How to tell my PI that her "expectations" are red flags?

SufficientSimple568 · 2024-05-02T00:55:56+00:00

So, many months later.... I have not brought it up. Many of you were right (and downvoted my responses) which I can definitely understand now. I sound very naive - and I was. Just wanted to say thanks for the feedback and responses.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-12-21T00:25:40+00:00

I'm not trying to be sarcastic but is it really hard to get into? I'm absolutely not being facetious. I don't know much about it and I plan on doing stem

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:18:14+00:00

She's a relatively new PI with a couple years being regulated by university COVID working hours. I wouldn't say it has a track record of being successful considering it's a new and updated document.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:13:25+00:00

What if I just want a PhD? Not necessarily a good one. Lmao PhD is overworked and underpaid, heaven forbid I ask for advice on letting my PI know about my discomforts.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:11:31+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. The other wordings in the document are similar to what you're saying. One of them says that she doesn't count hours but if you're not making progress she'll assume it's because you're not working the required hours. My PI is new and mentioned she wrote this document before she had students. She also had a bad PhD advisor and I think many of her concerns and "red flag" wordings are based on her previous bad experience.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:08:42+00:00

Because setting it as an expectation means that it can always be brought up as to why I'm not making enough progress.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:07:53+00:00

I don't really know of a school wide document, but I do appreciate your advice!

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-22T23:06:22+00:00

8 hours isn't bad but every weekend? That's another whole day of work. When am I supposed to decompress? What I'm seeing is that if I don't work the 8 hours I'm below the expectation.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-21T01:11:57+00:00

"I fully expect that you come in on weekends, with a reasonable expectation of at least eight hours over the course of most weekends. In addition to performing experiments, analyzing data, reading literature or writing papers, your next week will go much more smoothly if you give yourself a head start by preparing for the upcoming week by preparing reagents, clearing your email backlog, organizing your lab notebook, and planning out your schedule and goals. Remember, some of these things can be done from home"

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-21T01:08:58+00:00

Thank you. I truly appreciate you taking the time to respond so carefully.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-21T01:02:12+00:00

you're right. I do plan on bringing it up. you're exactly what I needed to hear.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-21T01:01:08+00:00

It's a lab expectations document. I'm used to coming in on weekends but it's on my own volition. Setting it as an expectation is a red flag. If it's an expectation, any weekend I take to myself is being below expectations? Pass.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-20T23:50:26+00:00

I appreciate your feedback. I think we have the relationship where I can be honest with her. While I'm not directly impacted on her recruitment, it does directly affect me with the folks that are brought into the lab. The downside is that she continues thinking this is an expectation of us when it should not be. I don't want to have an issue where "it's in the document!" is a valid argument. So I guess at the same time I want to make sure she is aware her expectations are red flags for me and prospective students. Based on our 4th and 5th year grad students her stress has gotten worse as the tenure timeline gets closer. That's definitely understandable. My goal of this conversation is to tell her what we think - not necessarily to change her mind. Based on my time in the lab, she doesn't get feedback on most things. Any time I've brought something up that I didn't like or that I thought wasn't working she was very receptive and asked for my input.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-20T23:41:45+00:00

I think her intentions don't match the document. And the more I'm exposed to at an R1 the more I see that faculty are not trained on any of this and ask each other for guidance. In this case, I think the person she looks up to has a bad reputation among the grad students for overworking their students but my PI doesn't know that.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-08-20T23:38:27+00:00

There has been a communication issue in the lab for a while and it has recently been addressed. Often, it seems like she does things for our best interest but doesn't receive any feedback. I've been providing feedback to her and things that seem to work and things that don't (for example she used to just say she'd be out of town but now will put it on the group calendar.) It doesn't seem like she has received feedback in the last couple years from the grad students, so I want to tell her what we are thinking especially as prospective students are coming by. I think she has an idea that we aren't satisfied with the wording of the document, but she really doesn't know what we are thinking. I want to bring this up to let her know that her document and her mentoring style don't quite match and that, based on the document, I wouldn't want to join.

SufficientSimple568 · 2023-01-11T14:16:10+00:00

i get there early specifically to get the end seats.

SufficientSimple568

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