Damned if I do...

When I worked at the Health Science Campus doing cell culture, I worked for a woman widely known as Bitch B...  Unfortunately I didn't get the memo; my previous job ended when the money ran out and I was in a swivet to get another job before the mortgage came due.  The only revelation I got was that she wanted lots of extra time and dedication.  My job was for a group of 4 researchers combining their expertise and the Bitch was the primary investigator.  That alone should have warned me off, trying to balance my time between 4 separate people/projects.  Anyway, there was another very junior researcher in Pathology who was very happy to get some technical chops to work on her project.  She needed cells that were primary cells and Dr.B generously provided a small amount of frozen cells that I had cultivated.  She and I met with B after she had gotten some very promising results and needed another bit of frozen cells to continue.  She was eager to continue ASAP and so I took one vial of frozen cells (out of a stock of 50+ vials) before our meeting and started them in culture.  After our meeting B wanted to talk to me, and I thought, "Uh oh" and she proceeded to tear me a new one.  "Those are MY cells and you are not to start them unless I say so".  I just shook my head and she said, "What does that mean???"  And I replied, I'm damned I do (put them to grow right away) and damned if I don't (hold up the other researcher  waiting for the cells to grow).  And B launched a tedious dressing down.  She even said that other people in the department complained that I was hard to get along with.  I said mildly, that if she asked "people in the department"  who was hard to get along with, it wouldn't be my name that was on their lips.  Then she continued into my time off, my attitude (?), and so on.  She was looming over me while I sat at the table, and so I stood.  I am 5-6 inches taller than B and she backed up quickly to continue her diatribe.  I just said ,"I don't need this crap..." and walked down to personnel and put in my application for another position.  Two weeks later B told me the funding for my salary was gone, and so was I.  She gave me instructions for a couple of new experiments (that would take at least a month to complete if all went well), and I delivered the flasks to the care of a graduate student and left on two weeks vacation before starting my new job in Pathology. Bitch.

Anyway, I don't know what brought all of that up, but seeing it here I felt anew the grief and hatred of those days.  I had just lost my mother to cancer and had to put my dad in a nursing home 40 miles away which I traveled every day; he was way too confused to live alone.  And so I had to juggle him, selling their house, and an auction for their belongings; plus a new job, and it nearly put me in a hospital myself.  My new boss, thank god, was a kind and thoroughly organized guy.  Timing, everything is timing.

It has been raining here for days, but even with everything soggy, I am delighted that it is way too warm for it to be snow.  If only it would snow on the grass and leave the roads bare.  I am also aware that there is still a good bit of winter left.  Sigh.