<p>I would like to start out by saying I'm considered a very friendly person and usually do not have problems with anyone. </p>
<p>I just started working at a lab as an undergraduate volunteer. The one graduate student there is seriously starting to **** me off. I have no idea what this guy's deal is. He said the other day that "you need to start spending more time helping me with my research. You're only here 10 hours a week. I need you to be here for 20 hours a week. If you do not start coming more, then I will have to start doing the work myself."
Lol, just lol at the last part. "doing the work myself." That sounded so pathetic. It's your damn project to begin with. </p>
<p>I'm a volunteer, I see no obligation to contribute that much time when my classes are hectic this semester. This guy does not care at all about anyone but himself. His previous advisor had to let him go because he couldn't get along with the prof and the other students at the previous lab. I would like to go elsewhere, but my relationship with the professor in charge of that lab is very good and I would feel really bad if I left so soon. I honestly can't be around that graduate student. Sometimes I really want to tell him "do the damn work yourself, it's your project to begin with, why the f do i have to do everything for you." This one time I helped him clean up some stuff and he came in at the end and said "it took you that long to do that?" A few days ago he told me "wow, you're leaving already? you've only helped for 10 hours this week." "When's this work gonna get done? I need it done now. Not in 1 month." The work he wants me to do is menial work, it's not even research. He wanted me to clean his workspace because "he doesn't have time to do it himself.". ... . . .. He wanted me to come in over the weekend once to clean his area of the lab. He never tanks me for doing his ***** work. He always thinks I should spend more time. He's just a dick. He's not even my boss. Hell, I'm working for free. This guy annoys me to no end. I'm to the point where I could seriously knock this guy out.
This is the end of my rant.</p>
<p>What do you guys suggest I do?
The research there is interesting, but my primary research interests are elsewhere. I would just feel bad if I left so early since I like the prof, but I absolutely HATEEEEEE that graduate student and it's not even funny! **** HIM</p>
<p>Interesting, but horrible situation you have there. I admire your composure. I could have never put up with that kind of BS. Don’t do something stupid though, like beating him up. You’ll only screw yourself over. </p>
<p>It’s time to go. Leave. Get out. Those are some serious red flags, especially since he didn’t get along with his previous prof and the grad students.
I’m a no BS kind of guy. If I was in your situation, I would leave without hesitation. I’d probably want to do something bad to the guy too, but people like that, they’ll have bad things coming anyways. That is horrible. </p>
<p>You’ll find those kind of people everywhere. You’ll probably have to work with them in the future. But right now, I see no reason why you should stay. You’re not paid. Your interests are elsewhere. This guy is a complete ******. You may like the professor, but he will understand if you choose to go elsewhere because another lab matched your interests more.</p>
<p>To be honest, it irritated me a bit to even read about this guy.</p>
<p>If you have the right set of in-demand skills, you do NOT have to learn to deal with those “types”. I have had a couple of bosses who were “a piece of work” and they were greeted with my 2-week notice.</p>
<p>Research has always been about poaching the energy and ideas of those underneath. Unless he’s doing some ground breaking research that can make your career find a new project.</p>
<p>There are ridiculous people out there. My Dad met an Indian woman when he was consulting who was a talented software engineer and all but would come in every day to work and talk about how she was the best. She was very bad at following orders from her bosses too. He said she acted similarly to character Kelly Kapoor from The Office.</p>
<p>So basically, prepare for the worst. There are people that will drive us crazy out there.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ve met my share of annoying people, but in OPs situation I would peace the first chance I get, especially if I had something else lined up. The dialogues he posted between him and the grad student is ridiculous and i cant imagine how Id put up with that. One thing to remember is that he isn’t being paid. In a paid work setting, you’ll get paid to put up with some else’s BS. In his case, he’s paying (time mostly) to put up with some one else’s BS.</p>
<p>Either politely go speak with the professor about your feelings and say you don’t think you can work with this person anymore or else suck it up. This person seems pretty ridiculous, but a lot of you guys in here are also pretty ridiculous.</p>
<p>Clearly this student has some issues, but the attitude from the OP is a bad one as well. The bottom line is that as an undergraduate, you will always get stuck with the menial tasks for a while until you prove yourself reliable to the graduate students (and yes, you do work for the graduate students). We graduate students often have a lot riding on our experiments and when it comes to entrusting an undergraduate with something valuable, we naturally aren’t comfortable doing it right off the bat until we are absolutely certain that the undergraduate student can get it done in a timely and high quality manner.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, working only 10 hours virtually guarantees that it is going to take you longer to build up the kind of rapport with the graduate students required to start getting the more important tasks. Talking to the professor about that won’t likely help because ultimately the graduate student usually has the final decision since it is their research. Usually when we have important tasks to get finished, either they require a lot of time or have a very short fuse, so someone who only has 10 hours to spend on work in a week isn’t going to get a lot of those assignments because they just won’t be finished in time. That said, it is fine if you can only work 10 hours per week. You do have classes and you do have a life; you just have to know what the consequences are for that. In the end, that may be enough to get the recommendation letter from your professor, but probably not to get the kind of tasks that get your name put on the publications.</p>
<p>Now, this particular graduate student seems like he is an exceptional jerk on top of all of this, so for that I am sorry. From the sound of it, who knows if he ever would give you important and interesting tasks, even if you did work like 40 hours per week. That is why I would say just have a chat with the professor. You have a good relationship with him so that will help, and you can just say that you don’t think you can work with him anymore and ask if there are any other students you can work with instead. Otherwise, be thinking of another professor you would be interested in working with as a back up. Just don’t expect, no matter who you are working with, that you will get assignments that are critical to the research goal if you are only working 10 hours per week, especially not right off the bat.</p>
<p>Why would a volunteer have to suck it up? Well, they don’t necessarily have to, but there are really only three options here. They can politely consult with the professor on the issue to see if any change can be made; they could suck it up and deal with the offending graduate student so that they can still get their good letter of reference; or they can just call it quits and look elsewhere knowing that starting elsewhere likely puts them at the bottom of the totem pole again.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the OP has no real leverage to be able to do anything other than that. She is volunteering in order to get that recommendation further down the road, so she has an incentive to stay on board, but there is no real loss to the professor if she decides to leave or move on except in they sense that the two have a good relationship. The professor won’t likely force the graduate student to give her more important tasks since that is going to be dictated largely by how much free time she has to work at the lab. The only real possible outcomes would be better tasks if the OP can dedicate more time to the lab, the professor has a talk with the graduate student to try and fix the situation, the professor assigns the OP to a different graduate student or the OP moves to a different research group.</p>
<p>Sounds like a he to me. He just started at that lab so it’s not like he’s advancing in the hierarchy. He should leave, especially since his main interest is in another area. This grad student sounds like he’s generally disliked by those around him. I don’t see the grad student saying anything good about him because his expectations sounds stupid and unreasonable. This is the kind of person that will always think someone needed to do more.</p>
<p>As a parent who has never worked in a lab, life experience tells me that perhaps you and the grad student went into this with different expectations. He perhaps thought you were going to be there to help as needed and you had clear limitations from the start. Could you just tell him that you need to talk to him and explain you are happy to do whatever it is that you are happy to do but that you are only available for 10 hours per week. He may be irritated with you because his expectations are different than yours. You can let him know that if the 10 hours won’t work it is a deal breaker for you because you don’t have more time. This way you both know where you stand. </p>
<p>I think it would be better for you to try and work it out with him than to bother the professor with it. However if you just can’t work with this student then you should tell the prof that you can’t work with this student and ask if you can be reassigned to someone else, maybe even someone who is working on a project that is more interesting to you. If you know what that might be you can mention it to the prof. It is better that you don’t burn the bridge with your prof since you have a good relationship. You should however be able to maintain that without putting up with the abuse.</p>