Hehehe..... you thought we were through with this, didn't you?
Well, sort of.
But I wanted to tell you guys one more little story I just heard today.
My workplace has a new PhD student, who is going to replace my favourite ever coworker who will leave at the end of this month.
The new employee started a month early though, so I had a chance to visit him - because he is one of my former co-tutors. And one of the coolest guys I ever met.
He was a really great person to work with, and we always got along great, so I'm glad to have him back within arm's reach.
Still... I wondered.... guy, you worked there with me.
You know how the professor is always super nice to us, but an extreme asshole to the PhDs?
Like "your PhD thesis is to be done in your free time. During work time, you will not work on it, but for me."
(Contract of a PhD assistant: 30% of the working time are to be dedicated to the PhD thesis while the remaining 70% will belong to the assistant duties to the professor.)
He hates on his assistants, he bends them in ways they don't want, he makes them change their research focus to whichever field he feels like today, even if he promised you it would be alright just a week before.
And you want to work for THAT man?
Well..... he will.
So, when I visited him today, we talked about the professor and all the stuff.
And he told me (I had already heard rumours) how shocked he was when, last week, the professor held a meeting with everyone and talked about New Guy.
"One of the laziest people I have ever met"
"When did that guy ever work?"
"Coming to work in jeans with HOLES in the fabric!" (Used-look designer jeans, just for the record.)
After complaining about the jeans, he suddenly tilted his head, bent over, and looked under the table to check out his newest employee's pants, just to tell him "I am glad your pants don't have holes."
Le creep?
"I swear it to you, if he hadn't left himself, I would have thrown him out. This would have been the very first time that I fire someone after his probation time, but I would have done it."
Not a single word about how HE, mister professor himself, had specifically wanted that guy because of his prestigious diploma (which, if he sucked so badly at his job, is apparently worth every penny that guy's dad paid for it, for his son would have not made it at a public university). No word about how he had wanted New Guy despite his horrible attitude during the job interview. Not a single word about how he knew that New Guy planned on finishing his PhD in two years, which apparently meant that he had NO CLUE whatsoever on what it means to be a PhD assistant in Germany, and how mister professor himself did never see a problem with that apparent state of misestimation.
I laughed so hard.
Professor, you dumb asshole.
So, I really hope that my former co-tutor will do well in his job. He is somebody who has the great ability to remain at a certain distance to work, so that he will not easily be upset by criticism the professor might bring up to him.
But he is also someone to stand his ground when the criticism he receives is unfair or inappropriate.
So his job already started well. Not only has the professor talked about New Guy in a way that a professor should NEVER talk about his employee, and especially not so in front of your newest employee who is just starting his first day.
Also, while you usually get 2 weeks to just read everything that your boss and colleagues have published/taught over the last years, he instead, in his first week, was assigned the tasks of
a) grading both a BA thesis and a MA thesis
b) reviewing the second edition of the professor's textbook to make it into the new 3rd edition that is supposed to be published soon
c) developing the written exam for this semester's class of management economics.
Happy acclimatisation.
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