{"id":202,"date":"2022-09-15T13:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T13:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=202"},"modified":"2026-06-29T13:44:49","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T13:44:49","slug":"an-a-student-and-a-bad-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/?p=202","title":{"rendered":"An A Student And A Bad Worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Microbiology prep lab room at SUNY Potsdam. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This wasn’t my first job. But it was my first lesson that a person can be an A student and a bad worker.<\/p>\n

I was in my junior year of university. I was a work-study Microbiology Lab Assistant, limited to five hours a week. Because I was a transfer student, I was 1 year ahead of other students and trained in aseptic technique, material preparation, chemical handling, etc.<\/p>\n

\n

I knew to wash your hands and don’t touch stuff.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I was also taking Cellular Physiology with Dr. Pei Juo. His class was very hard. And if you got an answer wrong in class, he’s throw chalk at you. I won’t disclose if he threw chalk at me but I sat in the back and ducked. He could not pronounce my name; he would call me “ah-ther”. But a classmate, I forget her name so I’ll call her Lisa, was pulling As in the same class. How was it so easy for her?<\/i>  <\/p>\n

Lisa also had a job working for Dr. Juo down the hall from the Microbiology lab.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

One day, I was still finishing up one of my five weekly hours and Lisa, with backpack, came down the hall past the doorway and stopped for a moment with a glint of gloat that she was sailing out of the building.<\/p>\n

Then I heard her name called down the hallway. Loudly. Repeatedly. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Lisa rolled her eyes, sighed, and looked back up the hallway. <\/p>\n

Dr. Juo yelled “You’re not done yet!” <\/p>\n

“I finished my work” she wined. <\/p>\n

“You left dirty dishes!” he protested.<\/p>\n

“They are not mine. I didn’t dirty them.” she said succinctly.<\/p>\n

I made a face like when a friend gets in trouble but,
\nyou kinda sorta knew that they totally deserved it.  Like big eyes and a
\n mouth that say “oh well!” and I looked back at my work.<\/p>\n

“Your job is to clean the lab. Those dishes ARE your job. Get back here!<\/b><\/u>” He was surface-of-the-sun hot. If he had chalk, he would have been throwing it.<\/p>\n

She sighed and reluctantly walked up the hall. It was the walking version of dragging her feet.<\/b> <\/p>\n

I hear the clank of dishes being washed and put up to dry.  She finished and left. She didn’t stop at my lab door this time. Then I had to leave. My work was done AND my hour was done. So I put on my backpack and slipped away.<\/p>\n

But the lesson was learned by me. <\/p>\n

Lisa was an A student and a bad worker; a person could be both<\/b><\/u>. Before her, I didn’t know that was possible probably because As took hard work from me.<\/p>\n

That lesson always stuck with me and when it came time for me to be the boss and hire people, I always looked for teachers that didn’t strike me fully as “A” students. I needed teachers who had pulled some Bs or a few “C”s. That’s because of Lisa; I’m wary of straight A students. They can get good grades and suck at being good workers.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\n  Microbiology prep lab room at SUNY Potsdam.   This wasn’t my first job. But it was my first lesson…\n<\/div>\n
Continue reading “An A Student And A Bad Worker”<\/span>…<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":203,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,131,130,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college","category-ethics","category-grades","category-work","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cogitateandpercolate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}