The devil is in the details

Nooooooooooooooo

I was all about taking the good with the bad today. I really was. Got up at 8:30 instead of 6:30? No biggie. Still got to work on time. Timing actually worked out about perfectly to coordinate centrifuge times with my rotation student, so if I'd have gotten there at a different time then things would have been a real pain in the ass. Rotation student's ficolling was crap as usual, but no biggie. The day went relatively well other than doing a lot of boring work. I originally thought that I would have to stay pretty late today to get regating computer time, but it turned out that the computer is free all day tomorrow, so I am going to regate then. The weather was crappy, but it's New England, what did I expect? In the end, I was able to cut out a little early (5:45) to run to Best Buy/Bed Bath and pick up a couple of things and then take the T home instead of walking. I ran into a friend at Best Buy and we chatted for a while and I found a new Sims2 expanson pack, so it seemed like an excellent trip (other than the crappy weather). And then I got home and checked my email. Before I go into what I found in my email, let me give you a brief overview of my plans for the next couple of weeks:

Tonight: Read The Shadow of the Giant so that I can be done with it before the weekend, so roommate can take it to BU to get Orson Scott Card to sign it while I am out of town.

Wednesday: Regating, grad student meeting, seminar, getting stuff together to go out of town (laundry)

Thursday: Setting up experiments, making sure all data on my computer, writing protocols etc. (getting ready to be gone)/lunch with friend/packing

Friday-Sunday: Exciting trip to NC. Bringing laptop to work on lab meeting presentation that I have to give on 3/21. Said presentation will take a lot of work, and I need to get as much of it in order as I can.

Major experiments every day of the following week with the exception of Monday (including Saturday and Sunday) in preparation for the lab meeting. Lots of stressing and powerpoint work to occur.

3/21-Give lab meeting, should I not think of a brilliant way to get out of it before then. (Do you get how much work these presentations are/how much I dread them?)

Okay, back to the email....
I got an email from our collaborator in the pharmaceutical company. The email arrived in my inbox at 6:06. This email was not particularly nice, and basically yelled at me for not having a meeting with them recently and asked me to set up a conference call ASAP. The tone was not nice, and it sounds like they want to have a big discussion of where the work is going and possibly end the collaboration. The email was cc'd to my PI. My guess is that he came to look for me all worked up by the tone of the email, and found that I was gone because I cut out early (see above). Crap. The question is...when is he going to want me to set up the conference call? He usually is like "well, set it up for the next time I'm free" which ends up being in two or three days. Problem? I'm going away, so I won't be available Friday and will have to ruin my days off to get it done for early next week. Can I convince him to have it 3/22 (after the lab meeting?) Boy do I hope so. Until I talk to him tomorrow morning (and believe you me I am going to get in at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow) I am going to stress all night about how much of my plans are ruined, when we'll have to have the meeting, and how mad at me he'll be. I am trying to decide whether I should do some of the prep work tonight just to have it done in case I need to do a quick turnaround, or whether I ought to hope that he hasn't seen it and try to relax for the night, since I certainly won't be relaxing any time soon. Goodbye all things not related to the lab for the next few days. Let's hope it's not goodbye trip. Oh, and remember how I haven't been getting much sleep lately for no apparent reason? Looks like that trend will continue. My other question--what happens to my project if we decide to discontinue the collaboration? It seems to be going fruitfully for getting data for publication, but it doesn't sound like they are happy about it from a pharma point of view. If we quit collaborating, do I get to keep the materials that they sent me? Is my boss still interested in the project (I think so, but who knows)? Will I have to up and change projects after a year of work and almost a publication's worth of data? The only good part that I can see of ending the collaboration would be that I would never have to have another conference call with them again.

Best case scenario: Boss says give the presentation after the lab meeting. We decide to discontinue the collaboration and I get to keep working on the project and keep my reagents. Of course, there are a whole lot of scenarios that are much worse. Right now, I am halfway between wanting to cry and wanting to throw up. Looking on the bright side...at least it is taking my mind off of the other stuff that I have been thinking about lately. All humor and positive distractions would be appreciated.

posted by Immunegirl @ 7:29 PM