Understanding?

I am one of two post-docs in my current lab, but I am the only native English speaker. Sometimes, I think the second post-doc (PD2) would be better off if she tried to understand more that is going on around her. There have been a couple of instances in the past couple of weeks that exemplify this assertion.

Two weeks ago, a department email went out saying that the water to the entire building needed to be turned off for two hours early on Saturday morning, and that as a result, the water may run dirty for a while afterward. I went in to lab that Saturday and PD2 was there. She turned on the water and was surprised at the brown water and did not know what to do. I tried to explain the email that had come out that week, and she said she had not read it. I do not know what she would have done if someone was not there to explain just to run the water until it was clean.

Just a couple of days ago, the undergrad I have been supervising entered the lab wearing two lab gloves. You may not think this is a problem - he was protecting himself from his experiment and his experiment from contamination as gloves are meant to do. However, he opened two doors with a gloved hand. Call me the lab police if you want to, but I have a big problem with this and constantly remind him NOT to do this. There is also a University policy and signs up in our hallway with pictures of what not to do and what to do. So I told him, yet again, to take a glove off when he is walking outside of the lab. (As an aside, even if you want to argue that all of the scientists in the lab know the risks involved with what we work with, the custodial staff and any visitors do not.)

I wiped down all of the door knobs for our various lab rooms and made sure that all of the lab members were reminded to NOT use a gloved hand to open the doors. This included PD2. She confirmed twice that she understood what I was saying and seemed surprised. The signs have been up for a few months and there was a building email that was sent out about it.

I understand that building emails may be boring to read. We do not get excessive emails and they are always information like I described above. The grad student I supervised last semester admitted he did not read them, so PD2 is not the only one. For someone who is not a native speaker, you would think she would try to keep apprised of what is going on at work as best she can though. Oh, well.