So, so true
I’ve had all of these perspectives in my career, so I can tell you that they’re mostly right…except for the one about how professors see themselves. You should just substitute the postdoc:postdoc image for the professor:professor one.
Also, I worked my way through college as an undergraduate technician. Even with my lowly status, I really did see all the undergrads/grads/postdocs as spoiled children who were there only to screw up my lab and my precious experimental animals. Especially when they’d leave a pile of gore and blood and dead animal parts scattered all over the surgery, and expected me to clean it all up.
(Also on Sb)
Lord Shplanington, Not A Frenchman:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
It may not be prudent to tell your students that you see them as either OH LAWDY SO SEXY or slaves.
I mean yeah, it’s probably true, but you’re not supposed to say it.
Glen Davidson:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
How the IDiots see everyone in science.
Because of their suffering, of course.
Glen Davidson
llewelly:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
PZ:
Actually, that mess was made by the Hideous Thing which ate them, and then escaped without you noticing. It still lurks in the hills outside of town, waiting patiently for innocent passers by …
PZ Myers:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
That’s a good point. That one is probably also wrong: professors see undergrads as little kids. Every year when the new crop of freshmen come in, we’re all secretly aghast at how damned young they are.
dropkickpa:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
HA! Printed and shared!!
Carlie:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
That’s exactly what I was thinking – ew, they’re little, not old sexy people!
hyperdeath:
August 10th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
I don’t get the technician as seen by postdoc image. What does it mean?
PZ Myers:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
The techs are the ones who know everything that’s happening in the lab.
Sal Bro:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
hyperdeath, I took it to mean that postdocs see techs as being busybodies.
Moggie:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
So, Scrooge McDuck is prone to saying things like “how do I google my internet?” and being baffled by printers?
Tabby Lavalamp:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I’m confused. Why do technicians see themselves as ultra-conservative, very religious, homophobic whackjobs who write for WorldNutDaily and support getting the Wholly Babble into public schools?
Or maybe I’m missing something..
DataJack:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Also, Chuck Norris was at the Southpoint when we were at TAM. I didn’t see him, but I heard he walked with a body guard.
Sastra:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Maybe those were sacrificial offerings. Not a bad idea to get on the good side of the techies.
If they were too messy, you should have constructed an altar as a helpful hint.
SteveM:
August 10th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
re 11:
Your missing seeing him as the character he played on TV: McGuyver. Oh wait(!) that was Richard Dean Anderson (not this guy), who could solve any technical problem with little more than a paperclip and bubblegum. Sorry for that, but McGuyver makes more sense to me as the Technician’s view of other technicians.
feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
Hey, we already know how you feel about cats.
Psych-Oh:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I am with SteveM about McGuyver. I could fix an EEG pen and replace faulty electrodes blindfolded (well, almost). I thought I was pretty stinkin’ cool.
Karen:
August 10th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
The “how technician sees himself” is so damned true in my department! Our tech is a super-conservative, who works among a bunch of liberal professors and mostly liberal students without saying a word (but he does listen to Rush Limbaugh in his own lab). OTOH, he’s personally the antithesis of the archtype Rethug: personable, kind, and patient. He also has an amazing capability for hacking together lab tools out of the pittance that our department has for lab equipment. (We’re primarily a teaching school; what few grants we do get go toward supporting MS student work. At best, they might pay for some work done at another school’s lab. None trickle down to our own labs.)
Ric:
August 10th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Yeah, this post seems imprudent on your part, PZ.
Blueaussi:
August 10th, 2011 at 6:20 pm
Sastra@18 “Maybe those were sacrificial offerings. Not a bad idea to get on the good side of the techies.
If they were too messy, you should have constructed an altar as a helpful hint.”
Oh!
I am *so* going to do that the next time someone leaves me a mess in the necropsy room!
Kirian:
August 10th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
There is no doubt the person who wrote this was a technician. Though when I was a tech, I saw the postdocs in a generally better light than that; maybe my postdocs actually knew what they were doing. :)
Kichae:
August 10th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
So, am I the only one who finds the idea of being looked upon as Scrooge McDuck some day a dream come true? Regardless of the money bin, even.
If I ever make it to professor, I’m getting the McDuck outfit tailored for me.
Zeno:
August 10th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
The teaching profession has long since discovered the secret of eternal youth. Unfortunately, the eternal youth is for your students, not for you.
Blueaussi:
August 10th, 2011 at 7:17 pm
Kirian@20
You know what PhD stands for, don’t you?
Poor Helpless Doctor
Alexander Safir:
August 10th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Hmm. What institution functions without staff? Strangely absent from the chart.
No, wait, I get it now!
Rey Fox:
August 10th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
No biggie. Just don’t stand, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to them.
Ctenotrish:
August 10th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
He appears to be unstable, and certainly is alarming. I too hope he gets the professional help he needs …
Ctenotrish:
August 10th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
Oh shoot. Wrong thread. Sorry!!
Love:
August 10th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
What it all boils down to is a three-dimensional “How X thinks (Y thinks of Z)”. Maybe more dimensions?
CD:
August 10th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Agreed. :D
Classical Cipher:
August 11th, 2011 at 12:57 am
I don’t know what’s happening in the “how undergrads see PhD students” square, but I always saw PhD students as they allegedly see themselves… Living with several of them probably helped that impression a little. Everything else seems right in that row, as far as I can tell :) But erm yeah, I’d guess we probably didn’t seem as sexy to most professors as this chart would like us to think, since I’m only a year out from undergrad and I already can’t look at the (traditional) undergrads without worrying about how very little and young they all are. Can’t imagine they will become sexy sexy grownups with greater distance…
DLC:
August 11th, 2011 at 2:02 am
Once upon a time DLC worked as a lab tech. and yes, students were entirely annoying children who blew stuff up and expected me to fix it. Oh, and some of them managed to electrocute/cut/burn/poison themselves while doing it.
nemo the derv:
August 11th, 2011 at 2:42 am
blueaussie@23
Kirian@20
I thought it stood for “Piling it High and Deep”
Timothy (TRiG):
August 11th, 2011 at 7:03 am
I like the vision of lab techs as Akinator.
TRiG.
dropkickpa:
August 11th, 2011 at 9:58 am
Postdocs last, what, 6 months to *maybe* 2 years in a lab, techs seeing them as children is very appropriate! I often hear techs here bemoan the influx of new “baby postdocs” and all the babysitting they’ll have to do for the next 6 months until they’re somewhat capable of functioning independently.
David Utidjian:
August 11th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Techie here. I think the way we view ourselves is a bit more than McGyver. McGyver is a bogus hack. I was thinking more along the lines of Jonathan Goldsmith of Dos Equis “most interesting man in the world.” ad campaign.
“The police often question him just because they find him interesting,” “His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man’s entire body,” “His blood smells like cologne.”
The last is sometimes true… with the stuff we have to work with. ;-)
http://michiganacting.com/acting/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/dos-equis-man.png
MarkusR:
August 12th, 2011 at 9:59 am
I’m in Electrical Engineering and we don’t really have technicians. Heck, we barely have labs. It’s more like BYOT&E hobby time.