Timeline for 1.5 years later, how to make sure unprofessional behaviour by former mentor has consequences?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
26 events
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| Sep 17, 2018 at 14:40 | comment | added | Scientist | On "writing a letter" to your advisor, I think it would be better to write a letter for the administration. If this person is a truly aggressive player, (s)he will gladly "promise to improve on their behaviour" just to make sure you don't say anything around against them, while misconstruing this letter to peer against your reputation. Surely you will breach out on overly personal remarks on this letter -- better make a more professional, official notice. Acting normal and nice when they no longer have any power and/or interests over bullied victims is typical of someone playing selfish games. | |
| Sep 17, 2018 at 11:01 | history | edited | user96212 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 17, 2018 at 10:07 | comment | added | user96212 | @Ivana I was actually thinking about writing a letter (harder to ignore than an email and it's paper with more "evidence weight") to my PI and ask them for a reply. If I get one and they acknowledge and promise to improve on their behaviour, then this matter would be done for me. If not, I can still escalate the matter further, if I want to. You could probably even turn your comment into an answer? P.S.: since then, I had one chance encounter with my PI and they acted totally normal and as if nothing ever happened, doing small talk etc., asking about my career... | |
| Sep 17, 2018 at 10:03 | comment | added | user96212 | @DanRomik good point, especially since I have been pondering this question for one and a half years now. Please see my appended edit to the question. | |
| Sep 16, 2018 at 23:19 | history | edited | aeismail | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Sep 16, 2018 at 21:38 | answer | added | O. Jones | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 15, 2018 at 2:30 | review | Close votes | |||
| Sep 15, 2018 at 14:11 | |||||
| Sep 15, 2018 at 2:11 | comment | added | Bob Brown | I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a rant, not a question. | |
| Sep 15, 2018 at 0:53 | comment | added | robert bristow-johnson | There are endemic problems/issues with academic research. In the olden days (say, 50 or 60 years ago) there was much less grant money and fewer granting agencies/institutions, and much of the research was "unfunded" or simply supported by the budgets of the academic institution and departments therein. (i.e. the professor had a salary, the graduate students sometimes had stipends, and there was some money to buy equipment). now it is much different and there are waaay too many PhDs, too many "research institutions" scrambling for grants, and governments cutting back. that makes for stress. | |
| Sep 15, 2018 at 0:34 | comment | added | user347489 | Isn't it worrying that most of the answers simply suggest to let it go? What about the future students and postdocs? This just made me realize how poorly academia handles cases of abuse. | |
| Sep 15, 2018 at 0:33 | comment | added | LLlAMnYP | This is only tangentially related, but I raise a brow when I see mentor and postdoc in one sentence. In my view, a postdoc is already a mature, even if not too experienced scientist. To him a PI should be no more than a first among equals, certainly not someone to take crap from. If this view would be more widespread, yesterday's PhD students (or more junior) would be much less vulnerable to such abuse. | |
| Sep 15, 2018 at 0:12 | answer | added | Caharpuka | timeline score: 1 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 23:43 | answer | added | Dan Romik | timeline score: 9 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 23:41 | comment | added | CramerTV | Are there websites to review professors? If so, leave a review, encourage others to do the same and send a link for that professor to the university. If they feel action is required, good, if not, so be it. | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 22:05 | comment | added | A Simple Algorithm | You simply cannot achieve those objectives (except of course the one regarding leaving academia). You should have made the complaint at the time. But again, you were advised correctly that as a postdoc, no power to damage a prof's career over such issues, was placed in your hands. But the complaint would help add to the pile of evidence against the person, for example, if they punch a student someday or something. Consider that you may have only got that opportunity because they drove away others before you, rather than being regretful about what might have been. So it was always doomed. | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 20:59 | answer | added | jpmc26 | timeline score: 5 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 20:08 | comment | added | Dan Romik | It is common on this site that people writing answers will sometimes challenge the premises of the question and instead of (or in addition to) answering the actual question will try to tell the asker not to do the things they’re thinking of doing, when that’s not the kind of advice they asked for. (To be clear, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad practice, and sometimes do this myself.) You might want to clarify whether you only want specific advice about getting consequences for your mentor, or wouldn’t mind also getting more general thoughts about the advisability of the whole idea. | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 19:14 | comment | added | Ivana | Is it possible at all, that your former mentor would listen to reason? If you wrote them a mail, explaining how their unproffesional behaviour affected you, it could be he/she is just really incompetent, has realised this by now, and is open to suggestions. | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 17:08 | answer | added | Scientist | timeline score: 16 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 15:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAcademia/status/1040616208515653632 | ||
| Sep 14, 2018 at 14:14 | answer | added | Dmitry Savostyanov | timeline score: 27 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:33 | comment | added | user96212 | Yes, I got an average postdoc salary. I worked hard and produced research output, both from my project and from collaborating with my mentor's students. But none of that resulted in a publication, which was, of course, what my mentor was mostly after, given their early career status. I am aware that, in large parts because of the toxic work relationship, I might have underperformed. | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:27 | answer | added | Buffy | timeline score: 25 | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:23 | comment | added | Dmitry Savostyanov | Were you payed for this year? Have you produced any research outputs to account for the salary you received? | |
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:15 | review | First posts | |||
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:41 | |||||
| Sep 14, 2018 at 13:12 | history | asked | user96212 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |