I've had this product made for me that should have been quick and cheap, instead it took ages to arrive and was incredibly expensive to produce, although an external person had paid for it.

Now I'm not even sure I would need it for my research and the fact that it might have been an unnecessary expense is driving me to insomnia. Am I normal? I'm only half way through my first year and I don't know what I can do to feel less guilty about the whole incident. :-(

can it double as a paper weight? ;-)

i had this experience ordering primers; after I had them ordered, I was told that they had already been ordered (!) but like you said, it took ages to arrive. by the time everything arrived, there were two sets of primers. As you know these do not come cheap.

I did not need the 2nd set after all; and that was an unnecessary expense.

But dont lose sleep over it; its normal to feel bad but dont be so hard on yourself.

What you can do is keep your product first; if you know other people who need it, let them use it so that it is not wasted.

Dont feel guilty. I give you an example. My supervisor had me spending so much time writing up something; and one day overnight he completely CHANGED THE WHOLE THING to make it become something very simple (which was what I wanted to do in the first place)-- I dont think he felt guilty. Its just part of the phd process.

satchi

Well.. i'm sure i left behind in the lab alot of stuff i bought and did not need. Its one of those things that cant be helped...

keep it on the pending pile! If you don't use it, well you don't, but you might, so it isn't a waste its just waiting its turn to be useful, and will remain so until you get to the end. Then you can pass it on to someone else ,either way, it isn't wasted, it just hasn't reached its potential yet:-)

Thanks for your reply guys, it helped! I will try to not lose sleep over this again, it's bad enough I have a bad cold that's been keeping me up too! The price still shocks me but I realised it might come in handy after all. :-)