Thanks guys. I ended up sending my slides to another professor in the same field on a whim (I did some marking for him before) and just basically said that I can't get a response from my supervisor and I am afraid of presenting a talk that nobody has looked over. I didn't even expect a response, but he responded few hours later. He provided me with very detailed feedback - he even commented on every slide. He said that the talk is actually "very good" and that my conclusions are very interesting and it's going to be better than about 90% of talks there ;)

My main sup is still being an a-hole and not responding. Just this Saturday, I went to his bday party and he treated me like I am his best friend there and now this. It's just a very nasty thing to do. I have stopped trying to attempt to reach him now and am feeling more confident about the talk - it just doesn't excuse his behavior. I will also have to deal with his 10 minutes supervisory meetings that accomplish nothing when I get back from the conference. He is trying to sweep this under the carpet but I will seriously have to contact student services.

Anyway, looks like I am going to the conference :)

No response....at this point guys I think I will just not go to the conference. I can't face being completely embarrassed there. I spoke to my parents and they gave me the advice to just not go and then go straight to student services and file a complaint against my supervisor.

I guess I made a mistake. I have just sent him a terse e-mail in the heat of the moment. I wanted to have a record of this so if he ignores this e-mail - I will be more justified to complain. I also wanted there to be no misunderstanding - in case he didn't know how urgent this is for me (although with conference next week, he must have known). Also, in case he didn't know how bothered I was by our 10 minutes meetings.. I hope I haven't screwed things up too badly with this e-mail. I tend to be temperamental....

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You seem to have completely ignored my 3 previous e-mails and 2 phone calls where I have tried to set a time for rehearsal.

Note that just last week when I wanted to do a poster - you talked me into doing the talk and assured me that we can have "endless rehearsals". Obviously that is laughable at this point.

I am now faced with presenting a talk that nobody has looked over (my new slides that I have sent you), let alone rehearsed with me. I was up most of the night worried about this.

I would be inclined to be more understanding if you have at least responded via e-mail and told me that you are busy with X, Y or Z rather than just avoiding me completely

Not only that, but in the last few months, whenever we have set up a meeting, it ended up lasting around 10 minutes because you had to do X, Y or Z.

I hate writing an e-mail like this, but I am certainly not happy with how things are going and I thought I will address it with you first.

I would appreciate a reply.

I feel like writing him another, firmer and less polite e-mail.. about the talk and almost no supervision I received in recent months.

Bad idea?

Yes - his treatment of me has been poor for some time now. I think I will just have to present as is.

The thing is who do I speak to about this? I don't have a second supervisor and I am 2 years in. I mean - post conference - his 10 minutes on the fly meetings are just not acceptable for me.

Do I bring this up with him first and try to work out some more structured meetings - before I go further to the student services to complain?

My supervisor has been avoiding me for months. He will set a time to meet me and then after I show up he will say that he is afraid that he only has 10 minutes because there is X or Y he has to do or meet.

I wasn't too fussed but it was/is annoying. I have to present at a conference in a week. Given my lack of supervision I was keen to do the poster but my supervisor wanted me to do the talk and assured me that we can have "endless rehearsals".

This is one of the problems with him. He always re-assures me when asked directly but then continues with his avoidant behaviour.

Anyhow, I have e-mailed him a week ago to try and set a time for a rehearsal. He never responded to my e-mail. I have sent him another e-mail few days later and it again went unanswered. In desparation, I have sent him ANOTHER one, this time asking him to "please just look at my slides" and I will rehearse on my own. All those e-mails had a nice and polite tone. Again, no reply.

I called him yesterday and left a voicemail - no reply. The problem is - today is the last day he is here before he leaves for another conference. I am now up in the middle of the night crying. I don't know what to do.

I am supposed to present something that I wrote from scratch and nobody has looked over. Things are looking bleak. Going to his office is not an option as he is never there. What should I do?

a) Continue to hassle him today - pretty much call him all day on his mobile too until I get him to answer and at least commit to look at my slides
b) Do the talk as is, on my own and give up on trying to get input from him
c) Pull out of the conference (airfares and hotels are all payed for already) but still this is tempting to do

Please give me some advice :(

A few times, but my supervisor is more a phone person. We have each other's mobile and home phone numbers. He has rang me at home multiple times, mainly to disucss work. I am a part time student too. We e-mail a lot as well. I have called him at home before but only after he left a message to call him back. I have met his wife and kids mutliple times and been to his house to dinner with just him, his wife and one other person. It is rare for few days to go by without ANY communication. Face to face meetings pretty much any time I am at the university which is about 2x a week.

To be honest, it's a bit too much and I look forward to finsihing so that I can have a bit more space. I feel somewhat smothered.

I had dinner with my supervisor and his family this weekend and lots of other PhD students think that it is strange.

I think this is quite common in a long term project such as PhD.

For any reason like work, dinner, birthday party etc. I wonder how common this is.

How realistic is this? My Phd is in statistics and am wondering if travelling for 6 motnhs contracts is easy to get afterwards. I am not too picky where to go.

Jepsonclough,

With all due respect, you sound like an arogant a$$. This is exactly the attitude most academics have, they are really condescending towards students, put them at the bottom of their priority list etc. In my department, they make fun of the students performing poorly and non-PhD students are treated even worse.

Just because we are at the bottom of an academic food chain doesn't mean that we shouldn't be shown some decency and respect.

I managed to submit my abstract just now and am still really pissed at my supervisor for not looking at it earlier. Especially as I said before, I went out of my way to fix his computer, mobile phone etc - there will certainly be no more of that. One of huge motivating factors to finish my PhD ASAP is so that I don't have to deal with my current supervisors ever again.

Great. Supervisor finally got back to me and he hates the abstract. Now I only have 12 hours to go and redo results. Looks like there will be no sleep for me tonight (I live in Australia).

This is exactly why I was getting nervous in the first place. I hate rushing and if only he took few minutes to look at it earlier all of this would be avoided.

Yeah, I actually had to e-mail the editor the first time around after waiting 3 months for the initial decision. After I have sent an e-mail, I got a response 3 days later, together with reviewers reports. The funny thing is that reviewers reports were dated mid Feb and I only got them at the beginning of April AFTER prompting. It makes me feel like if I haven't e-mailed I would have waited God knows how long.

So I really want to e-mail this time around too but am slightly worried that it will somehow piss the editor off and reduce my chances of not being accepted.

One of my manuscripts came back from peer review requesting some moderate revisions. I did them and re-submitted about 5 weeks ago.

I have heard nothing since. How long should I wait before e-mailing the editor to ask what's up?

I completly disagree. I have a DEADLINE and he knows it. It's not like I submitted some piece of my work that can be returned whenever.

I have sent him a second e-mail last night just reminding him that it's due tomorrow and that if I don't hear back from him I will submit it as is. No reply.

I am submitting tomorrow morning then.