Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Virtual social ineptitude

A couple of months back I had a promising PhD candidate contact me about joining the lab just when I was looking for someone. I corresponded with them for a bit, but they never sent in an application, nor sent any references despite saying that they would. Randomly, the potential student dropped off the face of the Earth for a while and I heard nothing back after sending two emails. I figured that the person was no longer interested.

Yesterday the person added me as a friend over FaceBook, out of the blue. WTF? Uh, how the hell am I supposed to take that Student That Never Was? Why did you never send me anything, then get the idea that we should be chums? We've never met in person, never spoken over the phone and the last time we communicated you were ignoring my emails. I don't even add my own students as friends, but I am supposed to add you? Your social ineptness and inability to follow through on anything make me glad that you are not starting in my lab in September. This is also why I hate FaceBook sometimes.

3 comments:

  1. seriously facebook??? actually i just found out my PI has a facebook page....

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  2. When you spend ten years of your life in a foreign country, sometimes it doesn't hurt to have an easy way to stay in touch with freinds. It's not all teenagers breaking up with each other in status updates, ya know.

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