What should I do?

Everywhere I go, there are decisions among unpleasant choices, and important people and relationships at stake.

Ever since my mom got sick in Taiwan and I had to make certain decisions about what to do with her care, whose opinions to follow, whether she should cancel her plane ticket and see a doctor or go back to the States and cancel her doctor’s appointment. When I got back I had to deal with business at home and also decide whether to try to schedule in or cancel a trip (planned long in advance) with friends to Las Vegas.

Today I just read an email from my lab PI where he was basically going off on a fellow student for sending him data that doesn’t make sense. I just got back this past week, but on Friday when I saw the data, I did agree that the student made a lot of sketchy choices in working on the data — omitting subjects, resetting values to arbitrary ones so the graph made more sense.

Two other incidents are on my mind:
1) On Friday most of the lab had left early, and I was about to go, too, when our PI called and asked for one of the undergrads. I told him she had left, and he wasn’t pleased. We really have been slacking off. And rather than go on vacation this week, I suspect he might be inclined to stop by the lab and check in on each of us. And I basically have nothing to show.

2) On Thursday I shadowed him at the hospital, and he made a comment about disliking the competition and backstabbing among residents at other hospitals. I’ve been working on the same project as this colleague, and I do often feel in competition with this guy for credit or for our boss’s good favors. But I don’t want to be seen as someone who kisses ass and lets the other guy take the fall, especially at the expense of publishing these data.

So what should I do?

I know that 95% of this is driven by my (continued) need for everybody to like me. I need my colleague to like me; therefore, I need him to do well and get back in our boss’s good favors (but without sounding patronizing or condescending when I offer help).

I need my boss to like me, especially if I want that recommendation for residency applications, so I need to resolve this issue but not appear to be capitalizing on a colleague’s demise.

I need this research to move forward so that I could have at least a passing mention in the acknowledgements when this gets published. And the clock is ticking.

Arggh. Nothing is simple anymore!