by mchlbrmn » Jan 13 2015 2:54 pm
I revisited this post, and saw my first post "bah, humbug" was misinterpreted.
I apologize to Research woman, if you see this, and anyone else offended. I did not mean to belittle or dispute her post at all. It was just intended to be a humorous quip of me pretending that everyone in science was mean hearted, so I replied that way, not realizing it might be taken literally. I forgot that written posts can be misinterpreted.
I've encountered many wonderful people in science. I have also seen challenging supervisors. I think that science tends to be more individualistic, with individuals or small groups doing projects. It is not like a large institution in which group organization is more important, and supervisors should have more training, or practice, in being professional. In science there are driven people who's work far exceeds normal effort and hours, and some bosses expect this of everyone under them. There own careers and progress are dependent on the production of their subordinates, and to make it worse sometimes no progress is made because for scientific reasons unrelated to skill, experience or effort.
There are also cultural differences in countries regarding hierarchy and "respect" due a supervisor.