Politics suck. I'm not talking about government politics here, either. I'm talking about department politics. Everyone holds some petty jealousy against everyone else in the department. And when people in positions of power hold these jealousies, it can get ugly. Very ugly.
And what better fire to ignite jealousy than money? And in an academic department, how much money you have for research is everybody's business. Everyone knows who has the funding. And everyone is jealous of said person.
So when the opportunity arose in my department to really piss off the guy with funding, everyone was on board. In a civil society, they would have discussed taking away this professors lab space with him before any decision was made. Instead, the decision was made with *no* input from the professor involved, and they waited two months after all the paperwork had been signed and stamped to tell him that he was losing his lab space.
And the worst part? They lied about why they were taking the lab space.
The reason they first cited: "This building was meant to be wet laboratory space, so we need to maximize its use and move anyone who does not need a high-tech facility with fume hoods."
The reason it eventually boiled down to: "We want space for this new distinguished professor and his graduate students to have nice offices."
So what does this mean for the professor who was evicted from his space? Well, for one, he's really pissed off with the rest of the department. And for another, his students are going to get crammed into a tiny room where they will barely be able to work. Think about it: a whole group of stressed graduate students stepping on eachother's toes trying to get work done when all they can do is tell one another to move or stop making that noise... It won't last long.
