mentor an undergrad

The walk away. Strong move generally carried out by the angry, arrogant or insane. Following my question about whether an undergrad assistant working with us this summer had found a mentor, my boss just walked away. I have been subject to this maneuver several times, but it still generally burns me proper. I consider communication to be a right more than a privilege, and even if someone is a bigshot, good old boy, or quintuple balckbelt, I expect an answer, even if it is a huffed "I dunno".

Quotation marks in the US evidently float right of the period in that sentence because back in the day a period was a fragile part of typographical objects. My jury of one is still out on how I feel about that so I will shoot for inconsistency.

Later I have get my call into the office and hear about how it was awkward for me to ask about the undergrad helper because I am so abominably ineffective. The boss is good at never saying anything directly quotable. He may have been sued for harassment several times over his career, and he is old enough that he can get away with simply using incomplete sentences to communicate. Somewhat like Charles Barkley. He said something close to the effect that I was absolutely not productive enough to work with the kid. Fast forward three weeks, the kid will work with a guy a year below me. Great grad student, decent english skills, not really interested in supervising a green undergrad. Fine. -2 ego points. One lab motto is that life isnt fair, and this even is. Another week passes, we all do an early jet from lab Friday at 5 to enjoy glorious spring at a tech's housewarming party. Boss looked for me at 6, says the grapevine. Ouch. I get the email later that night: Why dont I do x and y with the undergrad. No mention of previous admonishment, or early departure. This is old hat by now though, the mood swings, the Someteimer's, the lack of a physical record to prove points scientific or personal. The clutch question is, do I take the bait.

I have worked with one before, bright girl, freshman, shows up twice a week for three hours at a time. When I was a tech there were a million brainless things that had to be done, so I assumed this would be easy. I didnt want to give her scut work, to garner interest and increase the chance that she would pick up the sword and conquer science. She didnt, and transferred to Cornell at the end of the year just as her cell passaging skills were getting relatively even and uninfected. So I mostly wasted maybe 30hrs. Some postdocs in the lab take undergrads, but four fifths of the results are lousy. Taking the undergrad leaves you open to a higher level of top-down abuse as well, as you are not only failing to excel with your own time, but even with an assistant you are failing the family. Boss would love to be an NFL coach. Anything you do, say or might have said or thought of doing can and will be used against you in the court of the corner office.

I have recently developed a more winning attitude. A 40hr undergrad can learn fast compared to the one who comes in during free block. Other labs team all grad students with undergrads. Its good experience for me to train people. The next guy in line to mentor the kid is a bitchass to work for. That said if we split the kids time than that postdoc can play bad cop to my good cop and then the undergrad might learn some decent technique (not from me). Ultimately, its about the drive that the kid has. If I can drill him in an email or 5 minutes of face time, I hope I could detect if he killer instincts or that he's another smart American who means well but is not ready to foment the attitude and attention to detail needed at this gig. Maybe I will be lucky and he aspires to neurosurgery.