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Antiwork

Unreasonable boss

So, several years ago I used to work at a university for a big shot professor. It was something like a postdoc. I had to manage students, write papers and proposals. This professor didn't see a deadline he didn't like for a paper or funding proposal. Always we had to submit whether we had something of substance or not. As a result I could barely use my PTO while there. Another example, on a Friday night, got a call at 10pm “why didn't you reply to the email I sent you 15mins ago?” So fast forward a couple of years, and we had an important research project that we were behind. I alerted him that we were up to our eyeballs, falling behind, and that one of the students in the project not pulling his weight. The answer? Oh, BTW we should submit to these other funding opportunities. “You guys…


So, several years ago I used to work at a university for a big shot professor. It was something like a postdoc. I had to manage students, write papers and proposals. This professor didn't see a deadline he didn't like for a paper or funding proposal. Always we had to submit whether we had something of substance or not. As a result I could barely use my PTO while there. Another example, on a Friday night, got a call at 10pm “why didn't you reply to the email I sent you 15mins ago?”

So fast forward a couple of years, and we had an important research project that we were behind. I alerted him that we were up to our eyeballs, falling behind, and that one of the students in the project not pulling his weight. The answer? Oh, BTW we should submit to these other funding opportunities. “You guys can manage”.

Lo and behold, we are late submiting the final report for the funded project and disqualified us from further funding with that sponsor under the same program (we had to start from square one). I have to mention that the submission of the final report was to be done by his business partner. This project involved both university effort and a small business part.

The professor was mad that everyone failed him(including his business partner). He told me that he was doing me a favor not firing me. I considered my self fired and left in a few months after I found a much better job in the industry. I couldn't cash out half of my PTO but I didn't care, since my new salary would make up for it.

Another insult was that I warned him and his business partner not to hire that student for their company and their answer was “we will handle him.” Yeah, I found out that they had to fire him after all.

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