Low-throughput is for the weak - another boring entry on the lab environment

Let’s talk more on lab culture.
At first I may have been a little discouraged. I saw inefficiency, bureaucratic bullshit, and micromanaging. Lab members hesitate to solve problems on their own or change their routine for fear of reprimand. The hierarchical fear is based somewhat on realities, as their jobs are valuable and delicately insecure and the country is damned poor. If something doesn’t look right in a protocol they’d rather keep going and maybe sheepishly ask the boss some other time. The benefits of this discipline, however, are tremendous thoroughness and reliability, and, unlike academic labs that try to foster a spirit of independent thinking or something like that, the goal here is more communal. Data is multiply stored and checked and double-checked and then checked by the boss. Project notebooks are all shared and specially maintained. Responsibilities are clearly defined. It’s a slowly-trudging, thorough machine, and not the most naturally accepting of a graduate student with his own demands, timelines, schedule, and ideas and who is used to the land of ultra high-throughput. Luckily, I’ve recently dug myself in. I’ve been given my tasks, they are confident I know all their rules, and now I can just go to town. The boss still wants to check my data everyday, though.

On another note, last evening after dark I saw stray cats running around the lab hallways.