- Can a PI fire a postdoc? Surely they can, and sometimes they really have to do so in order to save research money and do the best for the group.
- Can PI signal to the postdoc that their performance is under review? Yes. This is an honest thing to do. It gives postdoc a chance to improve their performance and fix things, before guns will fire.
- Is it a good idea to tell this as a joke? Absolutely not. The job contract is a serious personal matter. The discussion should be private and professional, not public and semi-serious.
- What can we tell about PI's personality? He cares about the performance of the group and he tries to manage it. He doesn't know/feel what is a professional way of doing it. Perhaps, he struggles to maintain a distance and tends to become a bit too friendly with people in his group. As a result, it is hard for him to communicate difficult decisions and unpleasant messages and he tries to disguise them as a joke.
Dmitry Savostyanov
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