Anyone who doesn't follow the scheduling policies (for instance, stays later than scheduled) or has behavior that may damage the instruments or make us lose BSL2 or other regulatory approvals loses their privilege to use the services. There are no exceptions. We may start with a two week suspension if they are agreeable to listening and making change.
These policies are clearly posted on our web pages, calendar sign up pages, and/or in the microscope rooms. As a precondition for being allowed to use any service, prospective clients must agree to follow these policies by sending an email from their work email address stating so. See bottom of https://microscopynotes.com/ilabnyu/index.html
We have a lot of users who don't following instructions about how to get high quality data. We try very hard to intercede to make their data better, but if they don't listen to us or insist they know better, we let them be.
This is a very general answer because you didn't give specifics, and I understand why you may not want to publicly. If you would like to discuss the details privately for a more directed answer, happy to talk about this.
As for someone claiming retaliation, about 20 years ago a user kept violating the sign-up rules by running over into other appointments. I complained to his boss, but his boss was chairman and very unresponsive to the core's needs. One day the offending postdoc sent me a long rant by email in which he complained about my being unavailable, a slave to my little black book (my calendar), and preventing him from working. I forwarded the email to the chairman and said it would be a HR issue if I had to work with the postdoc again. He was banned from the core. That was not retaliation; that was correct application of policy.
Regards-
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Michael Cammer
Sr. Research Scientist
NYU School of Medicine Langone Medical Center
New York NY
914-309-3270 646-501-0567
michael.cammer@nyulangone.org
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-17-2026 11:28
From: Anthony Stender
Subject: Core Policies on Dealing with Irresponsible Users
Hi Shekhar,
I understand the difficulty and frustration from situations like what you are describing. I had to deal with these sorts of situations on multiple occasions, and to some extent it depends on who the user is and what kind of user are they (is is a PI, postdoc, student? Is is a daily/weekly/infrequent user of the facility? do they work in the lab during my on-hours or off-hours? Is it someone trying to wrap up a project? is it a new/experienced user?)
It also sounds as if direct communication has not been working. In that case, I would recommend a conversation with the supervisor, explaining that you are trying to communicate with said user. In some cases at least, the supervisor will understand or be in a better situation to address the behavior. Also, you don't want to retrain/ban someone from the lab without including the supervisor in the conversation.
But you also want to be careful about setting precedents. Would it be wise to establish new core policies? That depends on what the user is doing. Do you already have policies in place (like a "three strikes and you're out of the lab" policy?)? In that case, you should tell the user and supervisor that they have one or two strikes against them, and a further violation will result in removal from the lab until retraining/etc occurs. I would say you should give at least one warning of a total ban/retraining before locking them out.
I think they key is: you need to communicate that the situation has not been resolved, so you need to escalate. But you can't do it in such as way that comes across as retaliatory or as "singling-out". And it should be done in cooperation/understanding of the supervisor.
However, if the supervisor is part of the problem, then you may need to consult someone even higher up than the supervisor, such as a chair/head of research/dean/etc. for guidance.
Good luck. This is one of those difficulties we all have to face, and you want to handle it in a way that's good for both the immediate and the long term.
Anthony Stender
A former Core Manager