Excelsius

This was disappointing to read. Just when you think your lab is bad, there is always a lab out there that's even worse. Some sabotage your science, others your careers and salary, yet others all of it. Most of us are not trained in politics, but interesting sources of information do exist in forms of books, like Art of War, 48 Laws of Power, or How to Win Friends and Influence People. The tricky concepts there are backed up by factual evidence throughout history. The problem is those of us really interested in science don't really care to play these games. I do think students should be taught these "skills" in school, but it makes me wonder how quickly would the cogs of science stop turning if everyone pulled this same type of BS in your typical lab.

Given the issues with project management and the crazy amounts of planned experiments, it's almost impossible to come up with a good time period when leaving wouldn't have palpable consequences, whether it's a 1 week or 1 month notice. For the same reason, overtime will have to be involved when training someone. Without going into the details, I don't have an issue training someone to carry out the job, but given the highly complex nature of the experiments and the significant skills I have gained on my own time or while interning independently with other PIs, I don't have a particular desire to teach all the extra nuances given the treatment and lack of acknowledgment I've received from this person. In either case, I know the field well enough to understand that they will have to bring a highly experienced and motivated postdoc or a junior PI to fulfill at least some of my duties. An RA will not be replacing me. Several RAs in the lab had tried to learn, unsuccessfully, in the past and further attempts to train them were halted years ago. Several newly hired postdocs themselves quit before they were brought fully up to speed, partly due to the volume and demands of the work. You can't do this stuff if you don't love it - each experiment lasts several months. If it's done half-assed, next thing you know you spent five months doing experiments that were invalid because one of the steps was consistently missed, as happened with one of the postdocs and two techs. The surplus grant money in question was indeed available for salaries and a small portion of it ended up being used to temporarily add extra help. Not to mention that even when there are strict limitations on how the money can be spent, there are all sorts of manipulations that are done to repurpose money from one grant and use another grant that doesn't have that limitation to overcome such rules. I've been part of the financial planning and justifications for the grant agencies and such switches aren't uncommon here. In the end, the amount of notice I can give might be dictated by my new position, which might require me to start right away. And I can't just go to the PI and notify that I am applying for new positions - all sorts of different business guides stress that this should not be done for obvious reasons. I don't know if anyone knows of a realistically better way to handle this. As for the letters, I have already secured them with a recommendation letter service. I don't know if they can be retracted. Of course, I also don't know if they are good enough to be particularly helpful in the first place.

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, of course, I was going to make the request for the salary and then follow up, while asking for a specific timeline. No threats since that's not beneficial to anyone. And I have saved many job postings over the past 2 years, all of which have salary info, including from our own university. I am going to submit them with my letter. But it's a good idea to frame my responsibilities more along the lines of the advertised positions. The rank should be an associate and not an assistant from everything I have read and the posted positions I have seen. What makes this especially wrong, is that we had several $100K funding surplus that had to be used up and all that money was purely used to order equipment and supplies. Ironically, I was asked to decide most of the orders, which I did and upgraded the lab. And this was after I had already made a request for a raise. It's unfortunate, but I don't think good work is rewarded by default. At least in the US, it seems you always have to ask and almost pester about money, which I hate to do. I presume that you guys don't see a problem with me giving a 1-2 weeks notice, if it becomes necessary. I also intend to talk to HR to find out some direct information about my employee files and reviews, which has not come up since I started working with this new PI some years ago. Based on working with my previous PI, annual reviews are mandatory, and my previous PI always discussed them with me. Also intend to ask HR about salary grades. Let me know if you think this could backfire. I don't think HR can disclose my inquiries to the PI, but I'm not sure it would be such a bad thing even if the PI is notified.

What do you mean by careful conversations over the coming months? The discussion about a raise can happen probably only once and I'll get either a yes or no answer. It's not something I can bug them about. Or am I missing something? And the PI knows quite well that I am pretty unhappy about my position and salary because the previous discussion was extremely blunt as a result of rather disrespectful incident towards me due to a misunderstanding. It's more like willful ignorance than blindsiding. The PI is not directly in my field of interest or the university of interest and the degree I'm pursuing is MD/PhD. One of the reasons I'm posting here is that I actually don't want to burn bridges, but make them understand that it's a purely business decision, which it is. I really need to make some extra money before I am stuck in school for so many years without a salary. I'm not a recent grad anymore. Do you think an enthusiastic letter about a raise, a description of how I love what I do, and a polite request to match my position to my skills will be a bad approach? There will be no threats or anything, but I definitely want to do this in writing to have recourse in the future, if needed, and also so that my request is taken seriously. If the request is denied, I won't make a big fuss. But I will apply for a different lab position and regretfully quit. And it's not just money - I don't have anything else to learn from this lab and am not growing scientifically. The PI actively prevented me from collaborating with other PIs who wanted my help with their work as a collaborator. Smells somewhat sinister, I don't know. As far as letters of recommendation, I already secured them.

Hey guys, I have been working in Colorado as a research assistant in neuroscience for several years while I am preparing to apply to grad school. Fortunately or unfortunately, I really like research and pretty much got stuck in the lab collecting data, analyzing, and publishing, instead of spending my time to apply to grad school and move on. Anyway, over the course of quite a few years I have gained expertise in the rather difficult field of brain recordings. I have also taught myself complex statistics with SPSS and SAS, and am currently the only person in our department who can completely analyze the complex datasets we produce. Just a small snapshot. My problem: despite all the skills, experimental improvements, and new techniques I have brought to this lab, my salary has pretty much remained stagnant, other than the ~2% annual cost of living adjustments done by the university and the rare, local conferences I am being sent to. Usually they take the data that I produce (using my own methods, completely independent experiments, and with my own analyses they don't really understand), and present the posters at conferences. This resulted in a disaster one time when the research assistant professor who had presented my work had incorrectly answered a question about statistical calculations on the poster... Currently, my salary is 10% below what I should get according to glassdoor, and that's for the average RA worker, not someone who basically runs the entire grant. For someone with my skills, my research indicated a rank of an associate and an estimate of ~40% higher salary. Even though I am for sure going to finally apply this coming year, I don't think I can take being in this lab any longer and allow them to just use my work without significantly upgrading my salary and rank, or showing more respect. So I wanted to ask for advice about how to approach the main PI about this. I was promised a raise with the new grant over a year ago, but the raise never materialized and I didn't say anything. I was thinking about making my request in writing this time and including specific calculations about how I have improved the experiments. It's very likely I won't get the 40% raise given how cheap they've been in the past, but in that case my concern shifts to quitting and avoiding possible retribution. I want to leave with a 1-2 week notice and have no desire to work overtime trying to teach someone else my skills, most of which I have acquired on my own time, not that we have anyone who could learn these skills. Further concerns shift to unpublished papers that are in the form of a manuscript, including first authorship. My understanding is that as long as the paper is at least submitted, I can't be dropped as an author even if the paper is rejected and resubmitted. I do have concerns about the PI calling schools or other labs in an attempt to harm my future endeavors, but I don't know how much leverage PIs have in cases like this.