On the surface it seems like another case of the "medical-student-who-started- his/her -summer -research-project -and- then-gave-up-halfway- due - to- laziness- and-stopped-showing-up"... but in my case, it was absolutely nothing to do with loss of interest or the lack of desire to get up in the morning and learn how to read MRI's... that is shit is COOL man!
No, what I couldn't stand was the environment that doing... no, ATTEMPTING to do this research, put me in. With my PharmD "mentors'" offices on either side of the one shared office that was set aside for research staff (in the sense that we were to squeeze into spaces not taken up by the PharmD's boxes of Christmas decorations and unused dusty coffee makers)... I was privy to all the gossip, name-calling, and endless petty complains about a colleague named "Zoey"... a privilege I would have gladly handed over in exchange for wearing a spiked dog collar around my neck.
All day long, they complained. And complained. And bitched. And bitched some more. Try as I might, I just couldn't drown them out. "Can you BELIEVE what she said to me??" "OHMYGOD
I tried to drown them out; tried to immerse myself in patient charts and get all caught up in Lipitor doses and whether the patient was put on Plavix post-stroke or pre-stroke. I even took breaks and checked my e-mailed and chatted with my SO for hours on end, doing nothing productive and finding out which cruises I could possibly hop onto mid-semester after my Cardio final. Nothing did the trick and all I could do was not scream from the constant stream of whining and bitching that grated on my nerves like a broken radio trapped inside a hidden wall within your house.
Did I expect to be working in an environment this summer in which people actually did their work and saw patients and acted in a respectable manner? Of course not - I'm not dumb. I know half the work day is nonsense filled up with fluff and no-good. But at least the other half is productive, right? And if you can spend 6 straight hours yapping about your neighbors and your dog and your mortgage payment, you can spare 6 minutes to talk to a student you're supposed to be mentoring, right?
Wrong. And here is where I lost my patience and learned something new about the workplace and the psyche of its human constituents: When it comes to gossip and politics, there is ALWAYS time; It does not matter if a patient has been in the waiting room for over an hour - Petunias and one's
Furthermore, this applies to medical students working in the midst of PharmD's with egos: When the student approaches the PharmD with a question, the PharmD is immediately concerned with patient care, finding his or her stapler, or responding to an e-mail about Bingo tonight. Ten minutes prior, and up to three hours post-attempted question, the PharmD has all the time in the world to return to more pressing concerns: continuing the day's gossip and spreading the love of hate.
After weeks and weeks of trying to approach my mentors in a way least obtrusive to their gossip schedule (AKA their patient and meetings schedule), including short, to-the-point e-mails (something I as a person find very hard to do), listening closely to wait until they took a water break from their conversation (to alleviate their dry mouths after a lengthy Zoey-trash-talk session), and even scheduling quick meetings to avoid random "pop-ins," I gave up. There's a point you reach where you can no longer attribute completely ignored meeting times (even after several subtle and eventually not-so-subtle reminders), completely ignored e-mails (that require less than a 7-word response), and utterly useless, grunted replies to questions asked during a lull in the day, to just being busy.
I'm not a 5-year old looking up to a 50-year old for advice on painting the fridge green!! I am a medical student working on a project on which my mentors' names come before my own, and thus I deserve at least some sort of guidance as to what the hell I'm doing and some real answers to some very legitimate questions! The excuse of "I'm busy," whether explicitly stated in words or actions, just doesn't apply when you're obviously NOT busy!
Addendum: [It took me a while to be able to declare the above - I thought for almost 4 weeks that I was doing everything wrong and it was entirely my fault that they didn't seem to like me. I still think that it takes two to tango and thus, if I had approached it differently, maybe things would have worked out better, but I can no longer say it is 100% my fault. My mentors truly dislike me for some reason (perhaps being a med student has something to do with it?) and have made it obvious through their obvious disregard of my presence on a day-to-day basis. The only positive thing to come out of this experience is that I feel much more prepared for my 3rd rotations and dealing with physicians who will inevitably dislike me at some point, or at least appear to. The lesson learned: 'Tis better to ask for forgiveness than permission." Just do instead of asking, and people will appreciate your initiative more than they will your desire to do everything the right way.]
And thus I decided I needed to simply escape. It began with escaping to two-hour lunches versus one, and going home to practice some bellydance moves and chatting it up with my mom on my couch before returning to work. Eventually, I added on arriving a half-hour past the hour - just to see if anyone would notice. With no response, I decided to take longer with my make-up, make a Starbucks-stroll before work, and carry my grande-caramel-lightice-soy-iced-coffee in with me along with some hummus and crackers in at 11am (still taking my two-hour lunch from 1pm - 3pm). It saved me from the morning warm-up gossip session that I hated the most, but it still wasn't enough. By the time I came back from lunch, I just wanted to leave again. My productivity, which had been low to begin with, dropped even further, with me doodling and running to the bathroom every five seconds just to stretch my legs and get out of that zone of mind-numbing chatter.
It was when it got to the point where I enjoyed being in the "Summer Garden" scented pink bathroom more than I did in my nook within the office, that I finally decided I had HAD it. Yes I'm being paid upwards of six grand for this summer gig (not by the PharmD's, thank heavens, no, but rather by an independent university program that promotes research within the mental health field) plus an all-expenses-paid trip to San Diego for a weekend. Yet, making myself miserable, even for a few hours a day, during my last-ever summer vacation, is not worth any sum of money to me. After two weeks of a true nine-to-five, and then about two weeks of my modified nine-to-five, I decided to quit. I stopped going in completely, using the excuse that I would come in after-hours when no one was there and do my work in peace - which I did... a few times... for about an hour at a time. Strangely enough, I got more done in that one hour than I often used to get done in a week. I found flaws in the study design that I have no incentive to fix, and decided that the minute I present in San Diego, I am finished, once and for all, with this study.
Now, looking back, this summer was all about beach-house parties in Canada, sleepovers with friends and old Indian movies, weekdays of bike-riding, sitting outside eating sloppy Joe's and watching thunderstorms, cooking random meals, trying Hibachi, weekend trips home for the 4th of July, partying (and nearly dying) in Vegas for four days, road trips to and from a wedding in CT, a day in Ithaca eating crepes at a Farmer's Market, and dedicating a few hours each morning to working out my mind and body.
I still have to present this research in about a week from now (and with about 10% of my data collected and no clue how to analyze it, let's just say I'm somewhat in a bind with that)... but my goal is still to just get SOMETHING done so I can keep my six grand and keep my sanity until school starts up again. And considering my 200-crunches a day now and lengthy stretching routine, maybe I'll have some tighter abs to show for it.
As for what I have prepared as an answer to the remote possibility of someone at work asking me where I've been or what I've been doing the past few weeks... all I plan on telling them is that "I've been busy."
