need help - I screwed up with my (new) advisor and committee chair.

[ltrain]

So, I am starting my third (and hopefully final) year of funding in a social science PhD program.  I started with a new advisor in the program who I asked to chair my dissertation committee early in the summer. She fits my research area, is well-respected in the field, is pretty nice, yada yada. and she is one of the few tenured faculty in a department with high turnover that is actually within my research area. We had had a few conversations previously but I had never done any actual work for her.  She hired me to do some part-time research help over the summer for an indeterminate amount of time. Basically, I was breaking down articles for a potential literature review into a literature table, analyzing and comparing the results.  I guess I misunderstood her final instructions after the last table i sent her to actually write the literature review - she said in our meetings, "we're hoping to turn this into the lit review for the larger project",but  I thought she just wanted me to do further lit searches and update the tables - before I went on a quick week-long vacation the third week of August. Ok, cut to me returning from vacation, she emails and asks me to send her what I have. I send her my feedback on an outline for the article she had sent me, and I really had no revisions. I also sent her some additional research I had found. I get no response. Cut to,  a couple weeks later and a week into the semester, I email her to ask if we can have a meeting to start the semester and discuss my proposal plan, and then anything outstanding with the research project. So she replies back with basically a one-sentence response with times available. A little abrupt, but maybe she's super busy. So I meet her in her office, and she's basically like, what do you want, in so many words. Like not outright mean or confrontational, just sort of, uninvolved, blase, I guess? She gives me the bare basics of what I need to do this semester to start working on a plan, there are no smiles or anything, and then she's like, as for the research project, you said you were going on vacation, I don't know what you were doing the last two weeks, you sent me some additional research, but, I don't have money left to pay you to do more work, and implies but very indirectly that she had expected me to write a literature review or produce something more. But she's not very direct about it, its just clear that she's disappointed in the quality of what I gave her, and also implied that she had intended to present this at an upcoming conference and that now might not happen. It's awkward, and it ends sort of abruptly and awkwardly with us arranging a time to meet in a couple weeks (she didn't think I was 'ready' yet to have a standing meeting).  So now I feel I've fucked things up with her and shown myself to be unreliable and untrustworthy, and she's the chair of my dissertation committee, and the advisor of my program. I really don't want this to spoil the rest of the year and the rest of my program.  I know I royally fucked up here and if I had any question about what I was supposed to be doing, I should have asked for clarification and I take full responsibility, (I admittedly was busy trying to make ends meet all summer with other jobs and not giving this the time it deserved, and some personal family issues beyond my control reared their ugly heads at the same time), but I also did not receive much feedback from her either. I realize it's up to me to rectify this and at least gain back some credibility with her. My plan is to write a damn good lit review with what I have this weekend, send it to her on Monday, with a groveling note of apology by email offering no excuses but offering her my firstborn.  I'm wondering if the crowd here has an additional ideas on how to rectify a bad first perception when you just plain fuck up a research project with, of all, people, your fucking CHAIR. (It is the WORST feeling in the world to know you fucked up and now they think this of you. It's kept me up all night since it happened). Thanks.

[Hope.for.the.best]

14 minutes ago, ltrain said:

 My plan is to write a damn good lit review with what I have this weekend, send it to her on Monday, with a groveling note of apology by email offering no excuses but offering her my firstborn.  I'm wondering if the crowd here has an additional ideas on how to rectify a bad first perception when you just plain fuck up a research project with, of all, people, your fucking CHAIR. (It is the WORST feeling in the world to know you fucked up and now they think this of you. It's kept me up all night since it happened). Thanks.

In my opinion, that's what you need to do exactly. If I were you, I would apologise by saying that I did not mean to be lazy but misunderstood her instructions. Well, miscommunication happens all the time, and it is not uncommon given that you just started to work with her. I am also in my last year of PhD and I can understand your concerns over messing up with your advisor. Unfortunately, it has already happened and you cannot do anything about it. Of course, you'd better ensure that you do a better job in future. I would suggest that you review all her feedback and instructions carefully. Do not always assume you understand what she means. It is perfectly okay to ask "Did you mean such and such?". I too had miscommunication with my advisors and we figured out that repeating and clarifying are the keys to prevent it. 

So long as you are doing fine subsequently, I don't see why your advisor puts weight on this one-off incident. 

[rising_star]

9 hours ago, ltrain said:

I realize it's up to me to rectify this and at least gain back some credibility with her. My plan is to write a damn good lit review with what I have this weekend, send it to her on Monday, with a groveling note of apology by email offering no excuses but offering her my firstborn.  I'm wondering if the crowd here has an additional ideas on how to rectify a bad first perception when you just plain fuck up a research project with, of all, people, your fucking CHAIR. (It is the WORST feeling in the world to know you fucked up and now they think this of you. It's kept me up all night since it happened). Thanks.

Here's my question: Can you really write a good lit review that will redeem you in her eyes in a weekend? My answer about most topics that aren't in my immediate focus area would be no. Maybe the work you've done with the tables gives you enough to do this but, I would be very careful with your proposed plan because you don't want to end up submitting a literature review which also leads her to question your writing ability, skill set, and/or knowledge. 

Yes, you disappointed your chair. It happens. We've all done it. (I won't even go into the long list of ways in which I've done that.) But you have to focus on moving forward. One thing you might do is have a meeting where you all lay out a clear set of tasks to be accomplished and deadlines by which they'll be done. Because, really, at this point, if you're trying to graduate ASAP, I would be focusing on your dissertation and what you need to do for that rather than on a literature review you're no longer being paid to work on.