From: pfinerty@nyx.cs.du.edu (fun fun fun boy)
Subject: the biochem dept.
Followup-To: talk.bizarre,alt.feed.me.now.it's.really.late.and.i'm.tired
Summary: this is the one where i learn more than i need to know and die.
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Keywords: zoo
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 10:17:33 GMT
Expires: no

so, i'm a grad student/loser in the dept. of biochemistry. it's a pretty 
cool dept. over all. the faculty is pretty young and they really look 
after their students. i mean really. i guess there are about nine or 
ten labs with grad students in the dept. each week we have two 
meetings. the meeting on thursday is our dept. journal club. on friday 
we have research in progress or rip. these meetings generally go ok 
but sometimes people have a tendency to be a bit overzealous in 
their questioning. for instance, say i'm up there giving journal club 
on this paper that really blows. in all likelihood someone will point 
this out, probably third reichsteiner or macintyre whose name i'm 
sure i'm slaughtering but fuck it, like it's really my problem. so, 
anyway, before i get too far off the point, i'll be up there giving this 
paper and something will come up that spawns a ton of questions. 
usually this is an experiment with shitty or no controls. so what the 
hell do they do? they practically blame the whole fucking thing on 
me. i mean, jeeezus! it's not like i did the experiments. i'm just 
trying to tell people about the damned paper. well, things finally 
broke down completely this past week. i guess the paper was just 
too bad and they couldn't take it. they started with the questions 
slowly. but, hell, by the time i was halfway through the paper the 
whole thing had deteriorated to the point that i was having to just 
stop and tell them to just shut the fuck up! 
"what the hell! " i yelled. well, this seemed to catch most of the 
room completely off guard and things got pretty quiet, but only for 
about ten minutes. then things just start all over again, only this 
time they're really going after me. got to watch those egos in 
biochem. so, i just shut up, walked over to my bag and grabbed the 
shot gun i had brought just for this sort of situation. i pumped it and 
let off a round into the ceiling. BANG! 

"now, perhaps i can finish this fucking journal club," i told them. it 
seems i had probably stepped over the edge at this point and people 
just didn't know what to do. i finally made it through the journal 
club without any more harassment. as you might guess my actions 
during that journal club were not without repercussions. the two co-
chairs of the dept. made it against dept. policy to bring fire arms to 
any of the meetings. this really pissed off some of the students and 
other faculty as well. i know of several who were planning to bring 
their 9 mm's to the next journal club. they weren't about to get 
caught defenseless in the crossfire if someones questions became a 
bit too intense.

unfortunately, this didn't stop the fun and games in the department. 
it actually served to polarize it in the end. the next few meetings 
went pretty well. i think people tried to limit the abrasiveness of 
their questions primarily because the hole in the ceiling was a good 
reminder. eventually, though, it was time for our lab to do RIP. and, 
as luck would have it, brenda thought it would be a good time for me 
to present my data. (data? what data?) i think some of the older 
members of the dept. had practically gone into cardiac arrest when i 
shot the gun right into the ceiling. oh well, screw 'em.

so, i actually spent a little time thinking about what i was going to 
say because i knew some of the labs had decided i should suffer. i 
wasn't worried though because we had our own little plan. i had 
made sure that the nucleic acids labs would stay together. no sweat. 
friday rolled around eventually and everyone poured into the library 
to hear me spout off. within five minutes after i had begun my nifty 
speel about my protein tom and marty were getting restless and it 
was obvious that since tom wasn't asleep that i was due for a little 
fun. i go to put up my next overhead and right before i pull the last 
one off it starts. i hear this 'but...' in unison from you know who. just 
as soon as they get off their little protest there is a stirring from 
the other side of the room and jim and brenda start to clear their 
throats rather loudly. that stopped the protest for the time. it was 
clear, though, that things weren't going to get any more comfortable. 
i continue with my talk and no less than two minutes later the mild 
protest is replaced with full on questions about my background and 
ability to do science. of course this caused more than a little 
shuffling from the other side of the lab. joe gets up and walks right 
over to where marty and tom are sitting and just leans against the 
bookcase staring at them. they stopped momentarily but then 
continued full of vigor. so joe just clears his throat, walks over to 
them, hell, this is so beautiful, you really had to be there. he walks 
over to them and just flat out says, "ya know, we really don't need 
any trouble here today." well, they don't know what the hell to say to 
this. how often does a second year grad student tell a prof. to shut 
up in the middle of RIP? not very let me assure you. m and t are 
dumbfounded for a moment but then they suddenly seemed to 
remember that they were the ones with the PhD's and the questions 
started again. i just stood there smirking. joe got up again from his 
casual lean against the bookcase (purposefully blocking the view of 
several of the post-docs in marty's lab), walked right over to them 
grabbed tom by his shirt and just got right down in his face yelling, " 
i really think it would be best if you would just shut the fuck up! i 
don't want to have to break your gawd damned neck like some sort of 
puny ass rat!" 

un-fucking-believable is all i can call it. tom started to quiver 
uncontrolably and most of the other people in the room were looking 
about nervously. i knew they thought i was going to pull the ol' shot 
gun routine again. not the case at all. the nuc. acids group had a 
meeting before the talk and decided that the best approach was 
direct and physical. let them know you're not kidding. so, we did. 
even though i had to have body guards for the rest of the talk i 
actually did finish and there were even some reasonable questions 
asked. next week there's a big seminar in CVMB. i hope people will 
have forgotten about this little problem by then. the last time there 
was a decent amount of the biochem. dept. at one of those it 
practically broke out into a riot. stupid gits should realize we don't 
fool around in this dept. one of the profs. even got a broken nose. of 
course, i didn't have anything to do with it.
--
			PJF--->Biochem. grad student
			      PUBLIC ENEMY #1