hi all - just wanted to see if someone else is going though the same...basically, i have had very back luck with lab mates. I worked 3 years as a technician before my PhD, and when i was trying to help them out in anything (even not doing my own job), they have been always quite mean to me, even spreading rumours to the rest of my department. The good side of this is that i have the most incredible supervisor i could ever wish. He is super supportive and always telling me how good I am. Another good news, my lab mates left before christmas, therefore i could finally breath. A new person came into my lab recently, and i was very excited. However, it did not turn as good as i thought. She is a nice person, and we get along. But I started to see that she only works when my supervisor tells her what to do. She has a double face with him. When he is not there, she doesn't have any interest for the project and goes away, or lies to me about where she is (and then i caught her having 4 hours long coffees). But in front of my supervisor she pretends to be a super worker, and she is cocky about it. Also she is experienced in something that i am not, and she makes that clear. She also patronises me for being a student. My supervisor has been suspicious about her a couple of times, but now every time she has a good result with the minimum effort, my supervisor praises her a lot. He really cares about the projects, and i think sometimes he is just happy things are working. My PhD at the moment is not working at all, and i feel very insecure about my experiments. I always work a lot, even on weekends, and makes me sad these type of people can be praised, when people who work super hard are often not valued enough. Any recommendations?

omg you are so brave! i am happy you got rid of that and you can move on now, you shoud be proud of yourself!