Remembering Heisenberg

Dear Heisenberg,

You will be delighted to know that your 'Uncertainty Principle' of quantum mechanics can be applied in other scenarios as well. One of those is the state of scientific research at many of the institutes in this country. Research being a group activity there are people involved at different steps, e.g. administrative staff, purchase and store staff, technicians, clinical or other collaborators, the principal investigator and the graduate students. Apart from the general scientific temper and aptitude, often the graduate students are expected to coordinated with all the above mentioned staff and people for the smooth working of the system at least till the time they graduate. There is always at least one student in this weird hierarchical setup (in which each and every person has the capability of being the rate-limiting step) who drives the system.

I was very fortunate to do my Ph.D. from an institute where the system was relatively more organized. But being at this current place is becoming frustrating with every passing day.

My work depends on two people at the distant clinical collaborative setup and the patients (there are many). These two people are supposed to work together for ~3 hrs twice every week to get samples for me. Week after week I am given novel reasons for unavailability of either of them. I can tolerate reasons like one of them being busy with examination/interview. But it is really irritating to find out that one of them is playing the role of a handyman to his immediate boss, doing odd jobs at the market, standing in the queue at some ticket counter, performing puja at a funeral and may be buying vegetables for them too. I fail to predict his exact location or his velocity/momentum at any moment. There comes the uncertainty of his availability and completion of my work here. The only thing which remains certain is that the monthly salaries of all the people involved (except me) is deposited in their accounts on the 1st of every month, whereas I have to make million calls to ask for the status of my fellowship. How unfair....