Just before I left grad. school lab, a new manager was hired. While this person was very nice, they were also very annoying due to the loads of useless and obvious information they tried to impart on me and other members of the lab. For those reasons I dubbed him Captain Obvious (If you like, you can read about Capt. Obvious here and here.)
In my new lab, I found no one obsessed with imparting the obvious and this made me happy. Unfortunately, I was knocked down a peg or two when I found a new specimen in journal club. She attends every week and as you might imagine, she finds many obvious things to point out. Since this person is actually a tenure-track faculty member (sigh), I will refer to her as Dr. Obvious.
After many journal clubs, I’ve noticed Dr. Obvious pretty much sticks to the basic tactics of imparting the obvious, but she also adds her own little flair to the process. I’ve also noticed that unlike most maters of the obvious, Dr. Obvious really enjoys sucking up to other faculty. It’s nauseating.
Today’s journal club was chock full of #1s and #4s. Today’s #4 went something like this: The speaker presented a paper on how a particular viral protein affects leukocyte trafficking. Ten minutes after journal club is SUPPOSED to be done she asks something like this: Since a virus can evade the host's immune system by producing proteins that interfere with signaling, and bacteria can make these types of proteins too, then how do antibiotics work or is this why they don't work?
Let me just say that if spontaneous human combustion were possible, it would have happened to me today. All I could do was burry my face in my hands and muffle the large sigh and eye rolling that spontaneously occurs when I hear something that ridiculous.
In my new lab, I found no one obsessed with imparting the obvious and this made me happy. Unfortunately, I was knocked down a peg or two when I found a new specimen in journal club. She attends every week and as you might imagine, she finds many obvious things to point out. Since this person is actually a tenure-track faculty member (sigh), I will refer to her as Dr. Obvious.
After many journal clubs, I’ve noticed Dr. Obvious pretty much sticks to the basic tactics of imparting the obvious, but she also adds her own little flair to the process. I’ve also noticed that unlike most maters of the obvious, Dr. Obvious really enjoys sucking up to other faculty. It’s nauseating.
- Through out journal club, Dr. Obvious insists on speaking along with the presenter. Like when you know what someone is going to say and you say it with him or her. Only, since this is a presentation, I find it inappropriate and annoying. Also, since I think Dr. Obvious is inferior to every other faculty member in the department, I can only assume this "talking with the speaker" is some sad attempt at making sure that someone, anyone, realizes that they know something about science. Unfortunately, the whole room could have chimed in because we all know what the presenter is about to say in these instances. It’s called common knowledge. This goes on every week.
- Dr. Obvious asks way too many questions. These questions are either (a) silly or (b) a thinly veiled attempt to discuss her lab’s research or (c) both. I started keeping track of the amount of time Dr. Obvious takes up in the hour-long journal club with her questions and I clocked her at 10-15 minutes. Guess how long journal club typically runs over. That's right, 15 minutes. When Dr. Obvious does not attend journal club, they end on time.
- She coos and coos over the other faculty members when they present a paper for journal club, telling them how smart they are and how awesome their work is. (Note: The paper typically does not have anything to do with their research.) When she found out that one of the faculty members discovered a TLR, I thought she was going to offer to spawn his children. After the fourth or fifth, “Wow, I didn’t know you discovered TLR??, that is soooooooooo amazing,” even he seemed a little annoyed.
- When Dr. Obvious isn't stating something obvious, she is demonstrating why she tends to stick to stating the obvious. This is best illustrated with an example. A few months ago a paper that detailed the phenotype of a particular knockout mouse was presented. In this case, the KO mouse exhibited a skin abnormality. Ten minutes after journal club was supposed to end and 10 stupid questions and comments later, she asks another question. After the speaker answers her, she proceeds to say, “Oh! I thought this paper was about Drosophila.” Drosophila? DROSOPHILA!
Today’s journal club was chock full of #1s and #4s. Today’s #4 went something like this: The speaker presented a paper on how a particular viral protein affects leukocyte trafficking. Ten minutes after journal club is SUPPOSED to be done she asks something like this: Since a virus can evade the host's immune system by producing proteins that interfere with signaling, and bacteria can make these types of proteins too, then how do antibiotics work or is this why they don't work?
Let me just say that if spontaneous human combustion were possible, it would have happened to me today. All I could do was burry my face in my hands and muffle the large sigh and eye rolling that spontaneously occurs when I hear something that ridiculous.
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