Monday, September 7, 2009

Labor Day

So today is labor day and from what I looked up on labor day, it is supposed to be a day of appreciation for trade and labor workers and their families. Ok so I think that grad students should definitely go in that category since we are basically slave labor. Well I went to lab today, only for a half a day, but still.

The university does sort of give a lot of our department's grad students a way out of going in this weekend. They do maintenance on our buildings, which shuts down things like fume hoods, water, power etc. This, however, depends on which building you work in. My particular building had the power shut down yesterday and the reverse osmosis water shut down all weekend. So part of the weekend I was off the hook, but I needed to get some things done today, so in I go.

The other problem with the building shut down is it says in the notification emails something along the lines of: Since most of the campus will be gone this weekend. Well, of course, most lab oriented grad students are not actually gone, expecting to be able to work. I wonder if the university knows that we usually work holidays and weekends. Maybe someone should write the dean a letter. I think it should say:

Dean, remember when you were in grad school. Did you work on the weekends? Remember that when sending out notices about building shut downs. Love, the graduate population of your university.

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