The RA Job from Hell...advice!

[hockeyguy109]

Greetings everyone,

I'm just curious if anyone has experience as a research assistant? This is my first semester in grad school, and I want to make a good impression - but I don't know what to do about my RA job. My professor is completely nuts. He's very nice, don't get me wrong. Compliments my work.....but he calls me 12-15 times a day. He just spent 1 hour to tell me I need to rewrite something and e-mail the library. That's it. No details or anything, but he just kept repeating each one....then saying something random and unrelated, then repeated again, and again, and again. It's like being the RA of Howard Hughes. In the time spent on the phone, I could have already done it.

Anyways, it's only an 18 hour a week job, but it's just torchering me. Has anyone actually backed out of an RA contract with a university? I have no idea what to do. We've got a small department, and the guy is really nice.....but I just can't handle his craziness. I also have another job (private contractor), where I can get more money per hour and more enjoyable. What should I do?