WTF do I do about my advisor?

[iphi]

The prof I am a research assistant for is a little bit crazy. There's a huge backstory, but in the interest of keeping things short, I will outline what happened this week. You should know that this prof is crazy disorganized, and it affects my ability to do the work she wants me to do.

 

She emailed me Wednesday (beginning of break, I am not technically under contract) asking me to complete a task using materials I do not have because they are in my office on campus. I am 1500 miles away. She wants them by 8am Tuesday for a meeting, I come back 4pm Monday, and have class immediately after until 8pm. I don't respond to the email until this (Monday) morning. I tell her I am not yet back, that I was ill (true) and that I will do it tonight. She responds favorably.

 

Now I am in class and get an email from her saying that she did not see the materials (I haven't started yet) and that she has left campus and will not return before tomorrow's meeting (held off-campus) and that I need to call her tonight.

 

She does this ALL THE TIME. She does not read her emails carefully enough. She does not get her shit together in time for me to complete the tasks she wants me to. Then she blames me. WTF do I do?!

[bsharpe269]

Wow... Im sorry. I think that having a disorganized, wait til the last minute sort of advisor would be really rough. I don't have all that much to offer other than you seem to be doing the right thing to me by not spending your thanksgiving break doing the work she forgot to mention. I mean if this was a one time thing then I would go to great lengths to help out a metor who I respect. If this is regular behavoir then I would quickly become frustrated and less accommodating. If you decide to stay with this advisor and/or dont have other options then I think that setting boundries (like you seem to already be doing) is important. For example, be willing to help if you have no other plans but committ to not canceling evening plans or weekend trips due to her behavior.

[St Andrews Lynx]

I don't think there is any way to make your advisor more organised (unless they really want to be more organised). Often, scatty people don't like having their scattiness drawn to their attention, either.

 

Communicate by email for everything, since that way you have a paper trail that you can refer back to. After any phone calls or in-person meetings, immediately email a "confirmation summary" of everything you discussed. If she confronts you or blames you, calmly & politely refer them to email correspondence ("I sent you an email on Monday evening saying X. You replied on Tuesday morning confirming Y."). If you are able to keep your cool, and confidently (but politely) advocate for yourself, I guess that is the approach most likely to make her become less inconsiderate in the future.  

[lewin]

 

I don't know what the rest of your experiences were but on this one, frankly, I don't think that requesting something on a Wednesday for a Tuesday meeting is too out of line. That's almost a week!  It's reasonable for to assume that you would be in town or have access to the material necessary to complete your work.

 

The others have focused on your advisor with good advice, so I'll mention aspects of your own behavior that you could change so that things go more smoothly in the future. First, I would never go out of town without letting my advisor know. Second, I would never assume that break is time off without checking first. Break weeks are for undergrads. Third, you took ~five days to reply to the first email; that's way too long. 

Edited December 3, 2014 by lewin

[ProfLorax]

Lewin, your post initially bewildered me, but now I see you're in Canada. Last week was Thanksgiving in the states, and Thanksgiving is a major holiday here. Pretty much everyone travels home to visit family; Thanksgiving break is definitely not just for undergrads. What this professor did was similar to emailing the OP on Christmas Eve expecting him/her to be in her lab on Christmas and not with his/her family. 

 

Given the scenario, it is absolutely justified that the OP did not respond right away. Major holidays (and Thanksgiving really is a big one here) should be for family and not for work, and advisors who expect anything other than that are unrealistic in their expectations. 

[dr. t]

Lewin, your post initially bewildered me, but now I see you're in Canada. Last week was Thanksgiving in the states, and Thanksgiving is a major holiday here. Pretty much everyone travels home to visit family; Thanksgiving break is definitely not just for undergrads. What this professor did was similar to emailing the OP on Christmas Eve expecting him/her to be in her lab on Christmas and not with his/her family. 

 

Given the scenario, it is absolutely justified that the OP did not respond right away. Major holidays (and Thanksgiving really is a big one here) should be for family and not for work, and advisors who expect anything other than that are unrealistic in their expectations. 

 

 

I feel like you're both a bit right. The holiday excuses work or email on the holiday or the days where you're travelling, but I see no reason why OP did not respond that Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving is a work day for a lot of people. Moreover, break ends on Monday - if you're not going to be back in town until 4pm, you need to let your supervisor know. 

Edited December 3, 2014 by telkanuru

[ProfLorax]

Interesting! I suppose we'll find many different attitudes toward work/life balance among graduate students. What we feel we need to do in terms of communicating with our advisors will largely be shaped by the culture of our program, our relationship with our advisor, and our personalities. 

 

iphi, I think what you do will depend greatly on your own personality, relationship with your advisor, and your needs. I have found it useful to communicate with my advisors when I will be out of town for conferences, medical needs, or vacations. Like you, I wouldn't have thought it was necessary for Thanksgiving break, but perhaps it is for this advisor. You may even want to consider emailing her a week ahead and asking if she has any last minute tasks to add to your to-do list before you clock out.

 

If you find the problem persists, then you may need to consider what next step is within your comfort zone.  You may have to sit down with your advisor and communicate exactly what expectations you each have for your work and your schedule. Then, you may want to write down notes from the meeting and email them to her afterwards, so everything is in writing. I don't think this has to be a confrontational meeting; you can frame the whole discussion as you being an eager graduate student who wants to understand exactly what is expected of you while communicating your own needs. 

 

Good luck!

[iphi]

I don't know what the rest of your experiences were but on this one, frankly, I don't think that requesting something on a Wednesday for a Tuesday meeting is too out of line. That's almost a week!  It's reasonable for to assume that you would be in town or have access to the material necessary to complete your work.

 

I would normally agree, but as proflorax pointed out, it was a holiday week (no school Wednesday through Sunday).

 

Lewin, your post initially bewildered me, but now I see you're in Canada. Last week was Thanksgiving in the states, and Thanksgiving is a major holiday here. Pretty much everyone travels home to visit family; Thanksgiving break is definitely not just for undergrads. What this professor did was similar to emailing the OP on Christmas Eve expecting him/her to be in her lab on Christmas and not with his/her family. 

 

Given the scenario, it is absolutely justified that the OP did not respond right away. Major holidays (and Thanksgiving really is a big one here) should be for family and not for work, and advisors who expect anything other than that are unrealistic in their expectations. 

 

Yes, exactly. Not only was it Thanksgiving, but BECAUSE it was a holiday I was not under contract. I learned early with this prof that I have to set boundaries.

[iphi]

I feel like you're both a bit right. The holiday excuses work or email on the holiday or the days where you're travelling, but I see no reason why OP did not respond that Friday. The Friday after Thanksgiving is a work day for a lot of people. Moreover, break ends on Monday - if you're not going to be back in town until 4pm, you need to let your supervisor know. 

 

That Friday is not a work day, I was not under contract, but was still planning to respond. However, that morning I was quite literally in the wilderness, no access to even cell service, and later that evening I was stuck in the bathroom with a stomach bug that lasted the full weekend.

[TMP]

Sometimes a very quick e-mail immediately after seeing the original e-mail letting your supervisor know that you're out of town and have no access to the materials that she needs until Monday goes a long, long way.

 

I agree with others about keeping your adviser posted.  Though my adviser is very organized, she does appreciate knowing when I'm in and out, and where (often times there are archives near my relatives and she would reasonably expect me to do a little research).

[juilletmercredi]

I sympathize with you.  Disorganized professors are annoying.

 

But the first thing I will say is that I think you have to stop thinking about your program as whether you are "under contract" or not.  There's contract and then there's the actual work and reputation you build.  I completely agree with setting boundaries.  But at the same time, you don't want to become known as the student who always mentions whether or not she's "under contract" wrt when you respond to your professors or do work.  There are a variety of reasons for that, but generally speaking academia is one of those fields in which you often work even when you're not technically at work.

 

Generally speaking, my perception of breaks has shrunk a lot since being a grad student.  Yes, technically the day before or after (or both) Thanksgiving may be a university holiday, but a lot of academics do at least some light work those days, and checking through emails and selectively responding to ones that seem pressing (even if it is just to say "I got your email, and I can't do this right now - I will get to it on Monday") is probably a good idea on one or both of those days.  Obviously if you are in the wilderness with no email access that can't be helped, but when you're not, even just a glance on your smartphone if you have one is probably good.

 

It's also probably a good idea to let your PI know when you'll be out for breaks.  Since this one is disorganized, you can send it in writing.  That way she knows ahead of time that you won't be back until Monday evening, and knows not to expect work or immediate responses from you.  But I wouldn't even mention the contract - I would just say you were going to be out of town with family and only on email intermittently (or not at all), but you'll be back by Monday evening at 4 pm.

 

Another thing I got real good at in grad school was telling people no, I couldn't do that.  Unless absolutely necessary (or I'm returning a favor or being nice to someone, or I have literally nothing else to do) I don't do any last minute work for other people.  I don't like it; it's stressful, and it's not fair to me to be super stressed out because you waited until the last minute.  This of course depends on your relationship with your advisor - but could you start pushing back a little?  Like if she tells you Monday morning she needs something for Tuesday morning, as you say she does often, could you say something like "I don't think that I'll be able to get it done by then.  How does Wednesday evening sound?" or however long you think it will take you.  On my part, when people asked me how long it would take me to do something, I would calculate the time and then add an extra day or two just in case something came up.  There are rarely emergencies in academia, honestly.  The time crunches that come up are often the result of poor planning.

[lewin]

Lewin, your post initially bewildered me, but now I see you're in Canada. Last week was Thanksgiving in the states, and Thanksgiving is a major holiday here. Pretty much everyone travels home to visit family; Thanksgiving break is definitely not just for undergrads. What this professor did was similar to emailing the OP on Christmas Eve expecting him/her to be in her lab on Christmas and not with his/her family. 

 

Ha, you are exactly right, I completely forgot it was American Thanksgiving and that it's a four day holiday for you. My uni has a three-day-long fall break from classes and I assumed this was something similar. My mistake.

 

Even still, if I were going to be out of town or unreachable I would have let my advisors know, even over Christmas. Not in an asking permission kind of way--because it's a major holiday--but maybe a week in advance to say "I'll be away from email from Thursday to Sunday so if you have anything for me to do please send it before then."    It like defensive driving -- it heads off problems before they can crop up.

 

Also, juillet's post above is spot on and well said. I do think that it's the academic norm to be on email or lightly working even over holidays, so the advance notice is especially important if one is unreachable.  And like she wrote, I would avoid the under contract talk. It's like the employee who won't do something because "that's not in my job description" and gives the impression that one is fussy or prickly. Are you fan of futurerama? It's possible to be technically correct but hurting yourself in the long run.