Dear Troubleshooter:
I’m a postgraduate student in my 30s and I’m concerned about the interpersonal environment at the university laboratory where I work. I am one of two women there. There also is the professor─a man─ several male university employees and other postgraduates, most of whom are foreigners.
I suspect the professor and the other woman there have a sexual relationship. I assume that is why the professor lets her get her way and gets rid of anything she doesn’t like.
She is a competitive, hard-working woman. But she does not like it when somebody else does a better job than she does and tries to get rid of anybody who does. A number of people have actually quit the lab over this.
Now she is targeting me. I’ve been trying to ignore these interpersonal relationships and just focus on my studies, but to no avail. I am uncomfortable every day.
I need to remain at the lab for at least another two years. But I am already exhausted.
D, Tokyo
Dear Ms. D:
I can understand your feelings; university labs are close quarters and you rarely come into contact with the outside world. Having worked at a number of university labs myself, however, I can tell you there is no such thing as a perfectly comfortable laboratory. So, the issue is how we can make it a more comfortable environment in which to work.
First, you need to change how you think about that woman. You regard her as a hard worker, but you also presume she is having an affair with your professor and gets rid of people who stand in her way. If you keep thinking of her as obnoxious and someone to be avoided try will take notice. Why don’t you instead try saying hello and try talking to her. Maybe then she will change.
Second, it is important to make friends at the laboratory. I also recommend you talk more with the foreign students, too.
At laboratories, you are always bound to run into people you can’t deal with. If you learn to associate with them, you will be able to have a good relationship with anybody in the future.
You should do what you can to make your lab a better work environment, and think of it as a lesson for the future.
Junko Umihara, psychiatrist (from May 5 issue)
Translated from Yomiuri Shimbun Jinsei Annai column
2010.5.5 wed
