As a fellow biology PhD student with a somewhat different experience (with you on the work hours, but I’m really glad I’m here), I hope you don’t mind me asking what has been so draining about the experience?
There are a lot of things wrong, I don’t know which of them is the most important...
1)I have zero control over my own work. I am working frantically all the time to complete analyses requested by other people, most of which turn out to be useless or ill thought out. People generally don’t understand programming and stats enough to know how long things should take.
2)My boss is widely regarded as a bit of a tyrant. I have a powerful aversion to interacting with her in any way, and she has extremely poor communication skills. Our relationship is terrible. I think this is my fault as well, I work a lot but seem to get little done, and whenever I’m around her I feel a crushing sense of guilt and insecurity (this is all pretty melodramatic and childish—any my issue more than hers, but there it is).
3)The culture in my lab is about producing papers, not discovering things. I have the impression that almost none really give a crap about what we’re studying.
4)I’m in a small town in a foreign country which I hate.
5)I have no belief in the value of the work we do. Nor do many of the smart people I’ve talked to. Many of these smart people have quit the lab recently. I was attracted to the lab by work that I didn’t have skills to fully understand at the time. Knowing what i know now, I’d never have come. Our results take the form of vague correlations, and have no practical relevance to anyone.
6) Because I transferred into statistics from wet work a year into my PhD, my boss has been reluctant to give me any real responsibility. she’s given me these vague, ill thought out side projects (other people’s opinions, not my own), which has yielded dead end after dead end.
7) I generally have the impression that I am bad at my job. I have extreme difficultly focusing on my work and I make a lot of embarrassing bugs and errors. Part of this may be due to diagnosed attention difficulties, but I think most of it is just a total lack of interest. Forcing yourself to do something well when you don’t care about it is difficult.
I think overall it’s not so much the negative stuff as it is the total lack of positive reinforcement. Aside from a few brief false alarms, I have literally never had any success. I know there must be parts of the job that other people find rewarding, but i simply haven’t experienced them.
If you need a plan to improve your situation you might consider Athol Kay for advice. He is not uncontroversial (see this thread), but he provides you with a clear tested plan to deal with your situation (the book is not only about person-relationships but also written if you are attached to a job).
As a fellow biology PhD student with a somewhat different experience (with you on the work hours, but I’m really glad I’m here), I hope you don’t mind me asking what has been so draining about the experience?
There are a lot of things wrong, I don’t know which of them is the most important...
1)I have zero control over my own work. I am working frantically all the time to complete analyses requested by other people, most of which turn out to be useless or ill thought out. People generally don’t understand programming and stats enough to know how long things should take.
2)My boss is widely regarded as a bit of a tyrant. I have a powerful aversion to interacting with her in any way, and she has extremely poor communication skills. Our relationship is terrible. I think this is my fault as well, I work a lot but seem to get little done, and whenever I’m around her I feel a crushing sense of guilt and insecurity (this is all pretty melodramatic and childish—any my issue more than hers, but there it is).
3)The culture in my lab is about producing papers, not discovering things. I have the impression that almost none really give a crap about what we’re studying.
4)I’m in a small town in a foreign country which I hate.
5)I have no belief in the value of the work we do. Nor do many of the smart people I’ve talked to. Many of these smart people have quit the lab recently. I was attracted to the lab by work that I didn’t have skills to fully understand at the time. Knowing what i know now, I’d never have come. Our results take the form of vague correlations, and have no practical relevance to anyone.
6) Because I transferred into statistics from wet work a year into my PhD, my boss has been reluctant to give me any real responsibility. she’s given me these vague, ill thought out side projects (other people’s opinions, not my own), which has yielded dead end after dead end.
7) I generally have the impression that I am bad at my job. I have extreme difficultly focusing on my work and I make a lot of embarrassing bugs and errors. Part of this may be due to diagnosed attention difficulties, but I think most of it is just a total lack of interest. Forcing yourself to do something well when you don’t care about it is difficult.
I think overall it’s not so much the negative stuff as it is the total lack of positive reinforcement. Aside from a few brief false alarms, I have literally never had any success. I know there must be parts of the job that other people find rewarding, but i simply haven’t experienced them.
Get in touch with them. They’ll understand your frustration, and might sympathize enough to give you better help than we can.
If you need a plan to improve your situation you might consider Athol Kay for advice. He is not uncontroversial (see this thread), but he provides you with a clear tested plan to deal with your situation (the book is not only about person-relationships but also written if you are attached to a job).