#because he's certainly very hardworking and reasonably smart and generally well-regarded as a lab assistant | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

random2908 · 7 months ago

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The other day, two of the engineers came up to me, saying they'd been looking for me. They had... a chemistry question?? A metallurgy question, perhaps.

I don't know if they thought I'd know the answer, or if a decision needed to be made and I was the most senior* person they could find who had fingers in that project.

Anyway, I didn't know, but I gave them a list of questions to try googling. But... it was something my brother would have known off the top of his head, reasonably closely related to his PhD and very closely related to his hobbies. A year ago I would have just texted him and had the answer within a couple hours.

#* one of the two engineers actually has seniority over me by 2-3 levels #but he's very sensitive to the idea that basically any physicist outranks any engineer and so is--unduly--deferential to me #the other engineer is legit just one of the lab assistants who happens to be currently assigned to some of the same projects as me #and is neither allowed nor comfortable with making decisions.#in fact I think his lack of interest in making decisions is part of why he has the job he has rather than a higher ranking/higher pay job #because he's certainly very hardworking and reasonably smart and generally well-regarded as a lab assistant

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