". I just want to do some science. I just want to teach my classes.
It's a bit different from the "real world" because sometimes you are directly a boss to student workers on a particular project, similarly technicians or other wage-based employees and sometimes you are indirectly more a boss/supervisor/mentor/teacher/advisor all-in-one combo to graduate students who you pay off of a grant or someone else pays them to TA or RA for you. Every situation is different and when everyone does what's expected of them the situation works out just fine.
But, sometimes it doesn't work out. That's where it gets sticky. When someone doesn't do their job they have to be let go. Conflict of this nature isn't in my personality, but when need be I try to confront it. These situations can get even more complicated, in large projects where there can be several PIs, several technicians, and multiple graduate students. Everyone has an immediate supervisor, but often you work for more than one person, or find yourself in need of the services of someone who your colleague "employs" rather than you directly, but still you are a "superior".
This is what I found myself smack in the middle of last week. A technician employed by a co-PI decided hat he was my boss and felt the need to advise me on how to run my field project, in a very disrespectful and passive aggressive email. I had to stand up and get a bit bitchy. In the end, I don't really know exactly what happened to him; I just know that he is now "out of the picture".
The objective side of me knows that a) he didn't do his job which is why there was a conflict to begin with and b) he was disrespectful and combative to a "superior" and that in a real world that behavior isn't tolerated.
The girlie side of me feels like crap.
I also feel quite conflicted, because on some level I believe that the whole fiasco stems from a false sense of chivalry - coupled with a little sexism. I'm a petite girl. It's a moderate size field installation. I say moderate, because it is larger than my collaborators have implemented before, but relatively simple by my standards (which is why they asked me to be on the project to begin with-oh the irony). But somehow, no one wants me to be in the field. I get a lot of "we'll take care of that", and then it's not ever done, so when I finally put my foot down and insisted on getting something done by a specific date - all hell broke loose.
In the end the project will get done. I'll likely not work with this particular team again for reasons that extend beyond just this incident, but I do wish I wasn't forced to be the bad guy, when really I was just using my past experience to get the job done.
In the meantime, I've just received a copy of "The Art of Being a Scientist" and by first skim it looks like it might have some good advice on how to navigate some mentoring waters a bit better.
Dealing with performance issues is one of those things that comes with the territory. I've noticed that when men deal with these situations the phrase used is "Authoritative" or "Managerial" and is considered a positive trait, yet when women take the same actions it's described as "Bitchy."
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm sure you could be Bitchy if you wanted to, you may want to look back at the situation and imagine a guy doing exactly what you did. Would you describe the behavior as bitchy in that case? If not, then give yourself a pat on the back.
I've had to deal with a similar situation a few times. Obviously not in a scientific community (they took away my test tubes after that ecoli gene splicing experiment senior year) but it is a crappy situation regardless of your gender.
You should be proud of your performance, both in standing up for what you thought is right and driving the program to tangible results. In the end, you didn't get anyone fired. They got themselves fired and in the process put a small hiccup in your project. A hiccup that would probably be a big hiccup if you weren't there to put the program on track.