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Chuck: Here's another edition of 'the Week in Bullshit!'. I'm your anchor, Chuck Chuck, and with me as always is Dick Dick.

Dick: Right back atcha, Chuck. Well this has been a hell of a turn out for Discordia and Dr. Zivago, hasn't it?

Chuck: You bet that candy-sweet ass of yours, Dick. In all my two internet posts of broadcasting experience, I can't remember an eye-opener the likes of this.

Dick: [laughs] I feel ya there, buddy. And what better time than now for another installment of "Bullshit or Bueno?", our archive series where you--our audience--make the call.

Chuck: Roll that beautiful bean footage, Dick.

----

Getting up for my last day on friday didn't require any special motivation. I already had a good incentive to go: to never have to go again. That cut the bitching down to an acceptable minimum.

Traffic was decent, with a calm bus ride and the usual laid-back atmosphere to the whole lab, our own fluourescent fun palace two stories underground. I'd almost miss the mole people downstairs.

Hideyoshi's stuff was there, but noone was around when I got in. Dr. Zivago noticed me before not too long and asked me how I was. Seeing as how I'm not used to him doing that civil thing, I blinked for a second and said I was fine. I asked if he still had time for the evaluation thing, to which he replied: 'yup, yup, just after I do a few things'.

To pass the time, I decided to get responsible/productive and start printing out articles on depression and anxiety research done in rhesus monkies. I'll be working with monkies for the next four years and all, so I figure beating ignorance into a coma would be a good thing for me. At about that time Hideyoshi came back and Attila came in. Attila was sporting his Mt. St. University security uniform along with a pimptastic 'police' bike. Hideyoshi looked over one of the articles I'd printed out and asked if this was for the Madison lab. I kinda smiled to myself and said as much.

Dr. Ziv came in, sat down on the ugly lime green chair toward the back, and began to talk about things that I can't remember. I think it had to do with the newest project he was trying to get off the ground without funding, with him mentioning Professor X and Evidence Y for doing Project Z. I also learned that he was parasitically attaching the lab to a colleague's funding grant; it was the only way he could pay for 400 albino rats that were needed for several of the experiments.

Nice of him to have told his 'co-supervisor' in passing. Eh.

A good 30 minutes passed by like that, with him hovering and sitting in this odd limbo of non-workitude. I printed out the last of some articles on genes and this depression regulation chemical called Serotonin. I think I then just sorta sat there and shot the breeze with Attila or Hideyoshi or something.

----

Eventually, though, Dr. Ziv said he was ready and we meandered to his office. He didn't close his door or anything, so at least that seemed like a decent sign.

Funny thing, though: about 3/4's of my 'evaluation' wasn't an evaluation. Instead, he asked after the oral surgery that I said I needed, making suggestion after suggestion about it. He even mentioned that my face looked kinda puffy, which was a great nod to the gods of deceit and suggestion slipping a micky to reality.

Y'see, rather than tell him that I'm utterly disgusted with his mismanagement, his disrespecting me behind my back, etc. I decided last week to opt for a much easier half-truth. I said that I needed to pay--all out of my own pocket--to have a couple teeth taken out and replaced in my lower left jaw. Here's how that excuse breaks down:

*The half-truth part: There is one tooth back there that had to get a bone graft and is wiggly, which stems from a botched wisdom tooth extraction years back that traumatized that area.

*The half-lie part: I didn't make my actual appointment with Dr. Reznicho; I also, obviously, didn't make it to the fake appointment that 'kept me' from going to this past monday's lab meeting. Instead, I cooked up a story about how the area is extremely infected and how I need this surgery done soon. I also emphasized that it'd be 6,000 USD out-of-my-pocket. Dr. Ziv knows Ma and I are poor, so naturally I'd have to get a job.

It worked. He bought the story and believed me.

Now I know what alot of you are thinking: why the fuck don't you tell that arrogant asshole like it is, sock it to him and leave? Honestly, I'd love to. I've stayed up nights giggling to myself over how I'd tell him off, listing reason after reason for him not deserving his tenure. In the end, however, it pays to stay on his good side. Why? Well...

*To print out science articles, you need a subscription to businesses that have them in full-text on the web. Dr. Ziv's lab has those subscriptions. I don't.

*The psych. community is sorta like a big small town. You can pass by anonymously and do your own stuff, but getting one person really pissed off at you can send rumors sliding from this place to that. The last thing I need is him getting a taste for revenge at his ego being attacked.

*If I really want to stick it to him, I can pass his name and activities the Animal Research Council--and also to PETA. Haven't yet made up my mind about what to do on that front.

----

I digress, though.

The last 1/4 of the evaluation also wasn't an evaluation.

After he'd gotten done with his suggestions and a few advice bits about graduate school, he asked if we were done. For the second time that day, I asked him if he could give me constructive criticism about what I had done right and wrong in the lab, how to improve in general, etc. This first time, he said something about my only being in the lab three times a week and blah blah blah.

I tried again, asking if there was anything at all and just to be honest, not worry about my feelings getting hurt, etc. And again, he danced around the issue and didn't say anything.

I tried a third time, using a different strategy. 'Well,' I said, 'You did write a letter of recommendation...and I got into Madison, so it must have been decent...right?'

Again, nothing; he didn't even bother with words that time; he just mumbled.

For a final fourth time, I directly asked him what he thought about my overall performance in the lab. He mentioned the whole coming in 3 times a week thing and how it was too bad we hadn't been able to produce a publication, but circumstances were shitty. He also said that if I didn't know something that I should ask, jokingly referring to the ECT machine fiasco. I could have mentioned that I told him what I was going to do and that he could have stopped me, but I decided not to; I was still trying to not piss him off and all that.

After that fourth time, I finally gave up trying to get anything out of him. I stood up and thanked him for his time. He sat there scanning his email inbox--as he had been for the last two times I tried asking. He said he'd see me later. I replied with something about as trite.

And that was the last I saw of him.

I did, however, get to talking with my sorta second-in-command, Hideyoshi, and Attila. Hideyoshi is in his early 30's and, from that prospective, gave me a very insightful, thoughtful commentary on stuff I did right (e.g. that I'm, on theory, 'incredibly brilliant'), and stuff I could improve on (e.g. paying attention to politics at work, other people's emotions at work, acknowledging my own instead of being stoic at work, etc.). I could see alot of truth in what he mentioned. I suppose my trying to act like a supervisor and micro-manage everything wasn't always needed, that I should have taken things on a case-by-case basis.

It was funny: getting the kind of evaluation I wanted from someone I didn't expect it from.

Speaking of funny, one of his nervous chuckling comments helped me confirm Dr. Ziv's whole mindset. See, Hideyoshi told me that, if I can help it, I shouldn't upstage my superior or make him look bad by doing alot better than him. He equated the advice to how underlings purposefully lose to their boss during a golf game.

Quite a few people I know had suggested that Dr. Ziv might be jealous of me. I didn't put much stock into it. When it came from Hideyoshi, however, it all came together: how Dr. Ziv would purposefully ignore or avoid me when I was getting administrative stuff done; how he and I always seemed to be like 'two rams butting their heads together constantly' about carrying out projects; how that I had done so much for the lab but ironically, as Attila mentioned, that I got most of the grief and sarcastic abuse.

The guy resented me and felt jealous. Hell, Hideyoshi went a step further: he said that Dr. Ziv probably felt genuinely threatened by me.

Even now I can't imagine WHY he'd feel and think that way, but he does--and now he can do whatever he wants with his lab.

I'm free.

----

Chuck: And there you have it, folks: Volunteering 15 or so hours a week, at 30-40 bucks a week, for 14 months--and no evaluation! Number 61, Daath, got the shaft. Hands down, without a doubt, it's Bullshit and not Bueno, Dick.

Dick: Agreed, Chuck. I've gotta say even I was surprised by this kind of behavior. We know that Dr. Zivago hasn't been with it these last few seasons, but this really makes it clear to me.

Chuck: Too right, Dick. If he treats a volunteer like that, just imagine the Professor of Pomposity giving the goods to his new alleged graduate student!

Dick: Don't wanna imagine the Preparation H THAT person will need!

Chuck: [laughs] Too right, Dick, too right. Well, that wraps up this edition of "the Week in Bullshit!". Join us in the future where we make the calls and drop the balls.

Dick: Drop indeed, Chuck.

Chuck: And so from Bullshit stadium I'm Chuck Chuck.

Dick: And I'm Dick Dick, wishing you and yours a sunny suburban sunday free from the horrors of a botched liberation occupation.

Chuck: Goodnight!

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