Want to wade into the snowy surf of the abyss? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid.
Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned so many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
Off topic: I am looking for some advice. I enrolled in a PhD program several years ago. After years of verbal abuse, I left my advisorās lab. Shortly after, he tried to get me kicked out of the program by giving me a failing grade, then he tried to physically intimidate me in his office (moved across the room to get in my face and scream at me). I reported this to the campus police but they said nothing could be done because he didnāt touch me or explicitly threaten violence. Later that day, he removed my name from work I had done for him, which is definitely plagiarism and a violation of the academic honesty policy.
I have an audio recording from that day of him screaming at me, as well as him basically admitting to retaliating by giving me a failing grade (I filed a grievance about this with the university and they changed my grade). I also recorded a long exchange that may not be incriminating but reinforces that he is an overbearing asshole.
I tried changing advisors but the options of available professors were limited (and the university decided that my abysmal $500 USD a week salary would get dropped to something like $300 a week), so I mastered out.
I was hoping to eventually finish my PhD elsewhere and I fear that I wonāt be able to (that no advisor would want to risk working with me) if I go public with this. At the same time, the thought of him continuing to teach there and not suffer any accountability is killing me. (In my grievance, I requested a public apology and he refused, telling the chair that he would instead be comfortable with a meeting moderated by the chair ā absolutely farcical.)
Does anyone have advice? Would it be worth going public (e.g. reaching out to the local press or the student paper)? I suppose I could just email human resources with the information and see what happens. Experience in this precise situation is probably limited (although academia has a lot of abusers, so maybe not).
(A week ago I was confident I would go public sometime soon. Now I just feel apprehension.)
Everything depends on the details like what country, what field, and what university. Because this involves specific people, its also inherently unpredictable. I would say that in general, a field that will accept a second go at a PhD, but wonāt accept a well documented HR complaint against a supervisor, is not one worth working in.
Also, a potential advisor who refuses to work with a student who stood up for their rights is not an advisor worth working with.
It is computer science in the southern united states (though I am open to finishing my PhD in Europe, especially because cryptography is an area of interest). Sorry for not mentioning this in the original post.
Thank you, I think this is something I needed to hear (read).
@Seminar2250
āI reported this to the campus police but they said nothing could be done because he didnāt touch me or explicitly threaten violenceā
That sounds like assault which doesnāt require contact.
"In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or unwanted physical contact to another person,ā¦
ā¦, assault is a criminal act in which a person intentionally causes fear of physical harm or offensive contact to another person"
This is a lot more common than youād think, several posts about abuse like this over at the academia stack exchange. If you think he used your writing, you could file a copyright claim on it since you are the author, not him. Do not waste your time with HR or honor committees, they will not do anything for you, their job is to cover the universities ass, not help. I honestly canāt think of a case where going public led to anything more than a footnote on the persons wikipedia page, although it might be good for warning the incoming cohort of students.
If youāre really sure about finishing your phd, itās probably pretty hard to xfer to a new school without LoRs, a strong publication record or bringing your own grant, but you might be able to switch depts if theyāre close enough, eg math <=> stats <=> CS. They might make you do comps / quals again though. But thereās a pretty big diminishing returns to years 4+ of a phd, honestly, and I can assure you that thereās assholes everywhere. Deans will yell at you too, and Iāve heard of a couple dept chairs that throw staplers. The tenure track does not incentivise not-being-an-asshole, at all, it is a rigidly hierarchical system and accompanying world view, at least in the R1s anyway.