Anthony Ridge, a senior biomedical engineering major, expressed his outrage on Monday after his research adviser, Leonard Calderon, gave him an ultimatum: either Ridge actually start going to the laboratory and do more than make baking soda volcanoes or he is fired.
Ridge was offended by his adviser's insinuations, stating they were completely false and he did as much work as anyone else in the lab, although he was never actually there when other students were. He showed up whenever he was finished catching up on Breaking Bad, so he couldn't really be sure how much stuff they actually did. He was pretty positive he did as much work as them, though.
Ridge responded to his adviser by writing a poorly thought out and self-entitled list of demands he required for Calderon's "ridiculous and unwarranted insult."
The list included four "get out of jail passes," which Ridge described as pieces of paper invalidating any grade lower than an 80 (although there were only three graded assignments, Ridge said he just wanted to be careful), no work on weekends, a designated partner at all times - Ridge casually suggested a girl who just happened to be the smartest girl in the class - and some money put on his UB card because he was running out of Campus Cash.
The senior was completely taken aback when Calderon refused to meet his demands.
"All of the hard work I put into that lab - when I actually showed up - and this is how the old dude repays me," Ridge said, skipping his office hours to complain about how unfair and discriminatory his boss was. "He just hates me because this one time, he caught me making out with a girl on top of our work station. Apparently they had to get the whole lab decontaminated because we knocked over one measly beaker of sodium cyanide, which apparently is 'dangerous' or something. I think he was just overreacting, I didn't read anything about that in my biology 101 textbook."
Ridge offered to help fix the lab, but when the message containing the time and details of the cleanup were "weirdly" erased from his email inbox, he decided to go on a weekend vacation to Canada instead. It was not his fault "in any way or form," but he claimed Calderon still held a grudge.
"Whenever I go into the lab and the other students are there, they're just hanging around and eating," Ridge said. "At least I go in and make volcanoes. At least I do science and s**t."
Ridge was unaware he usually entered the laboratory when the students were on their lunch break, as he failed to talk to - or even acknowledge - any of his colleagues.
Emily Bartell, a sophomore biomedical engineering major and Ridge's colleague, was unaware he even worked in the lab until asked to describe him, which she did as the "guy whose elementary school volcanoes she always had to clean up."
"I thought Calderon's fourth grade son was the one leaving those things," Bartell mused. "They weren't even that good really. They didn't even shoot out the baking soda. Are you sure that guy is part of his lab?"
Calderon refused to comment, only shaking his head and muttering, "I swear on his resume he sounded like he was a good choice."
Ridge said he stole his older brother's resume.
His future still up in the air because he forgot about the meeting with Calderon that was supposed to decide it, and Ridge is continuing to weigh his options.
"I might just go over Calderon's head and take my list of demands to the dean of my school, whatever one that is," Ridge said heatedly. "I guess I have to check the HUB first. You know what, maybe I'll just join another lab and make my volcanoes there. That'll show that uptight bigot. Actually, that means I'll have to add more to my resume. Maybe I'll just go watch Breaking Bad."
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