My top boss, the smart one who zooms around the globe picking up awards and fat research funds, has done a big blunder. I saw it coming, I checked back with him in writing three times beforehand and still, he tried to blame it on me. Teenage tactics. Almost feel motherly here, but mostly I am mad, because who is now stuck with getting it sorted again? Three guesses. The big man himself is off to bigger and brighter fields, incommunicado as befits his important standing. Soon, he'll discover the cure to cancer or maybe MS or Alzheimer's or his bank account or all of it in one go. There is a lot that's wrong in scientific research and every time we get a new batch of junior assistants I want to sit them down and tell them about long hours, no weekends, very low pay and no recognition of all their efforts for years and years to come but usually, the stars in their eyes are already starting to shine back at me.