Signup date: 14 Jan 2015 at 11:09pm
Last login: 14 Jan 2015 at 11:09pm
Post count: 1
Good evening all,
I just had a pretty bad meeting with one of my supervisors because on a piece of work that I had spent the term doing, I received a one line comment by email on the content of my work, and my piece edited stylistically. In a meeting dedicated to this issue, the conversation was totally overtaken by said supervisor, who got defensive, blaming, and shouted at me. It turned into a nasty exchange of words, because I was mad that no responsibility was taken for such lack of proper feedback. In fact, it seemed as if they had readied themselves for an official complaint from me, and even dropped it that this may have been what I wanted, and if that is what I wanted, they would be happy to no longer be my supervisor. In the end, the conversation turned more pleasant. This is because at one point, we were turning in circles and it became a no-issue argument, with me upset and frustrated at their determination to avoid my initial concern, and twist it around to put me in the 'bad' Ph.D. category! So I re-directed it to discussing how to improve my work, because they got calmer when I focused the attention away from my dissatisfaction with them. In fact, before the conversation calmed down, I am sure a lot of the times the voice was raised so that all in the corridor could hear how disrespectful and ungrateful I am. My voice died down in their loud tone, and I could not hear myself speak. I had to interrupt on several occasions because they went on and on, but then got accused of interrupting them! It was very intimidating.
At this point, I would like advice on what I can do to deal with such aggressive/intimating behaviour?
I was made to feel that I cannot call my supervisor out, but they are allowed to belittle my work (which was done in the course of the conversation, perhaps due to anger and justify their lack of feedback).
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