My infrequent and shoddy blogging has become even more infrequent. I do the vast majority of writing during lunch breaks. We've had several new people join the lab, so my once private office is now shared by several coworkers. Privacy no more.

We have a great group of people in the lab...except one. She's condescending and rude to those she deems "below" her on the pecking order. She has a PhD, which does give some superiority, but she's a post-doc: a temporary employee. Post-doc positions are transitional: a job for a post-graduate before they move on to a permanent position, usually as faculty or in industry. So, she's more highly educated than the rest of us schlubs (except the new-new post-doc, and his arrival definitely ruffled some feathers), but two of us apparently have more experience in our research area than she does. It makes for interesting dynamics.

She leaves me alone, I think because I'm the senior person in the lab and work on an unrelated project (although I have helped on various parts of her project over the years and am pretty familiar with the applied stuff. Not so much on the molecular work.) But she's rude and sometimes downright nasty to two of the other employees. I don't know if I should step in. I supervise their time, but their work is delegated to them by our big boss and the post-doc. Some I'm a supervisor-light. I've debated bringing all this up with the big boss, but I'm not sure if it's my place. I'm also pretty sure post-doc has taken several days off without reporting the time (OK, I know she didn't report the time and doubt she made it up over weekends, but can't prove it) and don't know if I should address this with the big boss, too. If it was any other employee I'd confront them and then give the boss a heads-up. Since she's not under my supervision, I don't want to be the lab rat (haha, get it?) Big boss is a fairly stress-out and busy guy, so I don't want to add bullshit to his responsibilities.

She's been here for over a half year and has little to show for it. I think the big boss has figured that out and is leaning on her to produce data for an upcoming meeting and paper. Bottom line is I think she doesn't have as much knowledge as she claims to and covers by doling out her work to the other employees and by being absolutely disorganized. Sigh.