BMR Lite

[vendic]

God I am so fucking bored.

I mean, this is really minor in the grand scheme of things. A lot of people reading this deal with far worse in your lives, and I feel like I should shut up...

It doesn't work that way. Everyone has things that matter to them personally and if we took the concept of others having it worse to it's logical conclusion then there'd be only one person on the planet that could complain ,and wow that fucker would have it really bad! I wonder who he/she is.

[SciFiFisher]

God I am so fucking bored.

I mean, this is really minor in the grand scheme of things. A lot of people reading this deal with far worse in your lives, and I feel like I should shut up...

It doesn't work that way. Everyone has things that matter to them personally and if we took the concept of others having it worse to it's logical conclusion then there'd be only one person on the planet that could complain ,and wow that fucker would have it really bad! I wonder who he/she is.

Job? Or maybe Jonah?

[Rommie]

Thanks guys.

So, for Fisher in particular because of his note , another thing that I find really annoying is how many people are also telling me long distance "won't be that bad" with some random rationalization or another. Most of these people are of course faculty who are trying to rationalize that my move is a good thing and prefer to not think of it as something I'm being forced to do. Yes, the guy has a job that he can do anywhere, but I'm not going to make him uproot his career for a vague "six months, maybe a year" if he doesn't want to, which he doesn't, so no you don't get to pretend this situation is ok.

[vendic]

Long distance is a pita. I know. it is however doable but certainly not as enjoyable as it should be.
It is far easier with a job that allows travel and some level of financial stability. Without those it will default into a pen pal status.

[Swift]

I have to go our plant in Texas for the week for some trials. There is no good reason they couldn't run the trials themselves, but there always seems to be a bunch of bad reasons. Among the bad reasons is there are always unexpected stupid problems, usually equipment breakage and people not following instructions. And most of the fuck ups I can't fix, but there seems to be some expectation I'll be able to give them my vast expertise (I've been working on these products for less than 6 months.... "vast").

On top of all that, I though one of my bosses was coming down with me, but he's not. Even worse, I'm shepherding/teaching a newly hired engineer on this stuff, so I get to look like an idiot with an audience.

And there is a ton of pressure from management that even though these are "trials" (testing new production conditions) that they also produce good product (oh, and lots of good data).

Yep, no possibility here for doom.

[Thumper]

On the bright side, you'll be in Texas. Oh sorry, nevermind...
What part?

[Swift]

Bryan / College Station. Where Texas A&M is.

[Rommie]

So, I had my meeting with the Inquisition last Friday which went alright enough, it was mainly awkward but all relevant parties signed off on what they needed to sign off on, so hey Toronto awaits and I can stop bitching about these people. (Refresher, inquisition is the annual review in my institute. I invited Xander to come too though, which he happily did and he was a great support.)

Some final notes though:

- The paper is pretty much done, but some last minute stuff/ other people's holidays mean while it will go out to collaborators before I head off to Toronto, it might not get submitted. Ralph at this point literally said three weeks out of three months was just normal research, and he had no issues if I had to end up submitting it in January. I really had to hold my tongue then, because geez, remember that time I got fired (oh wait, contract no longer renewed with him no longer pursuing my submitting a PhD manuscript) over a week's delay?!

- What usually happens is you first talk to the inquisition folks, and then your supervisors come in for a group chat, and then they all have a chat about you. While the secretary ran off to get the three of them, the one external guy on the inqui board asked me whether I was still having fun with what I was doing. I answered honestly, that no, there was too much history involved for me to say the past few months were enjoyable, but I expect Toronto to be better. At this point my biggest adversary on the Inquisition (the one whose advice in July consisted of just "we can't tell Ralph what to do. think about what makes you happy") jumped on the comment with venom and started a rant about how we'd talked about this, and what were my motivations for getting a PhD anyway? I told him briefly I had various motivations, and then thank God the supervisor crew happened to walk in and cut that dialogue short.

Seriously, what the fuck on the latter. I'm in a situation where I'm not allowed to talk to anyone except a woman I have no good personal relationship with, in a department run by a man who makes up me mocking him if he thinks I gave him a side eye, while unemployed, and he wants me to be enjoying it? And if I'm not, my motivation to finish isn't good enough for him, so I should fucking leave? Did he prefer I lie, because I severely doubt anyone would have believed me had I said I was still enjoying things?

Whatever, these people are out of my hair soon enough. On the bright side, ran into a faculty member in the hallway and he said via the grapevine that Bryan in Toronto is really excited to have me there, and sounds like they'll be rolling out the welcome party. Dunno if I can handle that!

[Thumper]

Bryan / College Station. Where Texas A&M is.

Hope you can make the best of it. Maybe you can take a side trip to Austin.

[Thumper]

Whatever, these people are out of my hair soon enough. On the bright side, ran into a faculty member in the hallway and he said via the grapevine that Bryan in Toronto is really excited to have me there, and sounds like they'll be rolling out the welcome party. Dunno if I can handle that!

Take care of what business you need to in Amsterdam then relax, have fun, and work hard in Toronto!

[vendic]

Rommie, those people sound like they have one too many rod up their asses.
On a separate note, it seems to me as a reader that you've shaken the place up a bit which they probably didn't expect or want.

[Rommie]

Well Xander (who said he still wants to be involved instead of them and I totally agree) has been, I've noticed, really deflecting from telling me what the Inquisition is saying. The sort of thing where you test the waters by saying they don't have much empathy, and he responds after a pause by saying there's just too much history there. Honestly? I think Jason's thing is he's "being an objective scientist," and believes not everyone is capable of a PhD and I am one of those people. Like, I had my chance so I should just accept facts and walk away, you know? There's still a shit ton of bullshit being spouted on their end that I wasn't really independent by identifying this new project for example- in actuality, the argument goes, I just reached out to Bryan and he happened to have this project, and I'm still too dependent on structured things, and have yet to show I'm "truly independent." Or something. It's really hard to keep track of moving goalposts.

Whatever, to quote some of my friends, the thing to remember is what an awful situation I was in six months ago, and how I was really strong and got such a great situation coming out of it now. Not many people could have accomplished it, and that's something to be proud of. Which I guess is true.

[vendic]

Yep. Sometimes things happen that you can't control. It's not the situation you are in that defines you, it's how you handle it that does. Some people don't get that and instead judge on where you are not what you are doing. So yes, you can be damned proud that you clawed your way though a sea of assholes.

[code monkey]

...
Seriously, what the fuck on the latter. I'm in a situation where I'm not allowed to talk to anyone except a woman I have no good personal relationship with, in a department run by a man who makes up me mocking him if he thinks I gave him a side eye, while unemployed, and he wants me to be enjoying it? And if I'm not, my motivation to finish isn't good enough for him, so I should fucking leave? Did he prefer I lie, because I severely doubt anyone would have believed me had I said I was still enjoying things?

Whatever, these people are out of my hair soon enough. On the bright side, ran into a faculty member in the hallway and he said via the grapevine that Bryan in Toronto is really excited to have me there, and sounds like they'll be rolling out the welcome party. Dunno if I can handle that!

of course you shouldn't leave. you have a finite amount of time left with these idiots. just keep saying to yourself that's just (insert name of idiot) being (insert name of idiot). that and the fact that i'm 3000 miles away from the people I work with have kept me going (and out of jail) for many years. sometimes 'this too shall pass' is a help but the former and Lamaze are my standbys.

I thought that I had some pretty bizarre stories of grad school hijinks on the part of advisors (and the outside observers for final orals) but I can't touch your experiences. 'are you still having fun' followed by an explosion in response to the 'wrong' answer? a very mild wrong answer at that. I promise you, by the end nobody's having fun. nobody. what's your motivation? myob. why is that relevant? those people are unbelievable and you will be well shut of them.

Michael used to say that the objective was to survive. you have. in addition, you have a next step that looks good so you've done well. you're probably too tired and fed up to see that but you have.

[Rommie]

Thanks!

Seriously, I truly don't get it. Does he really think that people wrapping up their PhDs who leave academia (of which our institute has graduated several) are having a ball and that's why they opt to leave? No, but I doubt they're interrogated about their motivations. And what's more, I still don't get why to this man is so adamant that "I spent five fucking years already on this unrealized investment" alone is not motivation enough.

Friggin' weirdoes.

[SciFi Chick]

I had no idea that the purpose of getting a Ph.D. was to have fun. I feel so enlightened now.

[Rommie]

I had no idea that the purpose of getting a Ph.D. was to have fun. I feel so enlightened now.

Thanks, I needed that!

[Rommie]

OMG forgot the last bit- the mythical fourth chapter! Apparently the story now is I'm still not "independent enough," despite everything that happened in the past few months, because I still would wait and check things with Antonia instead of applying my own ideas. (See previous reports of me not giving a crap and having no motivation to see how much I'm really caring about this assessment.) Similarly, apparently I am still too reliant on structured things, because all I did was contact Bryan and he told me he had this project so that's how I got it. (Um, what? Were you there?) So, I'm told that for the fourth project I am told I should think up a completely independent idea for my own project, and do it on my own.

Now that's cute, but a few snags. First, that's not a requirement in itself for getting a PhD, but an extra-imposed one. Second, we are not exactly monks with single author papers in radio astronomy- nor does one need to be, if they don't want to, and I definitely don't want to. Third, the way to do this would be to apply for telescope time, wait for said time, then analyze my own data on my own. I am currently essentially cut off from my previous telescopes, really don't know much about the next yet, and also importantly this takes a decent amount of time (up to a year) with little chance of getting telescope time unless I have someone already really involved for most radio telescope projects, so my fourth paper is going to be reliant on getting data from somewhere else most likely (as there are lots of normal people out there with plenty of it, who won't mind me stepping in to work with them). Fourth, fuck you.

Yeah, not gonna worry about this until Toronto, as once I'm not here we can claim I brilliantly did it all on my own, right?

[Swift]

I had no idea that the purpose of getting a Ph.D. was to have fun. I feel so enlightened now.

Really. I want my money back; it wasn't fun (though there was the night I hyperventilated about my prelimins.... maybe that was the fun part?)

[Swift]

OMG forgot the last bit- the mythical fourth chapter! Apparently the story now is I'm still not "independent enough,"

I'm sorry, but that's crap. There are no universal PhD requirements, but I don't recall any criteria about "independence". It has to be unique research that you can explain and defend the conclusions, that's it.

As you said, the "independent" researcher is a myth, both in industry and academics; everything is collaboration.

[Rommie]

Thanks. I of course couldn't raise it, but so far as I can tell for the standards of anyone else in the world, if I want to just keep working on projects Bryan has (provided he's ok with that), that's fine. Does it mean I then can't get a postdoc? No, not really, provided I get a good letter there from said work. Does it then mean I eventually have to lead with my ideas if I wanted to get a fellowship, or get a faculty position? Well yeah, but that's YEARS ahead of what I'm doing right now, and I've been pretty upfront I don't ultimately want that kind of career anyway.

The reason they keep coming back to this of course is it's what Ralph claimed I didn't do in July that was grounds to not renew the contract, etc etc. So they have to pretend this standard is a serious issue and I have to reach it. But to quote Bryan when I first raised it to him, it sounds like bias. So, fuck them.

[SciFi Chick]

Well, if you can get out of here and get to Canada and avoid any more crap from them, excellent. Otherwise, I think it might be time to engage an attorney, because this is bullshit. You aren't imagining things and you don't have a martyr or persecution complex. You also don't have an overinflated ego. They're just trying to gaslight you.

[vendic]

Don't get an attorney...C4 is a way cheaper and more effective option.

Y'all know I'm kidding on that.

[Swift]

Well, if you can get out of here and get to Canada and avoid any more crap from them, excellent. Otherwise, I think it might be time to engage an attorney, because this is bullshit. You aren't imagining things and you don't have a martyr or persecution complex. You also don't have an overinflated ego. They're just trying to gaslight you.

I would be very cautious about that approach.

First, one would have to know if there is relevant Dutch or European law on the topic.

Second, I think that would be a complete burning of bridges. I have to imagine that at the point of "lawyering up", one would completely poison one's reputation in the astronomy and academic communities. Maybe that's unfair, but that's the reality. I fully expect that people that are sympathetic to Rommie now, and are willing to help her, would back off quickly if this turned into a lawsuit.

[Swift]

Don't get an attorney...C4 is a way cheaper and more effective option.

Y'all know I'm kidding on that.

Do I? Do I really know that?