So after all that angsting, things finally reached a head at work last week. (I say “finally”; it’s sometimes hard to remember that I only started a couple of months ago. It has certainly felt like a long time.) Anyway, the ensuing meetings and negotiations and weeping and rending of garments, over the course of several days, can be loosely summed up as:
M: The models are horrible and I can’t take it anymore!
PI: So make something better. It’s your research.
M: But I don’t know if I can!
PI: Pfft. Nobody does. Don’t be such a wuss.
I paraphrase, obviously. Everything was couched in politeness and hedged around with ifs and buts. But the upshot is I got called chicken, and, like Marty McFly, just couldn’t walk away.
This doesn’t seem to me like a conversation one can have more than once, so I guess I’m in it for the long term after all. And since I’ve effectively been authorised to do whatever is necessary to get things on a sounder footing, I now have no choice but to put my metaphorical money where my proverbial mouth is and sort it the fuck out.
In a future post, I may try to explain what that entails. In the meantime: Eek!