Hi, we have been working in half-day shifts since the end of April. It will work if you plan your experiments carefully. But indeed, for some experiments, it is not possible.
After 2 months working in a stressful situation, I realize that I like that. Because I actually have the other half-day to stay at home and do whatever I want. I also don't want to stay 10-12hrs /day in the lab.
Something worse is that you don't have time to prepare stuffs such as pipette tips, media,...

@rewt: Hi, thanks for your reply.

It's indeed a difficult problem. We do have a technician. I feel that she is doing too much of unnecessary tasks and doesn't have much time left to keep everything tidy, while such tasks should be done by the PhD students. The PhD students are pretty lazy. They refused to make their own media, fill their own tip boxes, because, well, the technician should do it.


If you don't have someone like that, you need to be that person or live with it.
--> I'm actually aware of the problem of a shared lab right after the first week. So I always clean my stuffs and tidy up so nobody has any reason/chance to complain about me being messy. That's my strategy =))) I guess I will have to live with it until the lab is set.

Our lab is quite new and the supervisor has just become a group leader. So I understand he also has soem difficulties. I feel if I complain too much, he will get stressed about it also.

@Tudor_Queen thanks for your reply
Do you need to rely on them to do those small things or could you just assume that they won't do it and do it yourself?
---> I'm very new to the group, so some basic things I still need their helps. But I try to learn them as quick as possible so that I can do everything on my own. I do feel doing things on my own actually saves my energy.
---> I observe that they often wait until the last bottle of medium is finished. Then they run around and ask if someone else has that media. Actually, it's not my problem. But I got annoyed because every week, I got asked that kind of questions.

@pm133 I'm very new to the group. My supervisor has had his own group only 3 months ago. We are both new.
A PhD student, who has been there for a year, is supposed to show me around (she is also his student, but it was before he becomes a group leader). This girl is very lazy and did not show me much.
I couldn't complain to my supervisor that she is lazy and always delayed my work, partly because I'm very new and still have 6 months trial period. I was afraid that I would lose my job, especially during the pandemic.

My supervisor is actually very nice and approachable. The problem is that he also trusted her (they are both from India and have worked together). I did have some suggestion and he agreed to change.

Dear all,

I'm very lucky to have a project I love and a very nice, young supervisor. My supervisor has just had his own group and is building his group. I personally don't have any problem with him and I enjoy working with him.

But I have a lot of problems, conflicts with other PhD students in the group. Often these are very small things but it happens almost every day a week. Btw, I am very new to the group. These problems are very small to tell to boss. But they affect my mood badly and my efficiency. These things are for example: people are messy, people are changing the device settings without telling others, people taking my stuffs. Or they agree to do something and did not do that. I can imagine, if I were the boss, I would get tired of hearing such complaints. So I don't complain much with him. And if I do, I try not to say any names.

Is this weird? Do you also have that problem?

I am wondering is it just me or do you also have it? I also think I'm a bad person if I can't fit in.

One weird thing is that PhD student told me that she has mental issue and blame everything on her medication.

I don't understand whether I'm too harsh and need to be more tolerant.

my group is small. We only have 3-4 PhD students. I don't want to always annoy with people and I hope that we can also have good time. But at the same time, I don't want to do anything with them. I lost my trust in them. I don't want them to mess with my experiments.

Dear all,

How should I work with a person who has mental issue? I don't want to hurt anybody. But at the same time, I also don't want to get hurt by stupid things done by this person.

I have been working in a new lab for 2 months. This girl is from India. She did many things that I think extremely rude, although she is very nice and friendly. I had a talk with her about that. She cried and said she has some mental problems, she felt that I was sometimes angry to her. I did get angry with her 2-3 times within these 2 months. However, she made me angry at least twice a week, about which I tried not to get angry and maintained my calm.

After the talk, she meant I was the person who did all wrong and she did nothing wrong. Here are some examples:

She used the flask which has my name. I She asked me if I need to use it. Of course I wanted to use it, that was why I prepared it. I told her to use other flasks prepared by the technician. She told me that she wanted to use my flask because it had the size she wanted. I fed up with her stupid argument and didn't want any discussion. So I told her to use mine. I save more energy and time. And she didn't even prepare a new one for me.During the talk, she blamed me for saying "yes" to her. She said: "If you say no, I would have used other flasks with bigger size." I think this is extremely rude.


2. I asked her how to send the plasmid for sequencing 3-4 times. Each day she came, told me that she would help and then quickly left the lab for home. At first, I thought she forgot. So I mentioned again. Next day, she left early, I thought maybe she had an appointment. 3rd time, I thought she was feeling unwell. After 2 weeks, I got mad.During the talk, I told her that I felt very bad that I had to asked her 4-5 times. She told me that it is ok for her, that I SHOULD remind her of it ??? If she doesn't feel bad, I feel bad.

3. She always made us wait 30 mins to 2hrs. It happened more than 10 times.

She blamed everything on the medication.