In bionet.women-in-bio Karen Lona Allendoerfer <ravena at alumni.princeton.edu> wrote:
: Another example: a very competent woman
: was interviewing for a postdoc. A PI with an axe to grind with her advisor
: came to her seminar, was a jerk to her through the entire seminar, and
: after the seminar told her that "if this were my PhD thesis, I would be
: ashamed of myself."
Out of curiosity I have to ask; how did she respond?
: remarks. And I don't think I'm being too touchy-feely or too sensitive by
: saying so.
Probably not. It was a rude statement, but one has to learn to
deal with boors and wankers. After all, that sort of behaviour
is hardly limited to professional encounters.
: I haven't found a way, though, to survive on a steady round the clock diet
: of it. It is a small, poor, impoverished substitute for passion and love
: of one's work, and a pretty unsatisfying way to live life. I ended up
: having to leave a relationship where my boyfriend was bringing "the sharp
: give and take that makes up scientific discourse" home with him to the
: dinner table.
I've found that frequently relationships where there is an emotional
component have difficulty contending with pointed professional
discussions. Probably because is so hard not to criticism as a
personal attack. One expects one's partner to be supportive, not
critical...reconciling the opposite is a ruddy difficult task.
(Anyway, depending on what your work is, there are some things
which one simply does not want to discuss as the dinner table,
especially if one wants to retain their dinner.)
: I agree with you here. But I've also been told that I'm too idealistic.
There's nothing wrong with idealism...provided that it doesn't
hamper you from dealing with reality. Idealism becomes a problem
when "should" and "ought" take precedence over "are" and "is".
Deirdre
--
| Deirdre Sholto-Douglas | e-mail: finch at mcs.com |
| | |
******* The only acceptable substitute for intelligence *******
is silence.
