Not Getting Feedback from PI

[grizzlygirl87]

I'm not sure if there is a thread for this already - I have seen a couple similar ones. But I am looking for advice on how to handle an advisor/PI that has too much on their plate and is always busy, and thus is always giving feedback last minute or not at all - but then acting like it's my fault when things are down to the line in terms of time.

For example: I was working on a grant last term (a grant that was suggested by my advisor). We were both well aware of the deadline. I made it very clear that I didn't want to spend my Thanksgiving working on the grant, so I made every effort to have it done before then. My draft was ready two weeks beforehand, we sat down and went through the budget together, etc. However, my advisor continued to send last minute edits, changes, and feedback for the grant after I had already left campus for break instead of updating me prior to departing. This is because he was also submitting a grant to the same organization for a similar project and hadn't drafted his grant application yet (since his was due later, and could be emailed). I suppose he didn't want them to be too similar? I ended up working through Thanksgiving to have it finished and mailed out on time. It couldn't be submitted online, and instead had to be mailed (and received by a certain date - not postmarked by a certain date. Therefore, I had to pay to overnight mail the paperwork so that it arrived on time.

Another example: my dissertation proposal draft was in a shared Dropbox folder, so that both my PI and I had access to it the entire time I was working on it, from start to finish. As I completed certain parts, I not only emailed the draft to him, but reminded him that it was also available in his Dropbox to view at any time so that he could offer feedback. The proposal draft was completed and available a full three weeks before he needed it. I made it very clear to him that I would like some feedback before submitting my proposal to the committee (a week prior to my defense, as is required by the department). I didn't end up getting ANY feedback on my proposal until about 8:00pm the night that it was due to my committee - and I received two or three emails with well over 100 edits combined. I worked on my proposal for four or five hours that night but couldn't complete everything he asked for. So I sent him an email asking what changes were most important out of the remaining ones, and he basically blasted me for not having sent it out to the committee when it was due, saying "your proposal is now one day late" - which was true, but not wholly my fault...? I ended up having to send my proposal 'as is' to the committee for my defense the following week.

Most recently: I have a poster presentation for a university symposium at the end of the term. As a lab group, we had a meeting about how to design our posters, how to cut back on text, layout choices, color schemes, sizing, etc. He expected to see all of our posters before they were submitted to offer feedback. I sent him my poster at the beginning of the week, expecting him to glance briefly at it to make sure that all my text/columns were aligned appropriately and that there weren't any glaring mistakes. The day that I sent it to him, he emailed me saying that he wouldn't get to it until that night. Two days later, I still hadn't heard anything. I emailed him again, asking for feedback because I was getting close to the printing deadline and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get the poster printed. Still nothing. So I submitted my poster for printing without feedback like I told him I would. I got an email the next day with a page full of comments, edits, and suggestions.

I understand that PIs don't need to give feedback on every little detail. But he has specifically requested to see things to give feedback before they go out - and I have been burned by this three times now in one year (for major assignments/projects). I have tried reminding him of deadlines via email and mentioning things to him when I see him in lab or in the office. I have simply started telling him that if I haven't heard from him by a certain point with feedback, that I am submitting documents 'as is' for conferences, symposiums, dissertation work, etc. I'm not sure what else to do at this point, since he doesn't seem to budget his time well at all. I get the sense that he is incredibly disorganized and forgetful, and that is just how he operates. But it's not how I work at all. I am working my butt off to make sure I am meeting the deadlines I set (which are well before the ACTUAL deadlines) so that he has plenty of time to go over things, but he consistently waits until the last minute, and then gets upset when I haven't followed through on editing appropriately.

What is the best way to handle this situation?

[fuzzylogician]

Honestly, I think my assessment is that there is no way to handle the situation. Your advisor has a particular work style that is incompatible with yours. It seems highly unlikely to me that he will change. So your options are (i) learning to adapt, or (ii) changing advisors.

One part of learning to adapt might mean that you need to sit down with him and understand what his expectations actually are. If he sends you 100 comments hours before a major deadline, does he actually expect you to have them done in time? Or does he expect you to be able to identify the important ones? Or can you ignore them, basically, and use it to learn for next time? If he has wholly unrealistic expectations, that is a big concern and will not go away, unless he is very new and is (maybe!) able to learn and adapt his mentoring style, e.g. if multiple students are coming to him telling him he has unrealistic expectations. In that case, I would try to figure out how his other students are handling it--maybe they have advice that would help you. If he expects you to only do what's important, then you need to figure out how to do that, so there is some learning to be done on your part which is hard but important. Maybe you need to sit down with him with old comments and walk through and classify his comments into important and less important. If his comments are broader-scope and not intended to be adopted last minute, that is yet another different story. 

Another aspect of this story is his expectations on your time. You said you wouldn't be available over break, but then you did a lot of last-minute work. You need to mean it if you say you will be unavailable, or not be surprised when people don't take you seriously when you say that. Different advisors will have different expectations here, and if your advisor has expectations that are incompatible with what you are comfortable with, that is again a reason to consider switching advisors. Keep in mind, though, that you are the student and he is the advisor, and you can't really say things like "I made it clear that I will only do XYZ" if he is expecting something else--he is the one who decides. You can negotiate with him to bring his expectations to a place you're comfortable with, but remember that this is not an equal relationship. 

Before you make any decisions, I think you should gather information from more advanced students, and you should talk to your advisor about your work styles, his expectations, and your progress. Do it in person and try to be clear and upfront, because sometimes we have a way of reading more into people's words and emails than they intended. Maybe what you understand as him being upset really isn't that. But at the end of the day, it sounds to me like this person is just not a good fit for you for personality reasons, and you will be unhappy working with him, because he will continue doing this and it's just something you don't enjoy. 

(And by the way, your title is misleading, I think. It's not that you are not getting feedback, but that you are getting it on a timeline you are unhappy with. Those are two very different problems.)

[Sigaba]

On 3/31/2016 at 9:57 AM, grizzlygirl87 said:

What is the best way to handle this situation?

In the event firing or demoting your advisor isn't a viable option and salvaging the relationship is necessary, I recommend the following.

Take another look at the edits your PI is recommending. Aside from the timeliness issue, are the recommendations sound overall or mostly nit picking or (most likely) somewhere in between? Are the recommendations consistent? The PI may be attempting to communicate to you that you need to scrub your work better before sending it to him and he may be dragging his heels (deliberately or otherwise) because his message is being lost in transmission. (Yes, he probably could/should do a better job at communicating his expectations and sometimes one has to read the tea-leaves multiple times instead.)

Rethink your tactics for communicating timetables. Your PI has power over you and you need his help. You may be stepping on your crank when you tell him that you're going to do A if he doesn't do Z. Try to figure out different ways (in terms of tone, medium, and  timing) to ask him for his help. (FWIW, I work for a consultancy and projects are often hung up on variations of the dynamic you described.)

Talk to The Rock. Your department probably has a professor upon whom graduate students rely for guidance, counsel, and commiseration. This professor, if she/he exists, may have solutions that will help. If nothing else, talking to this professor may help you to understand that it's not you, but your PI who is  the problem.