Academia Vs. Industry

[hedge]

Welcome to the forums, but what a terrible story!

It sounds like you need to get help from higher up. Have you tried to speak to your head of department? If you mention that you feel you might be being exposed to 'constructive dismissal' (this is a British term, not sure what country you're working in), they might want to avoid getting involved in a tribunal, and perhaps some sort of settlement (you leave in exchange for a decent letter, for example) can be arranged? After all, if it's not your fault, they really are treating you unfairly and you need to fight.

[DrAmyR]

Though it's no consolation for you, stories of disastrous interactions between graduate students and their PI's are commonplace. I myself was blessed with a good relationship, but I had various classmates:

who were chased by PI with a baseball bat (granted, that student had made certain comments about the PI's wife);
whose PI left the university for a job in private industry with no warning, three years into the student's thesis work;
who had to whistle-blow their PI for scientific fraud, leave the lab, and start over.

I am not making this up.

In your case, one question that definitely comes to my mind (as an American in a litigious and politically-correct society): are you male or female? If there was any aspect of your situation that smacks of sexual harassment, and you're at an American university, you should talk to someone in HR ("human resources").

[challenge]

Welcome to the forums. I'm sorry to read your story.

It's hard to be able to give good advice since it depends on where you are and where you want to go. In general I agree with Hedge, that Head of the Department might be able to help with the letters of reference... the "easier way out for everyone" i.e. a good letter for you and a non-confrontational deal for them might be in the best interest of all?

However,there is always situations. You state you were his first graduate student, that explains a bit of the situation, and the non tenure track position. That might explain things if you state that in combination to the letter- but not the best of places to be for you.

I would agree thought that in order to "survive" in science you need more than heart and love for science. There is that politics aspect that makes the grants, publishes the papers and (imho) is as important (or relevant might be a better word) as the actual science done at the bench today... I don't like it, but as far as I've seen it - that's the reality.

And I do think, considering what I went through during my graduate years, you need to remember that noone will "help" you but it's more of an exchange of favors and "doing the right thing which leads to the least hard time for the people involved". It might require a bit of swallowing pride or sense of fairness, since it isn't fair per se, but to look out for what will end best for you.

All the best!

[Beatrice]

Sorry to read of your plight. The others above have given good advice. I also wanted to ask you honestly, do you think there might have been something about your behaviour that might have caused at least some of the problem, in retrospect? Did you do anything passive-aggressive, like complain behind the PI's back instead of directly, or was there some aspect of your dealings with the favoured technician that could have set something off? To me, it doesn't sound quite right, like there is a piece missing from the puzzle. What do you think?

[Editor]

The seed post of this thread has been deleted at the request of its author, and the author's username has been removed from any subsequent comments where it appeared. I have left the remaining discussion because it is of some interest. For context, the seed post was about how to deal with a lab head who seemed to be treating one of the lab members unfairly.

-Jenny
System administrator

[nnyhav]

Given the rethreaded title, this would seem to be the place to consider one difference (since conflicted management is part of both provinces)
http://afinetheorem.wordpress.com/2010/ ... tern-2004/

I've worked with refugees from academia (from nuclear physics to bioinformatics) exiled to finance, I'm now part of the finance diaspora myself (not gone Galt, more gone Bartleby), but have kept my hand in with side projects that are a lot more engaging than what I was called upon for in biz research roles. So it's not so versus: what's interesting don't pay and what pays ain't interesting ...

[Editor]

I was struck by this passage: "Stern finds the average worker is taking a 20% pay cut to work in a research job (one which permits publication of results)". I don't think this sort of thing is unique to science - creatives in all fields tend to get shafted in salary. I worked at a scientific society where the PhD-trained editors and journos got low pay whereas a person fresh out of a degree in Marketing or HR were on almost twice the salary. You love your job, so you won't demand full remuneration, so the wisdom goes. Which always makes me wonder if the only way to change this is by some sort of massive industrial action.