Speak up
接着昨天的post，今天下午和老板有一个meeting，准备在那时候和老板进行对话。早上带狗狗散步的时候听podcast无意听到这首歌《爱人错过》，听着歌词“爱人就错过”，头脑里浮现的是我一个人提前离开老板课题组开着车到加州，在无垠的沙漠，打开车窗，任风吹头发飘摇。那是一种没有遗憾、没有后悔的离开。虽然我和老板的relationship不是情侣，但是我突然觉得这就好像是我在为break up做好的心理准备一样。我把我的底线亮出来，谈得拢就再待半年，谈不拢就分手。有一种自由的感觉。
Meeting刚开始，老板问我这个meeting要讨论些什么。我下意识地深呼吸了一次，然后说I want to talk about something difficult. 老板明显脸色变凝重了一些开始pay attention了。我然后又深呼吸了一次，带着昨天写好的script但是没有看。
“I am trying to figure out when to go to Caltech. I am ok with not going there the same time as XX (my husband). It depends on the plan for the XXX project. My current thinking is that I will drive the experiments forward as planned, finish the draft, or even submit the paper before I leave...”
“You mean submitting the paper? You know editing the paper can take a long time.”
“Yeah, I know. I mean... at least get the first draft or something ready before I leave.”
(nodding)
“I remember that you had the idea of merging XX's project. I think that's gonna take a long time. And I think in that case it will be good for him to share the first authorship with me, but I am not comfortable with that.”
老板觉得这里面有几层信息，便开始复述我说的话，并询问我表达的是不是他理解的意思。他的理解基本是我想说的，比如merging project can take a long time. If that's the plan, I would rather finish the project as soon as possible and leave. 但他没提authorship的考虑。我便还加上了：
“Merging his project is a bit complicated. And I know I will be stressed out and unhappy. So...”
老板点头，重新陈述了这个project里面计划include的实验，我也点头了。然后他agree说确实merging project现在还有很多不确定，他觉得我们就用这些计划的实验也可以写篇文章出来。
我见这个话题谈妥了，就说I have some other related things in mind. Are you ok talking about it?
他没明白我问的是什么意思。我当时就有点慌和紧张了（因为这是没有script准备的。。。）
所以我就直接按照script计划的开始说了： “When we and XX were in the zoom meeting talking about XX experiment, you asked me to do XX experiments. I felt that I was asked to do things in front of others, but without a consent. I would be more comfortable if you ask me if I want to or how I want to do it.”
然后老板就开始说让我觉得是非常terrible的回答了： “I understand how you felt. But I don't think there is any problem of me doing that. This is my lab.” 我在那个当下可能是有害怕的，然后又开始有各种情绪上头了，所以具体的conversation我不记得。
我只记得这次我没有freeze，我见他没有理解我的意思我说”I am not saying I don't want to help. I am just saying having a different way will make me feel better.” 他没有listen。
我问”What if I have something else going on?” 他开始说他平时都是非常hands off的，train其他人、管理lab相关的事情写在我的job description里面在，这是我该做的。【我们从来没讨论过这些是我的job description，postdoc offer里面也没有写这些。】我到别的地方，别的组，别人也一样会ask我去做事情。我到industry里面，别人也一样是这样。
我说That's why I don't like industry.
我们都停顿了几秒，他看着我。我不想再像上次一样freeze，尽管眼泪已经流了下来，鼻涕也都流到了口罩里。我说”Can I say no then?” 我头脑里浮现的已经是上次authorship问题的所有过程了，就是因为我顾着这顾着那，还考虑他的情况，没有能力在一开始就说no。也没有一个好的平台去让我说no。我的提问，也是在和过去的我对话。过去的事，如果说是我没有clearly say no的话，那么现在如果我说了no，结果会有变化吗，我的no会被care吗？
他打起感情牌了（原话不记得）说我在这里最后半年，什么看我想让我们的relationship变成怎么样。我在他的组，我们虽然之前有一些issue但是整体还是很好的。【泪点继续戳中】不记得他后来还说了什么了，只零星记得”There IS a hierarchy here.”
我内心觉得非常失望，同时我也知道这个conversation已经不会go anywhere了。所以我说”Ok, I understand.” 实际上同时心里对自己说的是，我understand既然他是这个态度，那我也就会有不同的策略了。我说我的感受，他不在意；然后他把boss的架子搬出来。既然谈感受谈真实谈不拢，那我来假的不行吗。明面上你是我的boss，但是我如果真的不想帮，暗地里我可以做各种事情让别人的life difficult不是吗。如果这是他是这样的老板，那我下有对策不行吗。
Meeting之后和老公讨论这个过程，也relate到老公小时候的事情：他妈妈要他修剪草坪，他不太愿意问为什么要修剪草坪。他妈妈说Becasue I said so. 老公对小时候的事情大多都不记得，但是这件事却印象深刻，类似的事情也让他对他妈妈有芥蒂。他还记得他同样的问题问他爸爸，他爸爸则很清楚地告诉了他原因，让他觉得非常信服。
这种只知道用boss身份去要别人做事的老板，我只能摇头。
我觉得我整体还是很兴奋的。我觉得我去当面对一个人说这是我想要的这件事本身，就是我自己很大的一个突破。我得到了老板的word，那个课题不会被合并，我觉得很满意——当然他以前也出尔反尔过，如果这次他再出尔反尔，那真的我和他就完了。
至于train其他学生的事情，我突然觉得我特别想去rebel。下学期组里会新来一个学生，我也可以预料老板又会命令我去做一些事情。我一直有说no困难的问题，但是我发现，当我有solid reason的时候我是可以立即说no的。那么我下学期开学之后做的事就是，我会把我的每周时间都提前排好，我不会直接拒绝，但是我可以把明明能周一帮忙的事情拖到周五。而这个结果，是他leadership失败导致的。也就是这个圈子，别的学生来问我觉得老板怎么样的时候我也会诚实地把我的想法告诉别人：As a scientist, he is great; as a leader, he sucks. To him, politics is more important than his students.
过了很久我把兴奋的情绪排解掉了之后才更多地感受到了愤怒。 明面上我和老板这样说着，在这里待半年把实验等等做完。我现在想的则是，我要尽可能快地把实验等等做完，然后提前走。因为实验会有不确定性，所以具体时间无法估算，但是我确实不想在这里多待了。我会和L有更多去她那里的讨论，以及看offer上面的时间能不能有调整的空间。
我和老板的这个谈话，如果他处理地好，只要show一点他的care，我都不至于这样。He messed up again. 再回想我之前和他有过的种种冲突和他的冲突处理，我真的觉得他没救了。这一年我待在这里都不开心不是，我在这里想着什么呢，怎么去“教他做个更好的老板”？他sucks，that's it, beyong saving.
He is missing the opportunities learning about leadership/mentorship.
He is smart and good at understanding/explaining concepts. If you are interested in theory, you can learn a lot from him. I will not recommend his group to any students who do not have computer science background. If you are female, that can be even worse.
He himself and his group is not a good place for experimental students. First, the group is filled with theoretical students (they happen to be all males), and if you are an experimental student, you will be the minority in the group. He puts zero effort to make the group inclusive to students with different background. It is going to be all on you yourself. Second, he does not read much about experimental literature. If you join his group, only if you do things he has background about (which is not much), he will have insights. If you want to explore anything else or need to use any new technique, he barely provides anything useful. Since the group does not have strong experimental students, you will mostly be on your own.
He is not organized, not responsive to email. Do not expect to get feedback through email or message promptly. He will let you hang there without letting you know what is going on. Over time, you will realize that relying on yourself is more efficient compared to waiting for his advise. There are many other groups out there that have better support for students.
It can take him years to edit a journal paper if there is no deadline. When I had no experience, my first journal paper took 2.5 years from finishing first draft to submission. The fastest journal paper took half a year from finishing first draft to submission, on the condition that I nagged him every week, literally every week. Sometimes he won't read the paper and provide feedback until there is a meeting. If you don't push him, he won't go. You need to get comfortable pushing him. That said, pushing him too hard can get back fired as well.
He will say and encourage his students to come up with their own ideas. But he will only support his students if those ideas align with his. If you are expecting an advisor who mentors you, helps you to become who you want to become, you will be disappointed. Similarly, all the energy and resources will go to the students whose taste aligns with his. If you have theoretical computer science background, you are lucky. If you do not have theoretical computer science background, you will really be on your own, although he may advertise his lab to be a both theory and experiment lab.
He will say he likes to collaborate with people, but he never handles conflicts well: He will first try his best to avoid conflicts until the last minute; When in conflict, he does not listen to his students; He is not sensitive nor empathetic to students' feelings; He won't put his students first, and he cares more about his career and politics, so do not expect that he will care about you in conflict.
He provides zero emotional support. Usually he won't say anything that makes you feel better. The more he says, the worse you will feel.
He had no management related training and he explicitly said that he was not interested in management/leadership. When asked about how to work with him, or what the best way to work with him is, he will say it is free, and that's all—no other guidance or details; since he does not put efforts to understand his students, he won't communicate his expectations well. If presenting at conferences for posters, or talking to other researchers, it is likely that he will interject and dominate the conversation. He does not receive feedback well (as what I described above). These are all the representations of him lacking management/leadership skills. So do prepare if you plan to work with him.
If you would like to leave a comment, feel free to contact me at Mastodon @bios@moresci.sale