I had a huge temper meltdown yesterday, and apparently everyone was surprised (shocked? thought it was funny? <-feedback that I received today).
It was caused by a combination of factors. Let's start with Wednesday, which was a public holiday (Australia Day). I worked on a public holiday, was not paid for it (I am on a stipend) and was in until 2:30am on Thursday morning.
I dragged myself in on Thursday morning at 9am to make figures to put together because my supervisors had previously said that they wanted me to make my data into figures. At my meeting at 11am, they told me to simply open the raw data file, wasting my time before that having made up the figures.
Then they figured that the data that I had obtained was not what they needed for the grant application, and requested that I obtain more samples, fix and image by the end of Thursday (it takes 4 hours and I had equipment time from 4-5pm on Thursday). Nevermind that I had an appointment with my psychiatrist at 12pm (which I told them about) and was planning to learn to analyse other data in the afternoon.
My supervisor said that she would sit in on my imaging session. My appointment ended at 2:30pm, I rushed back to put my sample slides together, biked back to the research institute to tell the person who was going to give me a lesson in data analysis that I couldn't make it, and rushed back before 4pm for microscope time. My supervisor had completely forgotten that she was going to sit in with me and was doing something else.
My day only ended at 8pm. This is not the first time that my supervisors told me to ditch the plans that I had for the day and conduct an experiment IMMEDIATELY, the day of a meeting. It could definitely have waited. On the other hand, for other experiments that my supervisors wanted me to get done "immediately", they didn't tell me in time so that I could prepare for it and fit it into my schedule.
Instead, I had to rush and come in at all hours of the day and on weekends so that they could get data that they "urgently needed" (and only just thought of putting into their grant proposals). This, despite them knowing about my problems with anxiety and depression and telling me to "plan your work and go according to the plan".
I vented to a friend while others were around, and they were all surprised at how upset and angry I could get.