The funding for my PhD ends in three months time and I am aiming to have completed all of my lab work by then. However my university is making this extremely difficult for me as whenever I order any of the lab equipment or chemicals that I need for my lab work it takes weeks for the orders to be processed and to arrive. I am currently stuck and can't do any lab work as I have been waiting for some essential chemicals to arrive for nearly a fortnight now. I have tried focusing on my writing but feel frustrated about my lack of progress with my lab work, especially given the shrinking amount of time that I have left. I have been told that the office that deals with the orders is currently short-staffed but this seems to have been a recurring problem all the way through my PhD. :-s

If as you say, this problem has occurred "all the way through" your phd, did you not think that it would thus continue right until this point, and thus plan around it?

I would have planned around it if I could have. We have managed to set up purchase order accounts with the companies we use a lot to order our lab essentials, which largely by-passes most of the problems. However if a company is new or rarely used by us (as the company that I have ordered from is), this is not possible and the order has to go through the ordering offices which takes weeks. Admittedly if I'd realised that I needed the goods that I do at an earlier stage then I would have ordered them weeks ago, but unfortunately I only realised that they were needed in the last week or so.

If you need the stuff urgently, I would approach another uni and see if you can borrow whatever you need and return it when yours arrives. If its medical based, you might even find the local path labs can help. (sorry, that may be really daft idea, if what you want is really obscure)Failing that- approach the company direct, explain the problem and see if they will help you out. It can't hurt to ask. :-).

I have exactly the same problem with the accounts dept at school, I've waited ages for things to be delivered only to find out that they are still stuck in the office. I have another problem though because they keep putting notices on the door banning entry except before school at break times and after school - all the times I am at my busiest - and the addendum to the message is  'no, you can't just pop in now, we are unavailable' and they never ever answer their phone :$. On the other hand I can't be too uppity with them or my stuff will be permanently at the bottom of the heap!

Ah! That makes sense then. It seems as though the stuff you need is relatively rare if you're having to use alternative sources. Is the problem at the processing or the delivery end? If its uni admin - can your sup step in?

You could also send an email around your faculty/department asking if anyone has any of what you require that you can borrow and then reimburse them with when yours arrives. Depends on what the culture of your place is like though - maybe check first to see if that would be ok.

Thank you for all of your suggestions. I think I'll have to see if I can borrow the chemicals that I require if they don't turn up in the next few days.

Hi, if you think that this is an administrative problem and that the orders could be processed faster if some links in the ordering chain were more efficient then it might be worth mentioning that the orders are urgent. I had a problem (that was not entirely similar - basically I was waiting for funds so that I could complete fieldwork) that was fixed by sending an email to the person in charge of the paperwork saying that my submission would be delayed if they didnt process it swiftly. I cc'd in my supervisor and the head of research too, et voila - funding fast.