One reason I was hired is because I know how to clone and I enjoy it.
First day, here goes a new software to use for that.
I'm fine. I can make this work. They are all the same anyways right?
I subscribe to the one month test version. They are all the same. Smooth sailing. I still enjoy cloning.
Test trail ends. It takes another 2 months until I finally get one of the full versions - bought in 2015, not updated ever since. (That's when I started studying btw.)
Ok, I can still make this work. Less features, but DNA did not change as much, right? Cloning didn't either.
Second step into the new plasmid the software crashes. Everything I did so far: GONE.
Ok, I can still make this work? Several tries in: I can but it is a huge work-around.
6 months into my PhD I complain the first time to my supervisor. He doesn't believe me.
The first constructs worked in reality.
The next ones did again. Smooth sailing in the lab.
More plasmids to be constructed. I use my work-arounds. It takes forever - especially if you need to correct something. I doubt my joy about cloning.
I complain another time. This time he listens, offers to check for newer versions.
I offer to help. He declines.
Ok, I guess I first had to prove myself to him - fair.
Nothing happens. I am on the next constructs. I gently remind him. He blows up. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong person to ask.
1.25 years into my PhD. Now the software sometimes (without any visible reason) deletes all annotations and doesn't change what I asked it for. I dread cloning by now.
I complain again. My supervisor is surprised, he never encountered that kind of problems. (Well, he does not change the make up of big plasmids that often - if at all.) And promises to buy new versions soon.
By now I have wasted days on in silico constructions. Not to mention the days I wasted in the lab because the work-around is error prone and I did not check close enough once.
Nothing happens until today when he realized we needed more seats than before due to new PhD students, who never cloned, coming in. Their projects not being supposed to be as cloning intense as mine.
His plan: new versions for him, the post-doc, the technical assistant and the new PhDs. The rest can still use the old version. Period. That was not a question.
This time the whole conversation happens with my PI in the room - as well as the rest of the staff. I gather up my courage to complain again. Knowing perfectly well this will backfire in some kind of way. I've seen it before when I was pissed.
But I AM having problems. It constantly crashes. And that's what I tell them.
direct supervisor (DS): You are using it wrong!
Me (thinking: Are you f***king serious?!, suppressed anger clearly spilling all over my words): How am I using it wrong?
DS: It happens with Gibson Assembly, right?
DS: You are using weird overhangs and do everything in one step.
Note: he never had a single look at my constructs - let alone the overhangs.
Me: Things that should take me 20 min, take up to 3 h.
My PI jumps in. Her: Does it work with the new version?
Me: It worked perfectly when I had the trial version.
Her: Ok, so who thinks they need a new version?
Suddenly neither my supervisor nor the post-doc need the new version. Are you kidding me?
I am glad my supervisor finally got the order to just order the new version. But I am so f***king pissed how he would try to belittle one of the few skills I am certain of - in front of everyone.
And since he cannot say "sorry" he now reverted to being overly warm and updating me on every single step of his ordering journey. You know what? IDC at all anymore! Just like you did not care about my problems for almost 2 years. Buy it and leave me alone until you have the new log in!