I eagerly await the installment when the Evil fuzzy gets the idea to urinate on the demon owners computer and backup files and wipes out their entire thesis to date.

Bear in mind that strike action is usually only effective if

a) you are in a position of such indespensibility that your inaction will cause serious problems (unlikely in your situation).

b) If you are in a collective with others in your position and you can use your combined strength to negotiate a better situation (much more likely to have an effect here).

This is why individuals rarely strike, but entire contigents do.
PS make sure you dont do anything that could be construed as a "disciplinary matter" or it will make the situation much worse for you in the long run.

I think this may be an issue for your union and university, as far as I know it is unacceptable for a boss or supervisor to hold mental health issues against you, as long as you sought reasonable treatment (which you did).

Well done, I wonder if you could write up your experiences (either online or in print) to give hope to others that have bullying supervisors and show that there is some hope.

There are also things I used to think that were unfair, but now am re-evaluating. The "blag" factor was one, where the less than brilliant would be promoted or funded because of their ability to talk, self promote, network etc. However, this blagging is part of any job and are "soft skills" that employers often talk about.

Similarly, I used to get annoyed at those that never seemed to as hard, but its more about working smart than putting in X hours in the library.

None of this takes away from the annoyance that eddi feels, but I guess I am trying to explain why this can happen.

I guess the things I still rail about are: exploitation of PhD students/postdocs by supervisors and unis, needless ego politics (that CAN be avoided), workplace bullying, the need to equalise the status of research and teaching.

What I have started accept can't change are things like : the laws of supply and demand with regard to the postdoc job market, the need to have to compete for funding, issues around status, human nature in insecure situations.

I hope my message wasnt seen as malicious. If so I apologise Xeno.

As for the stuff that has happened to me, I have found it helpful to just accept some of postdoctoral life is "unfair", but also to challenge my assumptions. The world does not owe me a tenured professorial position and ultimately, I chose academia myself. I can no longer feel pissed off by a position I put myself in.

It has helped me realise what I can work at changing (and focus my efforts), and what I can not.

I agree it sucks, but I think there is something to be said about accepting the unfairness of postgraduate life. I think everyone gets ups and downs, and sometimes bad things happen to good people and vice versa.

Nonetheless, I remember a lot of people saying it was unfair when I got full funding despite being the youngest. However, we were all interviewed the same and had to compete for it before the same panel. I get the feeling that anything competitive makes the losers feel the process is unfair.

Its important to bear in mind the field that you are in will have a HUGE effect on how easy it is to get a lecturers job. In some fields (economics, law) most of the graduates are keen to get into industry and its much easier to get an academic post.

Other fields such as the humanities are notorious for having far more PhD graduates than ever could get academic posts and for them its a lot tougher.

Additionally, there are already courses that have a built in placement year where people do get vocational experience etc, but take 4 years to graduate. Thats fine but would be a nightmare if every psychology course adopted this (especially if you are not sure what you want to do). I guess a better choice would be to do a degree in counselling or social work, medicine etc if you want something more vocational from the off.

I can also imagine problems finding the psychologists to supervise these thousands of new graduates, if the problems in are psychology research are anything to go by (at one point my PhD supervisor had 7 people to supervise and none of us got much attention).

I agree that universities should be more open about the competitiveness of psychology careers, but then again no university is going to openly say "Hey come study here! You will find it difficult to find work afterwards though!".

I can see why more vocational psychology courses may help some that want to be an applied psychologist afterwards.

However, there are many that just want to study psychology as a science (including me) and would think having to do a compulsory "vocational" element as a huge distraction from the main business of getting a good academic grounding in the subject. For me having to do extra work in a clinical or other setting would have really been a massive turn off, as it is entirely irrelevant, and may make my degree longer. Presumably this is also what those that go off to teach, into HR, etc would feel too.

Why not train as a psychotherapist/ mental health nurse/ other related job? Its probably a lot easier.

I am still not sure if I agree with entry to psychology as unfair. I have friends who are in forensic, clinical and educational who weren't rich or Oxbridge only. It seems a lot less unfair than academia (which is very political and is more about being in the right place at the right time). Sure my ex had to gain experience, but she didn't have connections or bribe anyone to get onto her training course. No disrespect but maybe you are seeing it as unfair because you havent been chosen?

I think people bash him/her for the quite frankly ridiculous statements Giri makes (e.g. UK PhDs are rubbish etc).

The reason why people generally jump on those that have a poor command of English, has little to do with colonial arrogance, but reflects the view that anyone seeking a postgraduate qualification (from the UK/US) should be able to articulate themselves at a postgraduate level.

If you cannot do this, you should not be anywhere near a PhD. The fact that such people slip through (unis want fees basically) reflects badly on the rest of us.

A research assistant I did my PhD with applied for 6+ years and never had a single interview.

I personally dont think anything is worth that degree of hassle, especially if there are no guarantees that you will ever get on courses. Especially when its far easier to be train as psychotherapist or counsellor in half the time.

Coming from the world of psychology myself, I have seen thing or two.

Almost every undergrad at some point wants to do the DClinPsy, and as it is fully salaried, the competition is absoulutely brutal. My ex girlfriend was a DClinPsy trainee and she had years of experience as an assistant psychologist in about 4 different settings. About half her class had PhDs as well as various experience. I also found out that many of them had huge support from working clinical psychologists (like having their applications read, coaching for interviews, outstanding references etc).