Ms. Mentor

Lab or Love Nest?

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Question (from "Angie"): I'm thinking about grad school and have been offered a research-assistant position in a lab that I like. The project (chemistry) is interesting, and the supervisor, "Dr. Dave," is very nice, but he's married to one of the Ph.D. students, "Debbie." Though he's not her director, he does most of the day-to-day lab managing. If I start there, I'll be working in the same lab with Dr. Dave, Debbie, and one or two other students.

Do you think it's unwise for me to work in that environment? I don't like Debbie very much, but Dave is a marvelous supervisor (I did my senior project in his lab). He really understands my needs. Dave and Debbie seem happy now, and I really dislike speculating about bad things to come, but what if they, for some reason, break up? I don't want to tiptoe around other people when I should be focusing on my work.

On the other hand, here I know what I get. I mean everyone knows that they're married, so it's not some hush-hush business where you can't be sure what's really going on. Oh, please, Ms. Mentor, give me your view on the circumstances.

Question (from "Sunshine"): In a past life and in a foreign country, I fell into in a love triangle in which I won his love -- and her anger and resentment. Four years later, he's long gone, but she ("Vixen") and I are new postdocs in the same lab in the same tiny subfield. She's a depraved back stabber who, I'm told, impugns my intelligence and dedication, never mind my morals. How can I get revenge? May I send rotten fish?

Answer: Ms. Mentor thinks her correspondents have very humid imaginations.

She reminds readers that she does not do independent investigations. She will not call her moles at Angie's university to ask about the solidity of Debbie and Dr. Dave's marriage. Nor will she e-mail Angie's roommate to find out if she often has vivid reveries about her professors. And Ms. Mentor certainly will not check out what Sunshine and Vixen may have said about each other in their "don't-tell-anyone-I-told-you-this" conversations.

Relying faithfully on Angie's own report, Ms. Mentor sees a fledgling scientist whose mentor (Dr. Dave) has encouraged her intellectual growth. His wife (Debbie) works near him, smoothly as far as we know. Perhaps their role models are Marie and Pierre Curie, who combined love and work and in the evenings, gossiped about radium.

Does Angie talk about chemistry in the evenings -- or speculate about Dr. Dave? Ms. Mentor wonders, knowing that even in our enlightened times, few enough young women are appreciated for their minds. (Ms. Mentor directs interested readers to Dorothy C. Holland and Margaret A. Eisenhart's book, Educated in Romance: Women, Achievement, and College Culture.)

A slightly older man who "understands my needs" can be attractive, even seductive, without intending to be. But does Angie have the passionate and independent dedication to science that she'll need to complete graduate school and have a successful career pursuing grants and new knowledge?

Or does she have other things in mind?

Possibly she's imagining a Dave-and-Debbie breakup simply because she's a worrywart. Academe has always attracted brilliant people who spend an inordinate amount of time imagining the worst. Who else, at the age of 40, still wakes up sweating from the same nightmare -- that it's the end of the semester and you discover you're signed up for a course you never attended, and now you're sure you'll get an F and your life will be ruined?

But Dr. Dave has never given Angie a reason to sweat. He's never hinted at anything beyond what she's registered for: a teacher-student relationship.

Ms. Mentor thinks Angie should find playmates her own age. If she's seeking a soulmate, then a nonacademic one with a movable career -- a partner who can come along to graduate school, postdoctoral appointments, and remote college towns -- may be better than a labmate who'll compete for the same prizes. And when you're so enmeshed in dissertation work that every blind research alley, every grumpy greeting, or every fatherly smile from a senior professor seems like a portent of danger or a doorway to sin, your nonacademic partner can bark a reality check -- such as "How absurd is that?" or "Ha ha ha."

Ms. Mentor also thinks that Angie should not work with Dr. Dave. If her ideas are good, other professors will value them. If they're not, and Dr. Dave has been jollying her along, it's best to find out now, before committing most of the next decade to a career that may not suit her. Ms. Mentor suggests that Angie ask other faculty members for professional advice about graduate school, and give herself time to decide what she wants to be when she grows up.

Unless she's addicted to drama and crises, Angie won't want to be Sunshine, who is stewing in the lab and pondering revenge over what ought to be a long-dead rivalry.

Ms. Mentor admits that the classic revenge ploys -- mistaken e-mails, hair pulling, poison darts -- are all soul-satisfying, though often undignified. The best defense is not a good offense if it's obvious or catty, if it lands you in jail, of if it makes you miss the next grant application cycle.

Instead, Sunshine must smother Vixen with kindness, while doing her own best research, writing, and grant-getting. She should greet Vixen with a big Julia Roberts smile. Be upbeat and enthusiastic. If Vixen is honest/rude in return, she'll only look churlish. No one wants a labmate with a sour face.

As for the secondhand backstabber reports ("she said you're a flake and a slut"), Sunshine should respond with disbelief: "Oh, she couldn't possibly have said that. She's so smart, and we worked together so well with Professor Casanova in Krakow."

Her informants may think Sunshine is hopelessly saccharine or naïve, but their opinions don't matter. Being saintly is the best revenge. People will like you, and a reputation for collegiality as well as competence always works in the lab, and in life.

Never let them see you seethe.

Question: Oh, how I long to send my two-faced, libidinous adviser something dead and wet through snail mail. But then I get all compassionate and guilty about endangering the beleaguered souls who work in the Post Office. Must I resist this thrilling temptation, smile through gritted teeth, and get my revenge through the long, slow process of achieving tenure?

Answer: Yes.

SAGE READERS: Ms. Mentor always invites queries, gossip, and rants, and reports that her recent column on social class in academia (June 1, 2005) attracted outraged letters from those who feel she "discriminates against the rich." Oh, dear.

Ms. Mentor regrets that she cannot answer all epistles individually. She encourages appropriate subject headings, and anonymity is guaranteed to all correspondents.