I HAD A MEETING with my supervisor a few days before Christmas vacation to discuss data collection. He was discussing a point and I answered him in detail going on about the inspirational course I had attended which I thought relates directly to my research. Suddenly, he burst out in devilish laughter, started throwing papers all over the place, stood up shouting at me, ” Go on! go on keep talking! I know you won’t stop, but what you are saying is BORING, go on and continue talking while I go and get myself coffee, maybe you will shut up by the time I come back.”
He left the office and I started shaking with anger and disbelief, my brain was as about to explode, and for an instant I thought I was having a nightmare; maybe I was hallucinating, I thought, maybe he was kidding — this could not have happened.
Soon enough he came back with same unkind face holding a cup of coffee and looked at me contemptuously and started shouting once more, “you keep on talking to me about your inspirational course and wasting my time, I won’t stand you for three years when you never shut up! Shut up and listen to what I am telling you: Stop this stupidity!”
There I stopped him and said firmly, “please, don’t use the word stupidity with me. If I am annoying you, you can simply ask me to focus.” For a change, he stopped shouting abuse and we actually had a constructive meeting discussing my progress.
Afterwards, when we were done, I told him, “throughout these past months, I have been putting up with your attitude because I told myself it wasn’t personal, but your insult today made the issue personal.” “No, it wasn’t personal,” he retorted. I said in an confident tone ” But when you use the word stupid with someone it is considered a personal insult.” He then spent half an hour justifying what happened as normal between students and supervisors. Naïve me, I was waiting for an apology but it never came.
I was so upset by this incident, that I was in bed rest for four days; I became feverish and headachy. Honestly, I’ve never been insulted like this before. I then decided to go to the postgraduate program supervisor and explained to her what had happened. She was angry and assured me that it was not my fault, and I wasn’t the first one to be treated by him like this. She told me that such behavior is not accepted at the university, and that she would support whatever decision I might take. We agreed that I would think about going to a new supervisor during Christmas vacation. I thought long and hard and was really confused. After all, changing a supervisor might entail starting over, which means loosing a year’s worth of research, while staying with him is unhealthy for me, because there was no trust. Finally, I decided to defer my decision after I submit the course work that was due in January.
Days later, I had a meeting scheduled with him to discuss my submitted course work. I waited in front of his office door until he showed up and he never apologized for his tardiness, I went in and he started discussing my course work. I started answering him and I referred to another file I had sent him earlier before the meeting. He looked at me contemptuously and said, “you talk to me about the other file and I’m talking about THIS file!” He started shaking the papers violently, continuing with his outburst he said, “argumentative! You’re always argumentative!”
But I just smiled at him and I think that really irritated him, he then threw my papers and ordered in a very harsh tone, “get out of my office Hatoon, get out!” For a moment I was not able to react, I was so shocked — he then opened the door wide and shouted once again, “Get out get out!”
I was completely bewildered. I ran down corridors until I found the postgraduate program supervisor. As soon as I saw her, I collapsed and started sobbing, she kindly escorted me to her office and went after him but found out that he left the building. She was very angry and assured me that what happened would not be ignored and that the university will take the issue seriously. After I had calmed down, I sought out my friends and they were supportive and so kind. I will always be grateful to them.
When I returned home I started reflecting; why I did not follow my instinct from the beginning? I know myself and I know I am not the “drama queen” type. Why did I not believe myself when my subconscious was telling me that this guy is sick and he, for some unknown reasons hated me?
Is self-blame always healthy? What about self respect? And why did I allow this to happen?
However, at the end of the day, I count this experience as a rich one. I learned a lot from it and the most important thing that I am really proud of is that I never reacted aggressively toward him and I was extremely polite till the last moment. Well, thank God now I have a great supervisor who really respects and appreciates my work. It’s true I had to redo all my work but it was worth it.
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