Frustrations

Well planning the field work has hit a bit of a snag. One of my field
assistants has bailed. He actually has experience in this region, which
I and the other assistant are lacking. There are two weeks to go, and
he's known about this for at least one full month, if not a couple
months. Suffice to say, I am incredibly pissed. He emailed me the day
that our advisor had said he (the advisor) would first be out of email
contact for the full summer. I have suspicions that he waited until
that day to email me for a reason. But, luckily, my advisor has had
email contact, and he sent a scathing response to said field assistant
and then sent me a copy. I don't know if he'll go, but at least he'll
know that his shitty behavior is actually pissing people off and has an
effect on others. It's one thing if you cancel going to a conference a
week before it happens, which he did to me last year, but it's totally
another thing when you cancel when you're supposed to be the "expert"
there. At least my advisor knows about it and is just as annoyed. I
am also glad that my advisor roped another person to go up with me, so
even if Sucky McSuckerson completely bails, I still will have another
body to kick around, tyrannical as I am.