I realized this past month that part of my problem with patience is that I am a planner. I like to know what is happening and when so I can plan ahead. So, when crisis erupts, although I handle it as best I can, it often discombobulates me and leaves things done out of order or out of the best quality of which I am capable.
This week in lab, the students are doing an enzyme assay. For many of them, it will be the first time they have worked with enzymes and this equipment and their lab partners in true cooperations, and some of them haven't even covered enzymes in lecture yet. In our desire to accomodate students, we have labs that range from 7:30AM to 10:00PM, which leaves a broad time span for which to keep materials properly supplied, some of which have short shelf lives and must be remade every day.
Before I left for home last night, I prepared all the materials. Before I got to work, things were already going wrong.
From almost the moment I got on the road, I was behind schedule. Slow drivers, accidents, and other things conspired to retard my arrival at work. One professor was practically panicked because he arrived early to familiarize himself but found it basically a waste without being able to come conference with me. The projector bulb went out. Last night's lab had left things in absolute disarray. Reagents were cross-contaminated or completely exhausted with narry a note or backward glance. To resupply some things, I had to leave a temporary mess, just as my coworker arrived. These new problems threw off my otherwise brilliant plan to prepare this morning, and so I ended up making eight trips into the classroom with lightbulbs, reagents, and pieces of equipment to get the students on track. By the time I had been at work for an hour, I was already behind schedule.
Things have stabilized for now, but they did not go off smoothly. These changes threw off my other plans, which have now inconvenienced coworkers who waited until last minute to do things and must now take a back seat to the immediate problems. They are probably not very happy with me since circumstances demanded that I create temporary disarray in their plans to accomodate for the more pressing demands of a class already in session.
Crisis mode creates conflict. Everyone's nervous, everyone's upset, and everyone's inconvenienced. Yet, few people plan ahead.
Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Fortunately for everyone else, I actually care about the students, even though I have never met these particular students before today, and so I acted quickly to forstall other problems as they arose. Hopefully the professor will write a laudatory email to counterbalance the derrogatory ones which populate most people's personnel files.
This week in lab, the students are doing an enzyme assay. For many of them, it will be the first time they have worked with enzymes and this equipment and their lab partners in true cooperations, and some of them haven't even covered enzymes in lecture yet. In our desire to accomodate students, we have labs that range from 7:30AM to 10:00PM, which leaves a broad time span for which to keep materials properly supplied, some of which have short shelf lives and must be remade every day.
Before I left for home last night, I prepared all the materials. Before I got to work, things were already going wrong.
From almost the moment I got on the road, I was behind schedule. Slow drivers, accidents, and other things conspired to retard my arrival at work. One professor was practically panicked because he arrived early to familiarize himself but found it basically a waste without being able to come conference with me. The projector bulb went out. Last night's lab had left things in absolute disarray. Reagents were cross-contaminated or completely exhausted with narry a note or backward glance. To resupply some things, I had to leave a temporary mess, just as my coworker arrived. These new problems threw off my otherwise brilliant plan to prepare this morning, and so I ended up making eight trips into the classroom with lightbulbs, reagents, and pieces of equipment to get the students on track. By the time I had been at work for an hour, I was already behind schedule.
Things have stabilized for now, but they did not go off smoothly. These changes threw off my other plans, which have now inconvenienced coworkers who waited until last minute to do things and must now take a back seat to the immediate problems. They are probably not very happy with me since circumstances demanded that I create temporary disarray in their plans to accomodate for the more pressing demands of a class already in session.
Crisis mode creates conflict. Everyone's nervous, everyone's upset, and everyone's inconvenienced. Yet, few people plan ahead.
Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Fortunately for everyone else, I actually care about the students, even though I have never met these particular students before today, and so I acted quickly to forstall other problems as they arose. Hopefully the professor will write a laudatory email to counterbalance the derrogatory ones which populate most people's personnel files.
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