Sue I know this but he used to turn over my work a lot quicker at the beginning stages of my PhD. It makes me feel that perhaps I am not performing well and he has slipped it way down his list of priorities. I dunno, I am also kind of frustrated that I have spent pretty much 2 days this week installing a difficult-to-install software package for him and have also done numerous small favours for him that go beyond the PhD student duties.

Also, in the last 4 months I have been extremly productive and have just submitted my third paper. I guess I feel that taking 10 mins to look at my abstract is the least he could do under the circumstances. I just feel taken advantage of I guess. It all comes down to the old "the better you treat people, the worse they treat you". Time to set some boundaries on my time and my good-will :(

I think I will do that. I hate hassling people when they are ignoring me.

I guess I can...but his name is on it too.

My supervisor is usually great and supportive. He is also very friendly and has invited me to his house to meet his family before. However recently, it takes him days to respond to my e-mails or look at my work (and as far as I know he is not particularly busy)

I try to be patient, but I need to submit an abstract for a conference in 2 days and haven't heard back from my supervisor at all (I have sent it to him FIVE days ago and wrote when the deadline is). I mean, it would take him 10mins tops to look at it. I am getting frustrated and feel like he is losing interest in my work with only a year to go until submission.

Should I call him up? Send a second e-mail? Wait until the due date? Turn up in his office on Monday? :(

(obviously I am not going to explain to my supervisor the reasoning behind this)

Well, 1st, last and second author were obvious, but other 7 were kind of similar in terms of work.

So I put the third one the person who has been a better friend :$

Hi guys,

Obviously first and last authors are most important, but say if there are 10 authors on a paper is being the third author pretty much the same as being the say saventh? Or is being the third better?

Thanks :)

Cool Amanda, did he/she reply?

Yep, that sounds like a good idea. I would feel kind of uncomfortable with the card.

I am not quite sure what to do. My supervisor is turning 35 soon and he has pretty much been telling the whole department how he hates getting old and also the exact day of his birthday. I am thinking of getting him a card but am not sure if that is appropriate. I have not done anything for his previous birthdays because I didn't even know when they were. Also, our relationship has been somewhat strained but he has always been pretty generous with the supervision time so I am thinking of thanking him for that in the card.

Do students do this? Is it too much like "ass-kissing"?

All is well that ends well.

Yesterday, I was working away in my office and deep in thought when someone comes in and says "Hi Lostinoz!". And it's the supervisor (he was supposed to be on holidays but sometimes he makes random trips to work - he is a complete workoholic). I didn't mention the argument or the unreplied e-mail and he went through the PhD questions I asked in the e-mail. Towards the end I asked him when he plans to circulate paper X and he replies that he already did. Well, it turns out that he DID reply to my e-mail the same day, plus send out the X paper and couple of other e-mails. For some reason our mail server was down for the day and some of the e-mails were not getting through. So I didn't get anything hence the misunderstanding.

The only thing that he mentioned about the argument is that he hopes that I have had some time to relax and de-stress over the Easter break and that I am feeling better now. Thank God I didn't need to apologize or anything. We also had a laugh over a few things that happened over the break so all seems well now... Still I must remember to have better impulse control over being snippy in the future :p

Thanks for your support guys :)

Your replies are really helping. The thing is, my supervisor checks his e-mail multiple times a day and has a blackberry and he always responds immideately (even over Christmas, past Easters, annual leave, even when his wife was in hospital). This is highly unusual. Perhaps I have just been bumped down his priority list which is fine by me. He is not at work until Monday so I can't go to his office. Perhaps I should just wait til then. He has also been in contact with other collegues (which I heard in passing today). STILL I would assume that it was something else but...

Just before Easter break things came to a head. We had a major argument (although we have had them before but maybe not as bad). The reason why I even get into arguments is that my sup doesn't like discussing any issues at all, even in a non-confrontational way. Whenever I try to talk about an issue he would pretty much change the topic or say something like "The sun is shining outside!". This really gets me annoyed. I am afraid that my sup could possibly read this board so I don't want to go into detials...sigh :(

I guess I should just hang tight and wait til Monday... I will update you guys if there is any news. If anyone has more advice I would be v. gratefull!

As of now, my supervisor still hasn't replied to my e-mail and it has been 4 days. In 2+ years, he never went more than few hours without replying even if to say that he is busy and will reply properly later.

I think I will wait a week and if I still don't receive any contact, I will go to his office. Thanks for your advice guys, I know that you are right but apologizing makes me cringe. Looking back, I don't think anything I have said was that bad, I didn't launch into any personal attacks etc.

Part of me is worried that I will now get kicked out of my PhD. This whole situation is really worrying me so much that I haven't been sleeping properly and am up in the middle of the night right now. I had thoughts of quitting before - if I were to quit this would all go away. I am trying to tell myself that if I get kicked out - I wanted to quit anyway so this is all for the best.

I wish I knew what my supervisor is thinking right now, it's the not knowing that is making me extremly uncomfortable.

Honestly guys, I completly regret it. It is now too late to change the dynamic unfortunately. My supervisor has pretty much stopped answering my emails :(. I now need some help with my PhD project and have noone to turn to. The old saying of "biting the hand that feeds you" comes to mind.

Funnily enough, I have never acted this way before with anyone, including my former bosses, co-workers, teachers etc. I am not even a confrontational person. At first it felt good and it felt like I was standing up for myself and now I just feel yuck. I think I overdid and became agressive instead of assertive. I have so much frustration with my PhD that it truly pushed me over the limit.

I don't want to apologize as what I said stands and I did mean those things/rants, it just wasn't my place to say them.

I am not sure if it is possible to work unsupervised in the final year. I really think I can make it and then get the hell out of there.

I wonder if others do this with their principal supervisor or other supervisors. I am in my last year and frustrations have built up. I also feel like my project is not going as well as it should have due to my supervisor's inexperience among other things. He discussed my PhD progress with some random person in the department, he canceled my conference trip at the last minute due to funding issues etc. I ended up telling him off each time

There are other minor things and I really held things in for the first 2 years or so, but then I started making terse and sarcastic remarks in person or via e-mail. I know it's probably not the best idea, but once I started, I couldn't stop doing this each time I am annoyed. :-s

Weirdly, he usually offers explanation and some sort of defense but then is just EXTRA nice to me. He will do things like help me out more with my project, offers to "get me in" authorship on papers that I didn't have anything to do with etc.

Anybody else tells their supervisors off? Maybe you should start ,-)