the Princess takes an encore

What’s this ? Who’s that in the lab ?

Unauthorized Personnel, that’s who.

You remember that stagiaire we had at the end of 2014. Who didn’t even bother to read the papers we gave her, let alone look up anything on her own.

Well.

Because time was short, and she didn’t have the clinical data necessary for the analysis of her cases with her, we (the big boss, really) decided she should be allowed to come back in, say, February or March, to complete the analysis phase of her project.

So my colleague Yannick tried to find out just when she would be back. We are serious people now, and we have paperwork to do in advance of anybody arriving. We are obliged to have a signed contract with the RH department, and we really do not want to keep pissing them off. No more false emergencies or last minute begging because we couldn't get our act together.

But he couldn’t get a date out of her, so the dates seemed to be still undecided.

And then Monday, she just showed up.

Oh, really? If you knew even Friday you'd be taking a plane over the weekend, you might have given us a heads-up.

No, you cannot have a badge for access to the employee cafeteria.

No, you cannot have computer access.

No, you cannot have a pass to open the door of the lab.

No, we do not have time to look at your project today, we have scheduled things to do, meetings, classes to teach, deadlines...

Perhaps, sitting there twiddling her thumbs for a couple of days while her contract wends its way through the administration, she will learn that we are not kidding. Maybe in her research lab in Tunis anybody can come and go as they please, but she saw last time she was here that we do not – cannot and will not – work that way.