The Venting Thread

[Langue_doc]

This makes nine straight days that we haven't received anything on our paid-for daily New York Times print subscription.  Wall Street Journal is never more than a day or two out.  It really makes it look like NYT's journalists hold those of us in flyover country in disdain.  Not a good way to treat people who are at least open-minded enough to read what you have to say.

We are 85 miles from NY on a major interstate. The delivery person here has always been unreliable, and now I get just the Sunday paper—on Sunday afternoon. Saturday apparently is not the weekend. I complained a year ago to customer service, then set the delivery to "away," and hoped when it resumed 6 months later things would improve. Nope, now they are worse.

Ha! Long story, read only if you've had problems with NYT subscriptions/home delivery.

I have the weekend subscription and used to get the paper, especially on Fridays before 7, because the neighbor who shares the front door to the house would bring it in as she was leaving for school. A few years later the Friday paper would arrive much later than 7, but before 8. Then two or three years before the pandemic, the paper would be late on all three days. I would complain sporadically, pointing out that an increase in the subscription price automatically resulted in further delays with the delivery time. I let things ride during the pandemic, but last year, after another rate increase, started reporting the paper as missing or late, and also calling Customer Service. The paper would also be delivered on weekends when I had suspended the delivery. After repeated deliveries when I was away--Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Break come to mind--I once again called Customer Service to point out that delivering papers during suspension periods was a safety issue and needed to be addressed. I was then assigned a Customer Service Representative all to myself, whose job it was to take care of the late deliveries (well after noon) and also to make sure that the paper was not delivered when I was away. To make matters worse, the delivery person confronted my neighbor (husband of the neighbor who would bring the paper in on her way to school) thinking he was me, and asked him why he was complaining about the time the paper was delivered because he, the customer, got the paper. I immediately contacted Customer Service, and also told them that I was suspending delivery until after Labor Day so that they could address the problems of late delivery, delivery during suspensions, and what was worse, the delivery person confronting the customer instead of their supervisor. This was in April.

Now, the paper is delivered before 7 (neighbor brings it in and leaves it outside my front door) on Fridays, and before 8 during the weekend. This morning, when I left around 7:35, the paper had already been brought in.

Here comes the hilarious part. During weekends, I get an email from the NY Times advising me that the paper might be late, but no later than 9:30 or 10. On every single occasion, the paper has been delivered before 7:30 or 8 AM. Today for instance I saw the paper around 7:35, only to read the email sent around 8:15 advising me that the paper could be delayed after getting back home.

My advice to you both--complain, complain, complain! Keep meticulous records. The NYT is a business and needs to uphold its end of the contract with the customer, which is to deliver the newspaper by a certain time.

[lightning]

I have a stack of library cards for libraries that I don't visit very often, but I do visit, even if years between visits. For these libraries, every time, I have to renew my card because I've been away for so long, and that's when I have to produce my government-issued ID like a drivers license or passport. This leads me to ask, why don't they just let me check out books using my government-issued ID, so I don't have to go renew the damn card every time. For some university libraries that I visit, where I have a guest account, I have to go to a whole separate building across campus to renew my library card, then come back to the library. I mean seriously. It's 2022.

[mamselle]

I have a stack of library cards for libraries that I don't visit very often, but I do visit, even if years between visits. For these libraries, every time, I have to renew my card because I've been away for so long, and that's when I have to produce my government-issued ID like a drivers license or passport. This leads me to ask, why don't they just let me check out books using my government-issued ID, so I don't have to go renew the damn card every time. For some university libraries that I visit, where I have a guest account, I have to go to a whole separate building across campus to renew my library card, then come back to the library. I mean seriously. It's 2022.

At least they just want ID.

Sixteen of the 35 cards I have require letters of recommendation, proof of scholastic activity, and the proper visa-stamped passport entries.

Assembling all those for a trip means getting letterhead support letters, pre-filled online applications, filled out before arrival, and an email to the chief librarian stating the books you'll want to see and the dates you'll be there.

French train strikes, government workers' work slow-downs, and other fun things can also play havoc with your schedule,  meaning you have to try to reach them en route to re-book.

One library here has a setting like yours, though; registration is in the main library building,  half-a-block away from the archives, and lines are often long.

But at least some of the overseas places do have a 'memory' of one's past visits, and will scan and keep your previous documents on file, to prove you're you, even though you still have to supply updated ones.

One has to plan 1-2 hours' administrative stuff before seeing the books you came to see...and woe betide you if you get there just before the 2-hour lunch break....

M.

[MarathonRunner]

Co-author, please, please send me your ORCID and sign the publishing rights form, otherwise this paper we've been working on for over a year, that has now been accepted, will never get published. Please, please sign the form and send me your ORCID!

(Honestly, what do people do when a co-author stops responding to any emails?)

[mamselle]

It's a little disconcerting to hear the same dance-history misinformation time after time, even among those who are supposed to be dance professionals...

Just sat through an otherwise interesting international Zoom program for researchers, teachers, etc; some very worthwhile stuff and some just...ummm....maddening.

Onwards and upwards.

M.   

[Puget]

Co-author, please, please send me your ORCID and sign the publishing rights form, otherwise this paper we've been working on for over a year, that has now been accepted, will never get published. Please, please sign the form and send me your ORCID!

(Honestly, what do people do when a co-author stops responding to any emails?)

Have you tried calling? A lot of faculty's email inboxes are complete horror shows thousands of emails deep.

[mythbuster]

My grad student has a really bad habit of wanting to tell you how long anything she did took for her to complete. That experiment took 8 hours! It's really annoying an immature. And she has ignored my polite statements in the past to not make these type of comments.
   Honey, no one cares. Or rather, yes the experiments take a long time, but so do everyone else's. That's the way science research works. You just keep going until you have a result to report.  The folks who make it are the ones willing to do the work without all the extra commentary about how haaard it is!

[poiuy]

My left knee has had arthritis related issues all since December of last year.  Surgery is not recommended. Several rounds of steroid treatment (oral, shot only one time) later, I found a super physiotherapist who brought me great improvement in functionality and less pain.
Now the other knee that had been just fine is acting up instead! 

[MarathonRunner]

Co-author, please, please send me your ORCID and sign the publishing rights form, otherwise this paper we've been working on for over a year, that has now been accepted, will never get published. Please, please sign the form and send me your ORCID!

(Honestly, what do people do when a co-author stops responding to any emails?)

Have you tried calling? A lot of faculty's email inboxes are complete horror shows thousands of emails deep.

Sadly don't have a phone number for this person and can't find one. I've reached out to others who have previously worked with them, in hopes of getting some kind of contact info beyond email.

I understand the full mailboxes, as my supervisor has one!

[the_geneticist]

My grad student has a really bad habit of wanting to tell you how long anything she did took for her to complete. That experiment took 8 hours! It's really annoying an immature. And she has ignored my polite statements in the past to not make these type of comments.
   Honey, no one cares. Or rather, yes the experiments take a long time, but so do everyone else's. That's the way science research works. You just keep going until you have a result to report.  The folks who make it are the ones willing to do the work without all the extra commentary about how haaard it is!

Might be time to have a chat about time management and expectations.  Yes, some experiments will take you 8+ hours to complete.  That's why you should start them earlier in the day or be prepared to stay late or to leave and come back.  Or plan out so that you can set up one day and continue the next.  Lots of protocols have built-in "stopping points" where you can freeze/incubate/refrigerate overnight and start again the next day.
Or you could just wax eloquent about how in the "bad old days" ligation reactions were overnight, there was no such thing as "heat-inactivated phosphatase enzyme, PCR reaction needed 1:00 per kb minimum, etc. etc.

[mamselle]

Poor babies....times are so tough.

I'm picturing labs in the 70s with beanbag chairs for people to nap in in the offices....they didn't want to go back to their dorms at midnight or 3:30 AM, since they'd just have to come back a few hours later to feed their cells again....

I also know of at least one lab worker who was coming into feed cells in a pharma lab into the 90s like that...

So, it takes all kinds, apparently.

M.

[mythbuster]

Forget the olden days. I was doing tritium proliferation time course assays that involved overnight sampling every 2-3 hours in 2005! And most all my experiments as a postdoc required me to start the cultures at midnight to be ready for harvest at 9am.
Radioactivity at 3am is so much fun.
   If she were only complaining about the lab experiments, it would be one thing. But today she really wanted me to know that she spent 8 hours working on her poster for a conference! This was before I gave her two pages+ worth of editorial notes of things to fix. It will need likely another 8 hours of work before it's ready for public viewing.

The entire color scheme was Barbie pink! Shudder.

[FishProf]

The entire color scheme was Barbie pink! Shudder.

Ugh.  Jigglypuff pink is much more appropriate.

[the_geneticist]

Meh, color themes are an easy change.  I'd be more worried that they spent 8 hours on a poster and it's not close to acceptable.
Did you give them a template and a few examples to consider? Draft out the key figures and sections together?  Might need to tell them to write out the important information in just a text file or slide deck, then worry about making it into a visual display (aka poster)

[mythbuster]

Oh yes, Geneticist, she's been provided with all that and more. And she has been putting together good lab presentation PowerPoints for over 2 years. It really should not be that hard to then move the data into a poster format.  I think she's looking for gold stars every time she reports how long things take to do.

I think a big part of this is a deep realization that research science is not a good fit for her. But I'm not sure that she has consciously accepted that yet. If she could, then we could really talk about alternatives that better serve her strengths.

As for the color- she seemed offended that I said I had a hard time reading the poster given the eye searing pink.  Maybe she doesn't want anyone to read her poster? And you are not allowed to change the color scheme on the university logo!