Why I need to stop giving such a damn as a chemistry TA... Or my coworkers are lazy
This semester, I'm teaching Biochemistry lab, a 400 level course. My students should primarily be people who need a biochemistry course: biochemistry and chemistry majors, with a few microbiology of cell biology majorts thrown in for good measure. The course is actually populated by every single person in the school who thinks a chem minor on their resume will make them a more attractive candidate. (Please note, minors mean very little).
Most students are woefully under prepared. And, because there are 7 sections (80+ students), everything gets done for them, putting them further behind in their actually preperation. Most of my students aren't confident enough in their buffer making skills to actually prepare buffers for the class. So, to prevent screw ups and contamination, EVERYTHING gets alloquoted out. Last weekend, I spend 2 hours alloquoting fluorescent E. coli which I cultured and transduced into 1 ml tubes, the spinning them down.
My coworkers aren't really prepared, either. I do a SHIT TON of work for them. I write a rubric every week (because I like to have one for myself). They expect me to email it out to them. They want me to give them a sample graded report. The expectations are WRITTEN into the write up.
The coordinator is the worst. I think its supposed to be the coordinator's job to make sure that protocols are written (its mine). The coordinator is supposed to order the supplies and request equipment for the lab (my job). He should be setting expectations for the way things will run (definately my job), coordinating prep (I do most of the prep, nothing to coordinate) and keeping tabs on errant students (which he has passed off to the TAs). All he does is read through the protocols and find minute spelling errors and call me out on citations (WHICH ARE RIGHT). I'm to the point where I feel like they should PAY ME to coordinate.
I think my favorite part is the person who always makes suggestions but never bothers to read the experiment. "Why don't we measure with optical density if we want to do this quantitatively?" He suggested today. I wanted to scream, "Because we're using a fucking Bradford Protein assay. Didn't you read the protocol?"
Basically, our TA meetings break down to him making (useless) suggestions and me pointing out that the protocol is (A) already written and put out there and (B) it would mean a lot of more work (in which case, I mean that I'm putting in 30 - 40 hours a week instead of the 20 they pay me for).
