What should I have done in this situation?

[GuppyPal]

I'm going to give you guys all the gory details on part of my grad school/work situation I struggled with this last semester. I'd like to hear input as to what you think I should have done.

Here's the basis to things: I am a grad student in environmental science, and my funding was through a grant that paid graduate students to work with local high schools. This involved us organizing field trips, teaching lessons in the classroom, and working fairly closely with our teacher-partner. I worked with two different teachers. One was great and easy to work with and loved me. The other hated my guts for reasons I'm not 100% certain of. She was abused as a child and was recently divorced by her husband (who she said she hated), and everyone involved in the situation agreed part of her hatred for me was simply because I was male. The other reason I think is because I was naturally good with the students in her class and am very knowledgeable on the subjects I was teaching, and since she's very insecure, she would get angry any time I had a success with the students as she saw it as me "outdoing" her or something.

Anyway, her hatred for me expressed itself in her being blatantly disrespectful to me every time I worked with her, sometimes even in front of the students, and she even went so far as to tell lies about me to my boss to try and get me fired. When my boss and I talked about it, my boss acted like I was equally at fault and that it was just a personality difference and nothing more. Keep in mind I have worked with several other teachers and grad students, and NONE of them had any problem with me whatsoever. When I told my boss these things and even showed written proof the other teachers liked me and couldn't believe I was having problems elsewhere, my boss just kind of dismissed it. My boss instructed me to just agree with bitch teacher no matter what she said so that I wouldn't anger her more. This lead to the teacher doubling down and treating me even worse. I then decided to go above my boss's head and complain to her boss. He stepped in and verbally supported me, but then in a joint meeting he really didn't do anything and took my boss's side. I later found out that my boss has a personal friendship with the bitch teacher I worked with AND a personal friendship with her boss and that she was hired based on this friendship and not her credentials (I found all this out by talking to others who know them all well and have been around longer than I have).

This teaching situation was the source of my funding, so by quitting it I had to quit grad school. I was unhappy with the program I was in anyway, but I definitely would have stuck around at least another semester to see how things went had I not had to deal with the aforementioned bullshit. I feel almost like I was set up, like I was verbally abused and harassed simply for doing my job well, and I was not given support just because my superiors cared more about protecting friends than what is right and wrong. Makes me want to puke just thinking about it.

I'm wondering what I could have done differently or what you would recommend. Keep in mind that my boss's boss is the director of this particular graduate program and has been at the University for 20 years. What are your thoughts?

[HermoineG]

I think, it is best right now to not speculate as to what someone else might have done. You did what you did because you thought that was the best way to go. Right now if you are officially out of that program there is really nothing else to do. Its in the past. Quitting must have been a var hard decision and now playing all of the  'what-if' scenarios in your mind will just make it more difficult than it has to be. Thats just my two cents. I know its easier said than done.

 

Unless it is just a vent-out post then, sure you need to talk and discuss about it just to get it out of your system.

[juilletmercredi]

Yeah, I think it's a bit pointless to speculate about what you could've done better - and we don't know every single thing you did, so it's difficult for us to help.

 

In that vein: Did you try to get along with the teacher who apparently hated you?  To be fair to her, your reaction to her may have been because of her treatment of you but your words here make me a bit wary.  For example, why is it relevant that she was abused as a child and divorced by her husband?  What has that go to do with anything, and what did you hope to gain by sharing that kind of personal information here?  It also sounds like you talked to a lot of other people about her behind her back.  Perhaps you were just trying to figure out why she would be so angry with you.  Who is this "everyone involved in the situation" who agreed that she hated you because you were male?  Frankly, I'm skeptical.  It sounds like the only people directly involved in the situation were you and her (and your boss and boss's boss indirectly).  Who are these other people who were commenting on her motivations with so much certainty?

 

Did you ever ask her directly whether she disliked you or disliked what you were doing?  Did you ever directly address her behavior?  E.g., when she was "blatantly disrespectful" to you in front of the students, you could've taken her aside during a free moment and explained to her (professionally) that you felt she was undermining your authority in front of the students and asked her why she did that.

 

Is there a possibility that you simply rubbed her the wrong way?  Maybe she thought that you were being cocky, or maybe she thought you were trying to undermine HER authority.  Maybe she didn't like the way you taught.  Maybe she thought that you thought you were better than her, and she resented you for that.  Who knows?

 

Could you have asked to be switched to another teacher?

 

As an aside, people can and are often hired for both personal connections and qualifications/credentials.  The fact that your boss was friends with your boss's boss before she got the job doesn't indicate foul play or that she's unqualified to do the job.  And so what the boss had a personal friendship with the teacher you disliked.  What does that mean?  Who are these "others" you are getting that information, and how are they in a position to know how and why the boss was hired?

 

Honestly, to me it sounds like the entire situation was at least in part dysfunctional.  People are distrustful enough to reveal personal information they learned about other people in casual gossip (I wouldn't discuss another person's divorce or childhood abuse with a third person, because why?)  People are gossiping about why this person got hired and how that person is friends with this other person, which in a normal workplace is not a problem.

 

But...does it really surprise you that the school was more interested in protecting one of its veteran teachers than vindicating a part-time graduate student, even if you are right?  It could've been cronyism, or it could've just been professional interest.

 

I recommend nothing.  Unless you intend to return to this program and get the fellowship back, which would involve talking to whoever's in charge.