There was a mutual unburdening of complaints yesterday when the master’s student in question, who reads this blog (!), came back in from his off-site courses and we withdrew to another room for a private chat. He’s still stewing a little, but he and I both subscribe to being frank. Personally, I find it much more honest. We agree to disagree as to what each of us should have done over the last year and to move on, though there may be some slight lingering sulkiness.
Another student – not mine – still resents me for a possibly heavy-handed slapdown nearly exactly two years ago. I still remain to be convinced that it wasn’t justified, especially since she seems to have learned nothing from the situation that she might apply to future collaborations with other people who could possibly react the way I did. She will not address a word to me (much like a couple of denizens of Nature Network, and both situations rankle a bit without causing me to lose sleep – everyone hates rejection and perhaps I more than many in its myriad forms).
Her vow of silence leads occasionally to comic situations, notably if I ask her a direct question, at which she has to shrug and occasionally make a motion with her chin, or bow her head ostentatiously when I pass her coming into my lab to ask my postdoc to go smoke with her outside. I can’t understand spending so much energy on a grudge. She’s never actually expressed her frustration to me directly, taking the line of “you know what you did”. I do, and don’t see the problem with it. It’s the kind of tactic to which I don’t respond well at all, so I can’t help provoking her a little bit, too. “Bon appetit!” “Good talk this afternoon!” I have a permanent position here and in my field; she’ll be on her way in a year, possibly continuing to think the world of herself. I still wish her the best, if she can find her niche in science.
But we’re unlikely to be future collaborators.
Uri Alon wrote many cogent essays on the part of his website consecrated to nurturing future scientists, which he has now cleaned up and published in Molecular Cell. All of these are worth reading, eg. “Unfortunately, we are not taught the basic psychological principle that authority plus anonymity tends to give rise to aggression.”.
I fully acknowledge my room for improvement. So any of you trainees perusing my blog and thinking to yourself, I could be such a better mentor, take those essays to heart, and best of luck to you.
Interesting comment about anonymity. Most of the aggressive and frankly boring blogs I see are anonymous. Heh.
Hmmm. Sociology of science vs washing dirty linen. A difficult balance, I find.
… will not address a word to me (much like a couple of denizens of Nature Network…
Interesting…
Still haven’t done anything offensive enough to shut me up. Must try harder.
I guess applying psyhcobabble/socio-illogical rules in dealings with subordinates or collaborators runs a high risk of pissing people off. Especially if they’re smart enough to figure out exactly how you’re manipulating them. Given the diversity of characters within any lab, it’s not wonder it’s hard to keep all of the people happy, all of the time.
I agree. I think you gave the nail. People are very different, is difficult to please everyone.
Given the diversity of characters within any lab, it’s not wonder it’s hard to keep all of the people happy, all of the time.
That’s definitely the moral of the examples I provide. It’s amazing to me how the non-scientists I know say, “all you scientist types are alike” – that is, if we fit into their world-view stereotype.
It makes me think of this delightful opinion essay by Dr. Ronald Standler on creativity and personality traits in successful scientists. It dawned on me, having heard or read certain premises elsewhere (eg. Science Blogging London 2008) that anything new under the sun that I personally will contribute, will by necessity not be in the domain of laboratory sociology. There is an aspect of airing dirty laundry in my blogging, occasionally. But for some of my non-scientist readers, it can sometimes be interesting to see how most human endeavor runs into universal dilemmas caused by human nature.
Last year, GrrlScientist discussed a limited study of blogger traits. She pointed people to an alternative to the famous Briggs-Meyer test, the IPIP-NEO short form. Among amusing qualifiers in the results section, there’s this:
“Agreeable people are better liked than disagreeable people. On the other hand, agreeableness is not useful in situations that require tough or absolute objective decisions. Disagreeable people can make excellent scientists, critics, or soldiers.”
Heh heh.
Interesting stuff from Uri, thanks for pointing it out.
I think you must be a pretty good mentor/supervisor since you clearly think about whether you’re doing a good job and how to do a better job…the bad supervisors I’ve come across would never allow such thoughts to arise.
Thanks, Samantha, and thanks to Matt for resuscitating my comment which got eaten by the spam filter for its links.
I think we can probably agree on a qualifying adverb: potentially good mentor… and I am rather jealous of those who just seem to have the knack.
You must know about the nine types of PIs (from Alexander Dent via Alejandro Montenegro-Montero).
I love the 9 types of PI – that made me laugh so much as a PhD student when someone put it up in the lab.
I choose to take the blame for something recently (in order to pacify the situation) and it still bothers me. Maybe I should have taken a stand, because I just did the job I was supposed to do. I shouldn’t be punished for being responsible. It would have turned all messy though and I have a family to take care off.
Sometimes you can’t choose your battles.
Mark, my take would be, you did choose – you chose to be practical for now. You can defend the principle of not taking the fall when you are in a good position to do so. By that time, you may not choose to do so.
Anyhow, it sounds like you’re unhappy about the situation, which is unfortunate. Has the blame you mentioned taken a concrete form, or is it associative? Was there another person who really was responsible, in your view? Is it unrealistic to take it up with them?
On taking a fall for someone else…
When I was a grad student, I didn’t have a fantastic relationship with the post-doc in the lab. But when I did something according to his instructions (quite minor, to do with lab furniture) and the boss then got upset and yelled at me, I just took it.
The rather sheepish ‘thank you for taking the rap’ from the post-doc was worth it.
My apologies in advance for the long comment.
I don’t believe that a single person can be responsible for communication problems, so I also believe in shared responsibility. This particular problem concerns a conflict between me (post doc), a summer student and the group leader. It’s a bit of a complex issue and I am not really interested in the blame game. I think all parties made some serious errors. I would rather just have worked around them.
We had a meeting with all parties involved regarding our ‘conflict’ and I prepared myself for it. Don’t get defensive. Don’t talk about how people made mistakes, but talk about how the actions of certain people made you feel. (And whatever you do, don’t blow up) The pedagogic approach. I was going to take responsibility for the one puerile thing I did (I put a question mark at the working hours of the student) and I had apologized already for that.
The meeting started out ok where we talked about the communication problems, but it quickly was derailed into a quest for a scapegoat. It turned out there was a load of issues suddenly I never even heard about before (I was totally surprised by this).
Some new rules were made up. Obviously I was guilty on all accounts regarding the new rules. One of which was for instance that I was not allowed to write the analysis of the results of the student of the previous day in the lab book of my summer student. Ok, I could understand that, but since we don’t have any rules on lab books it was an honest mistake. Especially since on the collaborative projects I am involved in we share this kind of stuff.
But the real problem was actually that I was not even allowed to correct it as a supervisor. Moreover, it turned out I was not even allowed to read the lab book of my student. At that point I knew all was lost of course. Which was confirmed by the notion that everything I said was shot down afterwards and I was confronted with anger.
I haven’t really been in that many situations where you can’t reason with someone any more, but this was one. So I just tried to end the meeting as soon as possible and lick my wounds afterwards.
What bugged me most is that nobody (of importance) believed my side of the story. I found it weird to realize that people could see me as a total asshole.
Does this ‘blame’ have consequences? Probably.
One consequence is a drop in my motivation. I was on quite a roll already this year. I had my name on 6 publications (one isn’t in PubMed). Nothing really fancy and lots of collaborations, but I was still going for the big one. I haven’t really worked with the same enthusiasm or dedication since the meeting.
But the real problem was actually that I was not even allowed to correct it as a supervisor
Perhaps the solution to that is to read through the lab book with them, explain where they went wrong and then ask them to correct it. That leaves the student still in control but gets the job done properly – I can’t imagine it’s in anyone’s interests for experiments to be recorded inaccurately and it definitely isn’t in keeping with Good Laboratory Practice for lab books to be left unchecked and incorrect.
Sounds like a really awful meeting, hopefully when some more time has passed and your wounds have healed a bit your enthausiasm will return. You have my sympathy if that helps at all…
FSP has also recently addressed inter-group lab hostility in a post entitled, Ruined.
I found it weird to realize that people could see me as a total asshole.
That’s just it – it’s a huge blow, when all your intentions are to what you perceive as the good of the group, or of the science, or of the student. I can understand you being demotivated. Few of us work in complete isolation, and the human relations impact on how we design and carry out our experiments, even despite ourselves.
I also find the lab book embargo rather strange, and second Samantha’s suggestion. But it sounds like the summer student is now gone, and you’ll be around long enough to live it down and let intelligent people judge you by your actions and accomplishments. Try to find yourself a good, juicy conference – that can really pump you up again.
The juicy conference is a good idea. Unfortunately I went to a conference that was only slightly juicy.
It reminded me though that the people that do good work usually are the ones that are totally passionate about their subject.
That made me think. I was doing some fashion projects to be honest, and I stopped working on them momentarily and returned to one of my passions. I know it isn’t going to go to Nature or Cell, but it is a subject I love.
Hey Mark,
I know I link to her a lot, she’s sort of a mentor’s mentor, but here’s the latest from FSP, and I think it applies at all career stages: