Trust but verify

On another note, things are progressing, albeit slowly, in the lab.  I have spent most of my time so far purify materials and trying to make sense of my students notebooks.  I have managed to purify a few compounds that based on my student's NMRs clearly were not pure before.  I got one nicely crystalline compound that is in the x-ray as I write.  

Working with undergraduates and MS candidates can be trying.  Partially because my students chaff under demands that they show me notebooks and spectra and partially because I want them to take ownership in their projects I try to treat them like the professionals they strive to be.  I ask them if they have documented work, determined yields, made sure compounds are in a pure enough stated and sufficiently analyzed to pass muster with JOC reviewers and always get an affirmative answer.

Unfortunately, in my career I have had to go into the lab and redo every experiment my students have done to get it into publishable shape.  Much of what I am doing, my students should have done.  Perhaps they did but their notebooks contain less detail then found on the average public restroom wall.  

It is at these times that I think of the public humiliation of faculty members when seemingly important work has been withdrawn when it could not be repeated and was found to be false.  While it is the research mentor/primary author's responsibility to verify all data, one does want to trust there students or postdocs.  

So, when your "bad boss" micromanages your work, cut her some slack and recognize that in the mentor's mind needing to redo work wastes resources and delays publication.  Incorrect or false reporting sends people down wrong paths and ultimately reduces funding potential.  Bad lab work and bad reporting of lab work make, or at least contribute to making, bad bosses.