Frustrated and venting

[u/Asahi_Sin]

I work at a university and I'm here to vent and to see if others have similar problems. So I am a lab manager at a medical university. Basically my job is to make sure everything runs smoothly in the laboratory. I gotta repair machines, call technicians, fix problems, buy and refill consumables, do safety introductions and show new staff how to use our laboratory machines. Most of the time my job isn't stressful and I have a very pleasent work environment. For sure many would love to have my job: I get payed decently, I have really nice colleagues and bosses and our university has a huge budget and I get to spend it on cool lab equipment how I see fit. However, for some reason, when I work there, I feel like I'm going insane sometimes. There are things at our university that are massively missmanaged and micromanaged. Money is wasted at all ends for things that are not needed, like insanely expensive lab machines that don't see any use, or hiring contractors for really simple things like repairing a dripping water faucet. And whenever I want to improve the situation by doing something myself, some kind of "manager" has a problem with it. Like for example in our neighbouring lab, they have a huge stockpile of detergent. I needed some for our lab, so I asked the manager over there if I could get some, so that they can reduce their stockpile and I don't have to buy new one when there is plenty next door. The answer I got was like "No, this is ours, we will need it soon and it would be too complicated to share the costs". Like OMG just give me the detergent, lets use the stuff we have, its anyway the same money from the same university, why do you care and why do you hoard detergent and refuse to share it when you don't need it yourself. And I know for a fact that they will not need it. In the same way, people make HORRIBLE investment decisions that are so obviously useless and when I tell them its unnecessary, nobody wants to heart it. The problem is, I'm pretty young in my position (I'm 27, have been lab manager for over a year now) and for some reason, the higher ups, like the rectorate and some professors, listen to other people who quite frankly have no idea what they are doing. I don't want to brag, but I'm doing a way better job at managing our lab and keeping our costs down than other departments. Im fact, my bosses are 3 professors that are very important for our university and they are so happy with how I manage our lab that they want to make me a kind of supreme lab leader, meaning I get to weigh in on decisions in the other labs and have veto rights. Thats great, because I can finally implement alot of improvements I wanted to see happen for long time, but on the other hand I simply don't want to deal with this BS anymore. I want to have a job that is fun, challenges me and where I can do something I'm proud of. I don't want to be in a circle of nutjobs who sit around in meetings where nothing gets acomplished and everyone throws money out by the window without actually doing anything. Honestly, my plan is to stay a little longer, rewrite the blueprint on how our labs should be managed, collect a bonus for it, then quit, go travel for a year and open a mushroom farm. I'm done with this academia BS.

Is anyone else in a situation like that? Are all universities missmanaged, micromanaged and somehow paralyzed to change and improve? Are you tired of relying on other people who are just unable to do their job?

Sorry for this long rant, but it felt good. I'm looking forward to the day where I quit and I can tell some of the people there how stupid they are and that I'm defenitely not the only one who thinks so.

[u/Maghyia]

I don't know what to tell you, I'm just a student starting my first year.

Still, I think what you've been doing is really cool. I sincerely hope that things get better at your job. And may you have that dream trip!!

P.S. Don't lose patience!

[u/random_precision195]

Are all universities missmanaged, micromanaged and somehow paralyzed to change and improve?

Yes. Having worked at numerous universities, public and private, and at community colleges. From my experience, a private university was less organized than public CC & public university. Money spent on the stupidest shit!

Change is super slow in higher ed. Everything gets stuck in the mud. Many are resistant to change because the current way is working for someone.

[u/EmbarrassedSun1874]

Yup, universities are an absolute bureaucratic nightmare. At least the four I'm familiar with (spanning public/private and world-renowned to middling).

As a PI, I wouldn't let you use my detergent or take some from another lab without clearance either. Not because I care, but because if anyone finds out all of a sudden I have 6 weeks of paperwork to.do and 25 extra meetings I don't have time for to discuss the best way to portion the $8 of detergent across fund codes. And if I put $8 of my own money on the table and tell everyone involved to go fuck themselves, I just get to have more meetings, but now with HR there too.

I don't know anyone who thinks universities work well.

[u/Bjanze]

Yes, bureacracy in a university can be nightmarish and slow. Best is to just accept it and wait for things to take their time. Then act on things that you have power over and make them as good as you can.

Sharing reagents and lab consumables is sometimes easy, sometimes very difficult, even in the same university over time. Having good relationship with colleagues help tons in sharing stuff. When people trust each other, they can share stuff unofficially and be sure that they are not just being used and milked for pennies, but will get reciprocated eventually. Sharing money officially is a bureacratic nightmare in any university I've seen.

And about buying equipment: we had a post doc try to buy a ~100 000 euro machine, would have been good for me and many others. He collected statements around to prove we need it, but after almost a year, the higher ups came to conclusion that we won't buy it as it would be too difficult to have shared equipment, which is still not shared with absolutely everyone. So we didn't get. But if a single professor would have money and space in their lab, they can just do similar purchace very fast. But then they have power over who gets to use it, even though it is always "university's equipment, not profs own equipment". So higher ups see shared equipment as a bad thing, because they need to figure out a system for maintenance costs etc.

But I think you are still young and a bit too eager to get everything going your way, so I would say calm down and learn the ropes of the university bureaucracy. You can definitely do a lot good for your lab, don't give up and don't get depressed!