You know how we all kid around about how hard and difficult life as a PhD is... complain about the weekend hours, non helpful boss, lack of any life outside the lab... but we know that we really spend our time blogging, not working, and who are we kidding, we wouldn't have a life anyways since we would be blogging and playing video games in our free time.
But what to do when you get to know someone that REALLY REALLY hates her job.
Completely tired of what she is doing, and only in second year.
Hates her boss
Hater her lab
And it is a definite true feeling, no sarcasm
I thought it was just before the qualifiers stress, but that one long gone... still the feeling persist.
What do you say to this person? How can you make their life less miserable?
What would you guys do?
EXP Podcast #737: The Fallout TV Series Debrief
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*Just a typical day in the wasteland.*War never changes - the streaming
television war, that is! This week we do a deep dive on the new Fallout
series....
2 weeks ago
6 comments:
i would ask if she is depressed. I would try to help her make goals? I'm not sure, when someone really hates their boss, their lab, their project it seems they need to 1) suck it up and get PhD and then switch to admin, teaching, consultant, etc. or 2) leave with a Master's and do what makes them happy.
I agree with Shawna about getting out with a masters.
The other thing I find is to take a break, re-evaluate and then decide. When i took a summer off for internship last year, it was beneficial also with respect to getting a recharge and a scene change.
Having said that I do know people who went out with a masters, changed fields and now they love what they are doing.
OK, problem is to find what is the thing that would really make them happy.
Have to talk some more, encourage the break.
Wish me luck
I think it is also important to keep in sight her final professional job. I think that a job after a Ph.D. is usually very rewarding.
It is true that getting a Ph.D. is not the easiest thing to do: one has very little guidance (because the student has to show initiative), one often wonders if the work has any relation to the real world or any impact to society at all (other jobs are focused on immediate needs, and do not theorize). But I believe the process is part of making you a good researcher: you gain self-confidence by doing things almost no one else does, and also critical thinking by constantly evaluating your peers and by arguing about your work.
At the end you can definetively change careers or majors,you do not have to work the rest of your life in the field you graduated from.
Oh wow, I just read what I wrote and it sounds like a lot of babbling.
I guess the important thing to find out is what is exactly what she hates about her job... is it the PhD process itself or her particular boss/project? It is also important to realize that the grass always looks greener on the other side... so as part of her self-inspection it is also good to find out the good things about her current work... what does she fear of loosing if she quits?
styx my love, we have to work on your use of the word 'loose'!
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