I was fired yesterday - Need pHd position (Dec/16/2008 )
So i was fired yesterday after 4 months in this lab becuase i sent an email to other people in the building using an email server asking for their expertise and their advice on a protocol and kit. I wrote I would be glad if someone could share their expertise because i was kinda lost and said have a great weekend. Boss says I am lost means i cant deal with things and people are going to think i am being badly supervised and I should have asked her how to get information.
She was so mad she planned to fire me as soon as she read the email and she stormed into the lab and asked for me first thing yesterday morning. I wasnt there thank god so she told me later that day.
I sat there and agreed it was best to part ways, she really seems to hate me, kicking me out one week before christmas and when my results are good and she doesnt have a replacement.
Oh well........she said the work was good, which is true.....but my personality didnt go with hers.
I feel relief mostly.......kinda embarrassing but still............shes been a dissappointment since I got here.
nanu nana, not judging what, where, why, and how it was wrong if it ever was, all I can do is wish U all the best. I really think all the PIs/Bosses should be given a monthly classes of 'anger management'. BB
good luck finding an other position.
It seems that it's better for you to leave in any way because it seems difficult to work with your PI. She should not have fired you for this reason, however, try next time to talk with your PI before to avoid to embarrass him. A normal PI would encourage you to ask for help if he is not able to help you, and this can happen from time to time. A PI who knows every thing in every field is not human !
I wish you to find quick a new position. I guess it will not be difficult to find a more kind PI !
She was so mad she planned to fire me as soon as she read the email and she stormed into the lab and asked for me first thing yesterday morning. I wasnt there thank god so she told me later that day.
I sat there and agreed it was best to part ways, she really seems to hate me, kicking me out one week before christmas and when my results are good and she doesnt have a replacement.
Oh well........she said the work was good, which is true.....but my personality didnt go with hers.
I feel relief mostly.......kinda embarrassing but still............shes been a dissappointment since I got here.
Hey nanu nana,
I don’t know what to say..oops…actually I never run out of crazy things to say but I couldn’t decide what you need right now…a bawling, bitching or a bashing session
… But what happened girl? You didn’t even get to the third stage of casandra’s step by step "climb from being the slowest and stupidest in the lab-to the top pf Mt Olympus' PI lounge"….seriously, in this instance it’s better to have the glass half-full kind of attitude. It’s time to cut your losses and get out of that lab as early as you could..luckily, the decision was even taken out of your hands (that's fate there at work)....don’t you see now how worse it could become in the future? You can’t work or stay in a place where the boss is just waiting for you to mess up so s/he’d have an excuse to deliver the coup de grâce and fire you. That would never be a place where you can thrive and realise all your potentials. And to fire you two weeks before Christmas is pure evil- imagine what you’ve just escaped.
However, several lessons could be learned from this (any opportunity to learn something is always a plus even if it sucks bigtime). And the two big ones: never do mushrooms before a presentation and never ever leave a paper/virtual trail- denial will be impossible later on. 
Now I have to think of a perfect Santa gift for you....casey
hahahaha Thank you guys!!! Im actually quite ok about it I am getting a cat for christmas and Ive always wanted one and I have a possible health scare to look forward to next year so in comparison this isnt that big a deal. Still, I think it was quite bizarre, specially considering that the email got me tons of info for the project and I was really getting in my research mode (borders obsession and OCD). I have thought about it quite a bit and I think that the situation for me was suboptimal from the beginning and I really should learn to shut up. Next time I will keep a low profile but I really do hope that my next boss is motivated, I really dont mind if I have to work hard or bestressed out, but she was driving me insane and I dont blame her for firing me. I really didnt like her or her lab and I saw so many negatives I never felt happy about staying. I was just too stubborn to quit, I thought id hang in there, survive somehow and get to phase TWO of the cassandra programm hehehe
Alas! I never got there and now I am here, 8 years after my high school teacher looked me in the eye and said that someone like me could do anything, sitting in my semi-empty flat wondering about how hard it will be to start over and convince myself that I will be able to tweek my personality into something acceptable for a lab..........assuming I am not wishing to be fired again.
I worked today as if nothing had happened and everyone kept coming up to me, in shock, fully of pity or curiosity and I had to repeat over and over again that I was fine. I wonder if I really am....................oh well at least she fired me because of who I am but not because of my western blots huh?
Positive attitude support programm for PhD student rejects:
-Nice christmas presents from people that feel sorry for you (boyfriend included)
-Dont have to worry about shit project that I was supposed to start next year
-Can move for the third time this year and become a wordly nomad
-Stress and misery will lead to magical weight loss over the holidays instead of horrific weight gain
-Can apply to other places with more experience and methods under my arm
-Got to listen to awesome world-recognized talkers including one that she hates because hes so animated and arrogated (I LOVED him)
-I will have a lil cat named Huckabee next year
-The same day that I got fired I received an invitation for a PhD programm in the huge exciting city where my boyfriend lives (if thats not fate I dunno what is)
- Look forward to pestering people (you know who I mean) on this forum about new methods that I have to learn for my brand new project which I will choose more cleverly now that I have worked in signal transduction for a while.
The show must and will go on.......
Oh! Oh! BTW Cassandra I did kinda get out of the being the slowest and stupidest in the lab phase, the people that had doubted me in the beginning because well if you see me walking around with my gossip magazines and this wide-eyed deer thing I have going on god help me you assume that im barely capable of reading, let along reading a scientific paper. People, boss included, ended up being impressed with my work. Specially the smart girl in lab who had assumed my flakiness meant that I was slow looked at me one day that we were discussing ideas for a project and let out a puzzled "that was clever" remark and since then she treated me with respect and said we were a good team together. And we were! Shame that she left.
Neways I just wanted to say that I was getting there, I really was, I was trying my best, I just opened my big mouth and complained indirectly to my boss about not having much to do a month ago and she took it personally and since then no matter what I did her bruised ego looked for ways of being angry with me.
I was getting there 
Neways I just wanted to say that I was getting there, I really was, I was trying my best, I just opened my big mouth and complained indirectly to my boss about not having much to do a month ago and she took it personally and since then no matter what I did her bruised ego looked for ways of being angry with me.
I was getting there
I think you were almost there or probably already there or on your way there but she tripped you
.....but all's well that ends well nanu....you've got your notes and lessons learned so it's time to move on....and your future move is not so bad- it comes with a boyfriend you don't need Santa's gift after all....whew (scratching you off my list).... so congratulation, no tears, no regrets, it's time for you to move.
You learned about lab, you learned about humans. This is the most important. You have to learn from each experience (and there is more to learn from bad experience than from the good ones).
good luck
(sorry, english is not my mother tongue, not easy for me to say all what i would like to say to support you)
If this has happened then I guess your trouble is over for now.
But, seriously U got to be more careful. I should write more in the 'philosophy' forum
but world is not what we see. If U were your boss and your junior does the same, you won't like it either 
. Just that the reaction of your boss was too exaggerated. 
All PIs/Bosses need anger management classes.
I think it is a sign of independece to look for help....I think I would be happy if my people would go and look for help (although I think there would be something wrong if they do not ask me in the first place...)
nanu nana, it seems to work out fine for you? I hope your next boss is a little bit nicer so keep your head up and do not get low profile.....I think this would be the wrong decision!