::Shebytches::

Basically, I'm a disgruntled PhD student. I decided to take a break from my PhD after I realized that if my days were going to be spent answering to 4 bosses, being treated like crap and being told to do as I'm told and not question authority, then I should at least be paid a salary that puts me above the poverty line.

I'm 90% sure that I'm leaving academia and running off to join the evil world of large, money-making corporations.

And I'm hoping to start writing in some futile attempt to get enough experience to become a science writer.

My plan is to make a wad of cash, become a science writer, interview the twits who helped sabotage my career and expose them for the small-minded dolts they really are.

That is my plan for revenge.

That isn't really going to happen, though. It's been just over three months since my career tanked and I've already started getting over it. By the time I make wads of cash and become a science writer, I will most likely not be able to care less about these people. In fact, I'll probably be thanking them for having forced me to get out of academia and actually become a useful member of society. Or I'll become an evil financial analyst. Whichever.

At this point you're probably wondering what happened to my doomed academic career. Well, honestly, a lot of little things happened and I was lazy. But my laziness was a natural reaction to being treated like a thundering moron. My PhD supervisors, both of them, because I went through two of them (seperately, not co-supervised), felt that no one should contradict their Royal Edicts. Any dissent was obviously due to inherent laziness or stupidity.

(Before I go on, I'd like to point out that both my Master's supervisors were fantastic guys. We have great respect for one another, both personally and professionally. The laziness and bad attitude developed during my PhD.)

What my PhD supervisors didn't understand was that sometimes grad students are actually capable of independent thought. Sometimes they can actually reason for themselves and come to different conclusions than their supervisors -- without being stupid.

It was pretty tough for my PhD supervisors to understand that it wasn't always my fault that things didn't work. In fact, it was so hard for one of them to accept that a piece of equipment was broken, that he blamed me for not following his instructions correctly. He was so upset with my performance that he asked another student to do what he had originally asked me to do. The other student hadn't been working with the busted equipment for two years and didn't question my supervisor's authority. Do I have to tell you that the other student didn't have much more luck than I did?

Independent thoughts are the last things you should have in grad school. Forget all those lofty ideas about expanding your mind and finding your voice and all that jazz, because being a PhD student is like being a really badly paid corporate serf. At least it's that way in Computer Science. You're expected to work long hours, eat badly, never go on vacation, never see your friends, and be excellent at five billion tasks, all for the low, low salary of a burger-flipper at McDonalds. (Actually, if you work the 80hrs/week minimum they expect from you while taking no vacations, your salary actually comes to less than minimum wage -- something like 5.50$/hr -- which is a bargain-basement price for a highly-educated programmer.)

And don't get me started on the micro-management!

One day I complained to my last supervisor that I was rarely able to get work done in the evenings. I liked having meals at home at night to save money and relax. I would get home, cook dinner, eat it with my partner (another poorly-paid grad student with student loans coming out his wazoo), unwind (because I was invariably stressed out of my mind by 6pm -- I wonder why?) and then do some work. The problem was that our apartment building had a roach problem and we had to thoroughly clean the kitchen and dining room after we ate. The cleaning took a while and we were often totally exhausted and unable to continue working afterwards.

My supervisor considered my story and then told me to move into an apartment building that didn't have roaches. And of course he knew that my salary was so very compatible with living in Toronto in a vermin-free apartment -- not!

Another time, I mentioned to him that I didn't have some programming finished. I had changed the program slightly the previous day and hadn't been able to fix all the bugs by the time I got hungry and went home. I was going to finish it up in the evening, but when I had gotten home I saw that I had run out of clothes to wear the next day and would have to do laundry. This included fine washables (i.e. bras and panties) that needed to be hand-washed in cold water. I spent most of my evening washing and never got around to fixing the bugs in the program. I figured that was ok since this part of the work wasn't really mission-critical and I would just finish it up the next day.

My supervisor looked at me like what I said was completely irrational and told me that he had managed to do all his work the night before and do three loads of laundry. He explained that all his clothes were machine-washable. He told me that I should buy only machine-washable clothes. Plus, as a grad student, I shouldn't mind not washing (myself or my clothing) for a few days in order to work.

But I quibble because the micromanagement issues were dwarfed by my nasty habit of questioning my supervisors when I thought they were wrong.

The biggest and last argument I had with my last PhD supervisor was about math. I had disagreed with him about a mathematical model he wanted me to implement. In lay terms, I felt that his model could hardly be called a model because it was just a hack that had worked for him once before. I told him that the argument "it works because it works" may be good enough for him, but I doubted it would be acceptable at my thesis defense.

My supervisor argued that I was totally being lazy and just didn't feel like implementing his model -- a model that all his other students had implemented without question.

If I had been in industry, at least I could have moved laterally in the organization, or I could have started looking for a new job, using the experience from my old job as leverage. But, as a grad student, all I could do was change supervisor again or quit. And changing supervisor meant changing project, so I'd have to start all over again.

I was on my way to taking a leave of absence (with my supervisor's blessing, by the way) to think about whether I wanted to tough it out with this guy, change supervisor again or quit, when my supervisor complained to the Powers That Be that I was an utter slacker and informed them that he was dumping me as a student.

Fortunately, after a lot of drama and intrigue, I wasn't kicked out and was allowed to take my leave of absence anyways.

That's where I am now.

I'm on leave of absence, looking for a nice, high-paying job and writing. All in the hope of someday getting revenge by living well -- and by writing a scathing piece about the small-minded people who inhabit academia.

Sandra "Snad" Polifroni is a disgruntled Computer Scientist who's currently on leave from a PhD. She has a degree in Physics which helps her make fun of "science" shows on cable channels. Snad loves to complain and has been told that no one complains as well as
she does. Snad's taken her love of complaining and created an on-line journal chronicling her exciting adventures through her PhD
and a page full of reviews of restaurants she's been to in the GTA (and beyond!)