No one would deny that grad school can be tough, but the program at Cold Spring Harbor sounds downright totalitarian.
At least, it does according to twitter user @CSHLaboratory, who has set up a parody feed featuring "news" from the institution. In a string of consistently hilarious, intermittently profane tweets, the anonymous tweeter paints CSH as a dystopian landscape of abused postdocs and dictatorial PIs – a sort of North Korea of academe, if you will.
For instance, an announcement from last month detailing a new dining policy:
"We will be cleaning out the postdoc and grad student feeding troughs this weekend. Pls fill-up on food Friday, troughs will reopen Tuesday."
Or, this one, with travel suggestions:
"Lab Director does not like to see slaves...er postdocs...out in the open on campus. Please use the tunnels when traveling between buildings."
Or this one, with a word of advice to conference attendees:
"Attention all conference attendees, those found on campus not wearing a name tag will be shot on the spot."
Stay safe out there, people.