Sheep(s) & Wolves

Yesterday I had a nice discussion with my office mate, the Spanish girl, about this place where we work. Everything started because we don't have any subscription for any biological journal, she was trying to understand why and how to ask for it, and somebody asked whether she thinks she can change the way things work in this place. And the answer was: why not? Otherwise what's the purpose of hiring new young people coming from different backgrounds?

Apparently she's passing through all the same feelings (why did they hire me?) that I experienced when I started in this place. That's she's left alone but they expect her to pull a new exciting research line out of the top hat.

Also most people here are afraid of talking to each other, as if they wanted to hide... I don't know if I can explain.. Many of these guys seem to be at a contest, who is the most clever scientist on earth? And there's a lot of gossip going on about this. Our neighbour would tell you things like: "Did you check how many publications Tizio has had in the latest 3 years?" But, for God sake, WHO CARES??????????

So finally we decided to try and help each other not to beat too much on ourselves, and maybe we'll also be able to set up something together. We'll try out the naif attitude of "go&ask" and see if it works.... Well, we are "like sheep within wolves", so naif up to a certain point... we'll have to learn very quickly if we want to keep our inner naif attitude!