Juno - yes, she is down right nasty, malicious and spiteful, and there have been many an occasion when she has thrown my "mental illness" back at me in public. And the irony is that it has been her who has caused most of my problems.
But I've found it in myself to laugh at her - she is an ignorant, bigoted fool and my 'revenge' will be that I WILL pass and then I'll stick 2 fingers up at her ( and not necessarily metaphorically!).

well, firstly my main super suggests I a different thing for my Phd after discussions at our first meeting only to find out later that she had submitted my phd idea as a proposal herself! - which was rejected!!haha. Then recently I came up with a postdoc proposal with some other folk at our institute then she was asked to come in on it as well (why only god knows as she knows next to nothing about the work) and last week I find that I am now off that postdoc proposal as she wants to do the work herself!!
As for returnign work i have asked her to loook at...all I get is I am prioritising......3 months later (after asking or it every week) still the same answer!! glad to see I am not the only one out here strugglign with their super! although that doesn't help the situation.....

"I don't associate with failures
You got your Masters by accident
Why aren't you crying yet?"

HA ha, this thread made me laugh so much... and i've just realised that despite my complaining that my supervisors aren't so bad afterall But my classic supervisor comment was during a meeting with him and another guy doing a PhD funded by the same project, discussing a survey methodology before meeting with our project partners - I disagreed with the point of view of the other student and my supervisor and his reaction was to say "well, are you with us or against us?". At the time I was seething, in hindsight I think it's hilarious! I've always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with my supervisor, he's chaotic & a pain in the bum, but I've grown very fond of him.

When my supervisor returned from a 12-month period of research leave abroad (during which we only had a handful of telephone supervisions and I didn't have a second supervisor or advisor), I submitted a short chapter. After 5 weeks of waiting for a response, I gently suggested that it would be helpful to have a supervision to discuss my work. He replied that I had slipped down his priorities since he had returned. (I hadn't exactly been high on his priorities while he was away.)

When I told my supervisor that I was going to be away for a bit to attend my grandfather's funeral he said, "your PhD is more important than life or death"

When I tried to explain the 'wider relevance' (don't we all hate that phrase!?) of my research about a year he simply burst out laughing.

In response to my most recent chapter he simply asked me, "were you tired when you wrote this?"

Don't think he's going to be top of my christmas card list this year!

Thanks for this post, made me laugh out loud.

Sorry but your sup sounds just brilliant .. is (s)he trying to be funny ? if so, its brilliant.

One of my potential viva dates was 1st April - my sup .... "I thought it was so apt" . Sup was joking ( i think ;-) )

Thanks again, Chuff

Stumbled across this thread by accident but it's very, very funny! Happy reading!

Some funny tales on here. I hope they've all passed and mmoved on to pastures new.

My supervisors are generally really nice to me and very supportive when I'm the negative one about the project.

My lead supervisor does have a habit of saying he'll do things and then not. I took blood samples from all my participants and they've been stored in the freezer even since. I've been saying to him, "What are we going to do with them?" for over 12 months and he's said he'll talk to person x,y, or z to sort the analysis. 12 months on he has come good on his word and organised to send them to Japan for analysis, but the results won't make it back in time for my thesis deadline at the end of September. Partly my fault I guess for not organising something myself.

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Five minutes before my viva and from supervisory meetings post submission, my supervisors kept telling me to prepare for an MPhil result. I was also told a day before submitting my upgrade report that I should consider submitting for an MPhil.

Perhaps it was just a case of keeping me informed of all possible outcomes, or an attempt to push me into a focused more defensive fighting mode, but their extreme negativity played havoc with my confidence, my weight (up to a size 16 now), my mental health (ie depression, extreme anxiety and panic attacks etc) and motivation for continuing!

I was devastated on both accounts- but I managed to pass my upgrade with flying colours and leave with a positive outcome from my viva! (ie very positive comments from my examiners and no secondary viva). It was incredibly satisfying to report positive outcomes and shock my supervisors into retracting their negative views!!!

However, in hindsight their attitude has made me a more resilient and determined sort of person and pushed me to look and critique the finer details, so probably a good thing! but not for someone with a weaker disposition I guess!
:p

These are very funny, but with many of them, if my supervisor said that I would tell them exactly where to go and that it's not acceptable and I'd do that right away. Just because someone is your sup doesn't mean they own you even if they think they do! I feel sorry for the people who have these @rses as sups, mines ok, just very very busy and impossible to ever find. Nice enough bloke though.

I think the only remotely funny thing he said was on the way to a project meeting "Which of my four presentations should I give this time?". Turns out he has 4 presentations that he's been using for years for every event he goes to and just rotates them as necessary...

Hmmm, no end of things that are completely inappropriate. She's said that I shouldn't have children because I have bipolar, that my perceptions are 'messed up' because of the bipolar, that my engagement to my now fiance is nothing more than 'stupid', that she is 'disgusted, embarrassed, ashamed of me and offended' because I decided not to apply for a fellowship that she wanted me to apply for with her...strange that I wasn't interested in staying with her for another 3 years huh?!!! Can't wait to move on and leave this nasty person behind! KB

My current supervisors, to their credit, have always been very professional and so I've never had to endure any of this stuff. However my last supervisors...well I could write a book and then some!

KeenBean, Are you not tempted just to say to her "Could you please stop commenting on my personal life as it's none of your business and I find your comments disrespectful, inappropriate and highly unprofessional"? You wouldn't be expected to put up with it in a "normal" job, so why should you put up with it now?

I have already tried asking her not to comment on things that are really personal, especially the bipolar stuff. Her response was to tell me that I remembered what she had said incorrectly, because my 'perceptions and memory were screwed up' due to my bipolar disorder and the ECT treatment I recceived for it. Believe me, there is no way that I misheard or misunderstood what she said- it's been etched on my mind ever since. There is simply no way of reasoning ith this woman, even though some of these things have been said when there were witnesses there. She just denies everything and tells me I misheard or whatever. She's quite unbelievable really, and she's so nasty and so powerful that people are scared to stand up to her. Not a good situation- I can't wait to extract myself from it asap! Best, KB