Hellish situation here!!! I need some input

[Krumusu_bros]

Hey thanks for reading. I'm in a bioscience Phd program and i joined a lab about 9 months ago.

1, One of my senior colleagues (by a yr) is an obvious racist $%@# who's idea of good work jokes always involves racial stereotypes which i've had to grin at or brush off so i don't come off as the african kid who can't take a joke.

 

2, Worse however is that this colleague of mine worked on my project for a year generated nothing negative or positive that i'm aware off and then switched projects. I picked up this project when i joined the lab and generated genuine negative data which isn't BS but is just unpublishable because its negative data. 3months ago my Boss gets in a pinch because our lab has been dragging this project for almost 2 years and grant reviewers were probably hustling him especially because he is newer P.I and my boss decides to put another senior colleague in my lab (a friendlier fella who has another project and was then an md student on a 1yr research leave) on my project and now not only does it become a love triangle, i became somewhat in my perspective an ugly third wheel, progress on the now collaborative project could now be planned without my input e.t.c. I protested very politely as i always do about my desire to maintain ownership of this project sink or swim and was assured that the project will remain mine, once a first publication was forced out (probably to placate grant reviewer or auditors w/e they are called) but  whenever i left my boss office after the "nice chats" i  felt that i had just been put on another BS treadmill. Well my collaborator then decides to go for the md/phd (which is smart because he's skilled in research) and this suddenly complicates my situation exponentially.

 

Hence i feel totally mind-@#$%ed and i'm about to lose it. i'm up at 3 am thinking about this crap, my self confidence is honesty shot to shits

And while friends are great i'm 27 i need a bloody career more than i need friends now.

My Boss of course has a prerogative to run his lab how he deems but i need a career and third wheeling my project isn't my idea of a career building exercise and i've honestly questioned his capacity to look out for my interest (which is really sad because he's a nice fella)

I've already begun making contingency plans for quitting. What do you guys think.

[juilletmercredi]

I'm not entirely sure what is going on here, so take my advice FWIW.

1. I personally would not worry about being perceived as the "African kid who can't take a joke."  You said yourself that your career is more important than friends, and I am pretty sure that you don't want to be friends with this guy anyway.  So next time he makes a racist remark, tell him to knock it off and that it isn't funny.  Or you can tell him that you don't really think that's appropriate for the lab.  Even if he's like "Damn kid can't take a joke," he'll most likely stop.  I don't tolerate that stuff and I've had a few people who thought I was uptight because I don't like sexist or racist jokes - or jokes about my age - but they're not people who I really care what they think about me anyway.

2. This is the part I don't understand…but as far as I can tell you need to set expectations and roles with your colleagues who are working on the project together.  Call a meeting with one or both of them and have a mature discussion about who is doing what.  Write it down and then send the meeting notes to everyone involved.  Their relationship should not affect your productivity, so you need a good chat and a plan.  Don't expect your PI to do it - part of your training is professionalization and learning how to handle this kind of thing, so take the reins and do it.

Also, just as a note, at least in my field publication authorship is based upon the work done on the actual publication and the research leading to it, not just based on who "started" the project or "owned" it.  There are people who were former members of my lab who are NOT on my publications, even though they collected data or managed the project, because they didn't do any significant writing or analysis of the data involved in the paper.  Besides I make it a point that before I start a paper that we work out the authorship order so everyone is clear and there are no nasty surprises.

[ak48]

As awkward as it can be, I do think that "writing down tasking assignments" is crucial, just so that everybody understands what responsibilities are and you also have something physical to point to when stuff doesn't go right.

 

As for the joking, I'd be pretty up front about how he should stop it, even if you come across as humorless.

[Grev]

I don't have much advice to add on the topic of the lab work (though the idea of writing up tasks is a good one), but on the topic of the racist jokes I really, really recommend you report the offender.  It doesn't have to be to your department, but it may be possible you can file a complaint with the Graduate School in some way.  You may even be able to retain a some anonymity.  Behavior like that is unacceptable, and it really shouldn't be your responsibility to jump in and correct it.  That should be the University/Department's job, but they can't/won't move on it until a complaint is filed *sigh*.

 

If you're not sure who you can talk to, your university's Center for Multicultural Affairs and/or Black Student Union are great places to start.

 

In either case, I sincerely wish you the best of luck getting the whole thing sorted out with your project and your data.