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Work Dilemma

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Circlenaut

Circlenaut

Platinum Member
A few months ago both my wife and I were looking for internships (she's heading off to pharmacy school this fall I'm and finishing my undergrad (biology) this december). She found an internship back in april and I somehow managed to not find one even after applying to every biology related job I could thinking of all over the country. Wife and I eventually agree that an internship for me would be more beneficial to us in the long run since I'm going into industry. We spoke with her boss and he agreed to take me in if she works up to 30 hrs/week gratis.

Her boss is this one man biotech start up using state internship funding to hire me. Almost two weeks into this internship the wife does nothing except complain that this is not what she expected and that it has nothing to do with a future in pharmacy and that she's just wasting her time. I'm working on a project developing an assay and she's just going over literature for the boss. She's now adamant about quitting. I've been trying to tell her that she made a promise and that this could really affect me, etc... but she's not listening. And frankly her complaining is starting to hinder my work. If she goes through with this I'm definitely not asking this guy for a letter of recommendation but should I worry about my job? I'm thinking he'll be pissed at her and me somewhat but I don't think he'll fire me because a) he's not paying me directly so he'd be essentially throwing away money and b) he doesn't have enough time to hire another intern.

What do you guys think? What kind of fall-out should I expect? Also from the beginning the boss has emphasized that he will be treating us as completely separate employees. This really is a shity situation....
 
Why are you relying on your wife for a job?

You should have been doing your internships much earlier while you are still in school. I did mine my Freshman year at MGH.
 
The sh!t will hit the fan, he will be p!ssed with you and your wife...

I think you are safe in your job as he is backed up and isn't even paying you directly. Your wife is in her remit to quit if the job isn't what she thought it was going to be. Was she miss sold the job or did the guy change up the job specs? Could she not talk to the guy about this? What was the original job spec?

Koing
 
So your wife should go through shit to make you happy cause of your short comings?
Welcome to the first step of divorce.
 
If she's that unhappy, it's probably best that she just quit. Talk it over, discuss possible repercussions, and figure out where you can both go from there.
 
This is a ridiculous situation to begin with. Your job is dependent on hers, which is the first problem. Unless you are going to be entrepreneurs where you control your company, never allow yours and your wife's jobs to be dependent on each other. If it falls apart, so will your marriage.

This guy sounds like a douche because he wasn't honest on the internship. I had that experience and just got up and walked out on the second day. Both of you should quit, and you should look for something more appropriate to what you want to do.
 
MJinZ said:
Why are you relying on your wife for a job?

You should have been doing your internships much earlier while you are still in school. I did mine my Freshman year at MGH.
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both of these....and anyone working with their wife is insane, especially for two people young enough to still be in (or just freshly out of) school.

/on his second internship in school.
 
This is my 4th summer internship so don't call me incompetent. The market is really in the shits and nearly all of my biology friends had very hard times finding internships (if they managed to find one at all). Landing a job seems to be much more about luck/social skills than actual qualification (at least when it comes to internships). To be honest I have no idea why this guy hired my wife, he apparently passed over a bunch of more qualified people for this. And I knew going in that having a job dependent on her would be shitty but what choice did we have? Not take the experience? Frankly I'm much more worried about the finances (getting paid $15/hr) than any letter of recommendation (I've got plenty of good sources).

And when I said "us" earlier I should probably chance that to me. Our marriage isn't really typical and we have more of a brother/sister relationship then a married couple (hell we haven't been intimate in years). But this really is a separate topic that I don't care to go into now.

He only has enough funds to do limited lab work so only one of us can actually do lab work (myself and only like 20 hrs/week). She knew she'd be doing literature review, which is why this whole situation pisses me off. She's blatantly being dishonest to the boss. I don't even know how she's going to initiate this conversation and I've told her that I want nothing to do with it.
 
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Pippy said:
And when I said "us" earlier I should probably chance that to me. Our marriage isn't really typical and we have more of a brother/sister relationship then a married couple (hell we haven't been intimate in years). But this really is a separate topic that I don't care to go into now.
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/lawn chair
/popcorn
 
Why didn't you just look into doing research with a faculty member at your institution? You could bypass the whole applying for an internship process.
 
keyword....internship.

If she does not like it, finish the internship, then look elsewhere. How else can you have a job for only 4 months and not be questioned about why your stint is so short? If she were to do this on a real payroll, everyone would questioning why you left a full time job after such a short time.

Sucky job and pay is better than no job and no pay.
 
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Brainonska511 said:
Why didn't you just look into doing research with a faculty member at your institution? You could bypass the whole applying for an internship process.
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Tried that, not as easy as you think. Most professors don't have the necessary funds/time to mentor a student during the summer and there's a complicated university application process.
 
Pippy said:
Tried that, not as easy as you think. Most professors don't have the necessary funds/time to mentor a student during the summer and there's a complicated university application process.
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That sucks. At my school, the chem department just encourages people to contact professors independently. Sometimes, professors only have funds for summer, but for many that's fine (and then work for free during the year). I believe the bio department in my school works the same way.

It's even an app process for working the whole year in a lab? I'd imagine if you told a professor you could put in time during the school year, they'd be more amenable to letting you in, just because your overall productivity would be much higher and they wouldn't 'waste' a large portion of time just training in relation to your overall time staying in the lab.
 
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