Hi! Following on from Lulu's post 'not getting on with supervisor', I was wondering what's the worst thing people in the forum have had to endure from their supervisor...? Any horrific comments? Unbelievable behaviour?

Well I'd have to say when mine has read chapters of mine over and over and made multiple comments each time, and then starts changing bits she wrote in the first place back to what I had originally written because she's forgotten what she has previously said, that really hacks me off! Thinking of sabotaging track changes on her computer...

Grrr yes that's definately up there on my list! Mine made me recall an article I submitted to a journal because he said there were major problems with it (cue meeting where I find out *at length* I'm totally rubbish etc. etc.) So I recalled the article, made the changes and then resubmitted it only to find that yes, they'll publish, but only when I complete major changes... many of them back to what I'd done in the first place... I'd have done better without his meddling!

My supervisor has the worst memory on record. He cannot remember at lunchtime what we discussed at morning tea. In his defence, he knows how bad he is and tries to write down everything we discuss about my work. Other bad thing is he can be abrupt and impatient because he is always so busy.

Other bad thing was he through me in his swimming pool at our lab Christmas party one year. Spent the rest of the day with wet undies on...Eewww. For that he has never been forgiven.

sending a report to one of the supervisors and getting as only response: "wow, that is a lot of text" .....

The supervisor -who is no longer my supervisor- used to ignore all my emails (saw them unopened in his folder, when he was trying to show me something on his computer, and he was embarrassed about this). The same supervisor let me down many times by promising things and forgetting about them later on. Once he was going to put aside some money from his research budget for my experiment and then forgot about it. It left me out of pocket (more than my monthly bursary).

Only once but the super went back on something he said and blamed me for continuing the project. It was so bad (angry tears)I thought he was there to guide me when I am doing things wrong. SO I ended up doing the whole thing from the begining.

Errr- do you guys all have such tame supervisors????

Her coments:

"You're a waste of lab space, my time and money"

"You're not showing enough gratitude to the people in the lab" - not that the postdocs she was referring to agreed to that, though!

" If I had known you were thinking of doing a postdoc I wouldn't have helped you through the PhD!!!"- Seeing that she tried to bully me into doing a second MPhil for months ....

"You could get a job in a third rate lab in Germany"- implying as usual that non-UK labs are at best third rate.

Errr- do you guys all have such tame supervisors????

Her coments:

"You're a waste of lab space, my time and money"

"You're not showing enough gratitude to the people in the lab" - not that the postdocs she was referring to agreed to that, though!

" If I had known you were thinking of doing a postdoc I wouldn't have helped you through the PhD!!!"- Seeing that she tried to bully me into doing a second MPhil for months ....

"You could get a job in a third rate lab in Germany"- implying as usual that non-UK labs are at best third rate.

"What are you doing here?!"

Worst was choosing to press reply, instead of reply all, to an email that my second supervisor had written to both of us (regarding me attenting a course instead of an internal meeting, like 1st super wanted)...but worse was when she went maaaad at me when i said that i would like to be included in emails that concern me,instead of being left wondering...with deadline to book the course very close...

Not reading my 1st year literature review, or attending the talk. Telling me (if I hadn't noticed) he hadn't been interested in the 1st project I did for 2 years (from collaborator), but was interested in new one. Taking months to read single chapters of people's theses. Turning up for lab talk (with no warning) to hear a visitor talk about the protein I applied to work on and never got to do. Taking over the questions section of my 3rd year talk to talk about a postdoc's project, I didn't know a lot about as I was on new project. Then talking into coffee and not noticing whether I was there or not.

A few months in: "Well, you simply aren't working hard enough I'm afraid". At 10am on a Sunday morning when I'd already been in for two hours.

"I want you to go down to Prof. B's office, hack into his computer, and tell me what you find"- 5 months after I arrived at the place (supervisor is fairly computer illiterate and thought anyone who knows about computers can "hack")

"We all know that those that leave academia are the losers that can't hack it. They are not fit to do anything but sweep garbage."- His views when I talked about the possibility of looking for work outside universities.

"No, even though you wrote the paper, you can not be first author. A PhD is like an apprenticeship, and you are the apprentice and I am the master craftsman." - Master-bator more like.

In the middle of the meeting.. "You know.. I am getting tired. Let's finish this another time" !!!