KittyCat_PhD

What is wrong with people that they can't respect each other's time? Me and my housemate have been searching for a third housemate, and had multiple people have scheduled times to see the house only to not show up or cancel.
The worst was this one dude, who failed to show up, and when I texted him to ask if he was still coming he said something came up and he couldn't come tonight. So I suggested tomorrow, and he said yes. The next day he again fails to show up, I ask "Are you still coming?" and he asks me to send him pictures of the house. Even though the pictures were on the ad. So I do extra work to take more pictures, send them, no response. Then, last night (almost a week later), at 8:30pm, he has the gall to ask if tonight is a good night. At this point I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and not respond. Then today he texts, "Good morning." ... REALLY? You make us wait for nothing twice in a row, then pretend to be polite? I'm sorry, but actions speak louder than words. I told him we had found someone else (which is partially true but not confirmed).
The worst part is, it seems like this started happening more often when I took a turn posting the room ad in my name after my (male) housemate did it for awhile. Just goes to show, people seem to think a woman's time is worth less than a man's.

What is wrong with people that they can't respect each other's time? Me and my housemate have been searching for a third housemate, and had multiple people have scheduled times to see the house only to not show up or cancel.
The worst was this one dude, who failed to show up, and when I texted him to ask if he was still coming he said something came up and he couldn't come tonight. So I suggested tomorrow, and he said yes. The next day he again fails to show up, I ask "Are you still coming?" and he asks me to send him pictures of the house. Even though the pictures were on the ad. So I do extra work to take more pictures, send them, no response. Then, last night (almost a week later), at 8:30pm, he has the gall to ask if tonight is a good night. At this point I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and not respond. Then today he texts, "Good morning." ... REALLY? You make us wait for nothing twice in a row, then pretend to be polite? I'm sorry, but actions speak louder than words. I told him we had found someone else (which is partially true but not confirmed).
The worst part is, it seems like this started happening more often when I took a turn posting the room ad in my name after my (male) housemate did it for awhile. Just goes to show, people seem to think a woman's time is worth less than a man's.

What is wrong with people that they can't respect each other's time? Me and my housemate have been searching for a third housemate, and had multiple people have scheduled times to see the house only to not show up or cancel.
The worst was this one dude, who failed to show up, and when I texted him to ask if he was still coming he said something came up and he couldn't come tonight. So I suggested tomorrow, and he said yes. The next day he again fails to show up, I ask "Are you still coming?" and he asks me to send him pictures of the house. Even though the pictures were on the ad. So I do extra work to take more pictures, send them, no response. Then, last night (almost a week later), at 8:30pm, he has the gall to ask if tonight is a good night. At this point I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and not respond. Then today he texts, "Good morning." ... REALLY? You make us wait for nothing twice in a row, then pretend to be polite? I'm sorry, but actions speak louder than words. I told him we had found someone else (which is partially true but not confirmed).
The worst part is, it seems like this started happening more often when I took a turn posting the room ad in my name after my (male) housemate did it for awhile. Just goes to show, people seem to think a woman's time is worth less than a man's.

As a white person, I don't have any immediate input on whether you should switch topics. But if you do stay with this topic, maybe you could see if there's a way for any of the people you study to make bigger contributions that would merit co-author status, on papers, posters, etc. Depending on the standards of your field, lack of education might not even be an issue, as long as they're giving valuable and significant input. If the higher-ups frown on this, then that shows a blatant disrespect for the culture they claim to be interested in, so IMO you'd be justified in making an official protest. If this goes nowhere, or you don't feel comfortable starting this confrontation, then maybe it's time to switch topics.

I have a similar mentor. Its kind of his schtick. This doesn't sound like a terribly big ethical breach (if at all: maybe administrative breach?) but I think valuing your own internal boundaries is more important at this point than anything else. Politely standing your ground now or disengaging from it, may make a harder ethical ask down the road a lot less emotionally involved. If networking at this event is important to you then pay the entrance fee and attend. 

Conferences vary in whether they consider postdocs as students for the purposes of registration fees (at least in my field). If that might be true in your case, I would feign ignorance and try for the free registration, as your advisor suggests. If this stresses you out, though, you might as well just pay the fee and get it over with. Depending on the context, I don't really know if this amounts to "my advisor is asking me to lie", though. 

Here are some reasons why I would not register as a student when I am a postdoc:
1. If it's found out and there are consequences, it will all come down on you. So do only what you're comfortable with.
2. Events like this are meant to support students, and they still cost money. The reason that students are free are either because there is outside sponsorship to cover students, or the paying attendees subsidize the cost for students. I feel that it's only right that we stop benefiting from free student things once we have gainful employment and are no longer students. Especially if there is a limit on the number of free student spots at this conference, I'd feel wrong about taking it from an actual student.
3. Usually at these things, your name badges clearly say what you've registered as. If you are here to network, having it say "student" (or the wrong thing) isn't going to help you.
So, honestly, I feel like misrepresenting yourself doesn't really do yourself any good and could cause harm to you. It sounds like you do want to talk to your advisor about this so if you are looking for advice/encouragement, I would say you could consider something like point #2 and #3 above instead of just saying "we shouldn't break the rules" since you know this angle doesn't work with him.

@KittyCat_PhD, going forward, you will benefit from establishing boundaries early on. You will need to develop tactics that allow you to walk the delicate balance between what you're being asked to do and what you think is the right thing to do.
IRT your current situation, I recommend that you ask yourself "what's at stake?" On the one hand, your advisor wants you to do something that saves (someone) money and (maybe) advances his personal agenda of tweaking his nose at authority from time to time. On the other hand, you are concerned about managing your risk--what happens if you get found out. Potential diagnostic questions include, how would you feel about his request if there were no risk of the ruse being discovered? (Do you not want to do it because you might get caught, or do you not want to do it because it's wrong or do you not want to do it because there's an expanding pattern of rule bending and you want to get off that train?)  Depending on how you answer the question you could put a dollar amount on the price of compromising. 
"Nothing to worry about." You're being too uptight. To me, those are warning flags that this guy doesn't really give a fuck about you. At all. YMMV.

If I was in that situation I'd take the free registration, introduce myself confidently as a postdoc and then feign TOTAL IGNORANCE if called out. "Oh, my boss Prof X handled my registration."  (Honestly, given how cheap most academics are they'll probably be impressed with your ability to get something for free)
If it only costs $20 to register as a non-student or something like that then just tell your PI you'll pay for the registration yourself. If it costs something like $200 and the PI would otherwise be paying for your registration...then either swallow the lie or don't go. 
 

I am a postdoc, working with the same advisor I had for my PhD. I've had a mostly good relationship with my advisor, despite some personality differences--for example, he's more inclined to disregard rules. So far it's been mostly little things. But now something has come up where I feel I need to draw a line.
There's this conference he suggested I attend. It's more of a networking conference than an academic conference, but entrance is free for students who apply to present a scientific poster. He wants me to lie and say I'm a student, so that I can get free entry. But even if they believe it well enough to let me into the conference, I would be networking, which inevitably means telling people that I'm a postdoc. And then one of the organizers might find out about the lie, and guess who would take the blame: me. Not a good start for someone trying to network to find my next job.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? How can I talk to him about it? Knowing him, he's likely to dismiss my concerns as "nothing to worry about" and tell me I'm too uptight.