Loyalty Above Else

Because I view loyalty and trust as two of the most precious commodities in existence, I find betrayal and two-faced behavior abhorring. While not going into the specifics, a professor sent in an "anonymous" tip to a regulatory agency about my lab. I wholeheartedly doubt that the professor herself saw the transgression, rather her students, thus leaving me to question the supposed friendship I once had with the students in the other lab. I'm not sure yet if there was malintent or not...truthfully, I doubt that I'll ever be able to find out if there was, but I can say that I trust all of them less now.

I'm frustrated by this entire event. Here I thought we were all a band of brothers, waging war on the unknown, standing hand-in-hand at the precipice of the edge, daring the world to ignore our data and our knowledge. I thought we had a kinship that united us, be it close or far, in our unanimous pursuit of the unknown. I guess I was wrong? I feel betrayed. I don't understand why someone wouldn't come to me, to my lab, to my boss and discuss any possible transgression so that we may address the issue in house, rather than taking it up the command chain. Why is that the first thing to do? Are we all such immature children that we can't acknowledge a lack of perfection and discuss potential remedies amongst ourselves? Must we always stay in this prepubescent stage of telling on one another and pointing out when someone has done something wrong? Why is this behavior ok? Why does it persist? More importantly, what does anyone gain from it? I have no answers, and I doubt I will ever. One more reason I prefer to not work with humans.

I am an eternal optimist and I've identified over time that my biggest fault, I feel, is that I immediately trust people. I trust them until they give me a reason not to trust them. As I can not go around asking each person in that lab who felt it necessary to go above our heads and report us, I feel I can trust none of them. Fuck this microaggression and these cat-and-mouse games. I'm done with them, I can be equally vindictive and malicious. I'll keep an everwatchful eye out for the next thing they do wrong and then I'll respond in kind. Watch your six...