[Bug_Lady]

I am a masters student and there are 4 people total in my lab right now. I work really hard....I study all the time, do a lot of outreach with the community and apply for every award that comes across my desk. I do any presentation asked of me and go to every conference asked of me by my dept head. I really want to be good at what I do and I care a lot about my work and want to make sure I'm representing my school/department/fellow grad students the best I can.

Well....there is another lab member who is the total opposite. He got here a semester before me and will finish after me. He has just now started writing his thesis (I started writing mine months ago). I work really hard to get good grades, he skips class. I apply for everything, he only applies when our advisor asks him to. And he refuses to do some talks and go to some conferences. Even when our advisor says it would be good even for networking he will still try anything to get out of it.

First off, the idea of not giving a **** about anything you do just baffles me. He openly says that he is only here as a grad student bc he doesn't want to get a real job. He has these pipe dreams that he can leave, go work on a friend's farm and do research and publish by himself out of his friend's house. For those of you not involved in scientific publications.....some journals charge upwards of $1,000 a page to publish your work. Most of them are a few hundred bucks per page. And those are for people associated with universities and good programs - someone getting published based on general observations done at home hasn't been done since the early 1900's.

Obviously I hold some bad feelings towards this guy. It wasn't that bad until recently we both applied for the same scholarship - he didn't even want to. He only did bc our advisor said he should. And....he got it. He doesn't do jack squat and gets these scholarships over me. And the only reason he got it (I was told) is because he has one more publication than me - for work he did in a lab as an undergrad. It bugs the **** out of me that someone is skating through, literally not caring about anything or anyone, and gets this stuff! When he was asked what this last scholarship he got was for he said "I don't know...some b.s.". ARE YOU SERIOUS?!

I know I shouldn't let it bother me but it does. I can't help it. I know I should focus on myself and my work but it's so hard when he does things like talk bad about our dept at meetings. And tells prospective students that our advisor doesn't care about your school work. He tells everyone he can that his ultimate goal is work on pest management of marijuana. I don't care if it's the truth or not -you don't go around professional meetings spouting off things like that!

I told him some of this once and he told me it was "poor form" on my part. How does he get away with this ****?! UGH!!!!

[DreamP346]

Bug_Lady

Life is ful of a-holes like that. You will meet more once you enter the work world. They succeed with their intelligence, charm or plain old luck. It doesn't seem fair, but unfortunately, that's the way life is. He is obviously living in a dellusional world. It will eventually catch up with him. Real world is much harder than school and people who are just getting by will eventually get caught and stumble. Just keep doing what you are doing and try not to let the idiot bother you. Life will eventually catch up with him and while you will have established yourself by attending/presenting at conferences, he will be an unknown. Trust me, research/academia is 50% about marketing yourself to get the grants and the publications. Once you are an established name, you don't even need to have good research data to get published.

[Brandywine]

I agree with sp346. He is only hurting himself in the long run. Eventually he's going to run out of funds and have to join the real world, and boy is he going to get a wake-up call. All you can do is keep up your dedication and determination and forget about his destructive lifestyle. Yeah, it's not right that he got that scholarship, but it doesn't sound like he's got much else that's going to get him far. And not that he wants to anyway.


It must be difficult to see this attitude from him because you are so in love with your field of study. But, you know he's not going to be successful unless he straightens up. So, I would continue to focus on you and the awesome career you are sure to have and forget about him. Because he's going to be nothing while you're plowing the way in the scientific community.

[Ashlee T.]

Oh dear...sp is correct, you will encounter this in every aspect of your professional life starting now and ending never. What you feel is normal in this situation. You know yourself, how hard you work, how dedicated you are.......and it will ALWAYS be devastating to do all this all the while watching someone who doesn't do 1/4 of it get rewarded for their non-efforts. Those people will always be around, reaping at least part of what you feel you've worked to deserve.

At my last job, I worked with 2 men and 2 other women (in my dept). When layoffs came around, both other women were gradually let go. I felt pretty good about my position because I KNEW that I worked my tail off, and I knew that everyone knew that as well. I provided training to one of the other guys on pretty much a daily basis to help him do his job. I worked 60+ hours a week, worked on vacation, worked on sick days from home etc. I often watched the two guys sit around on their cell phones, or taking smoke breaks, while I was stressing myself to the max. The next layoff came around, and guess who got laid off? Me. What betrayal for all my hard work. What a slap in the face. But in the end, it was the BEST thing that could've happened to me. Even now in my current job, I love it, it's a wonderful job........ but I see people doing NOTHING, doing not even a fraction of what I do getting paid more, recognized more, etc. I've learned to let it bother me only minimally.

Why? This is my road to travel. MINE. If I spend all my time looking at all the other cars, I go nowhere. I spin my wheels.

This is YOUR road. You are on a path of success. It will be hard. It will be frustrating. And at times it will be incredibly rewarding...though likely not near as often as frustrating. Let dudes like him get on your nerves, but let yourself not dwell on the negativity for long as it will stifle you, make you bitter, and hold you back. This is YOUR road.

[Popcorn&Candy]

I second DreamP346 post. This is an old thread, though!