Find the cause

I copy pasted this from their proud Facebook status update:

Rice University's Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

This week is National Suicide Prevention Week. Let’s be sure that EVERY graduate student knows that help is available when they need it: 800-GRAD-HLP

To access local help on your campus, call 713 HOTLINE (Crisis Intervention of Houston)

On campus emergency, call 713-348-6000

So if I'm correct you think your students are at the edge of killing themselves to the point they need a hotline. Have you considered it might be because you suck at taking care of them. How many graduate students commit suicide due to a reason that originated in the university itself and how many commit suicide due to personal reasons? You tell me.

Interestingly I can't find a single study or any statistics (with a source) of graduate student suicide rates. For me even one is too many. 

Instead of having hotlines maybe you want to make sure no graduate student is mistreated to a point where they feel so helpless to even remotely think of suicide. If you have the balls, you should get your shit together and find and treat the cause instead of the symptoms. 

Fact: Students are abused. Fact: Universities have the silence/denial code towards any abuse events.

FACT: You are responsible! 

The day my Laptop died

I was in college when my mom bought me my first laptop. It was a Toshiba (Tecra M sieres). I named him Lord Kelvin. Lord Kelvin was a really good and close fried of mine and had been with me for about a year before I entered grad school in August 2009. Until the end of that year I was not provided with a work desktop or laptop. Finally, I move from graduate student offices to the group office which I share with another graduate student, Jonathan.

The work desktop in my office was previously used by another graduate student, Amir, who defended in December 2009. He never cleaned up that computer. There were files and folders everywhere and he would march in and use them whenever he wanted. The computer itself was old, slow and had a bunch of garbage on it. I was really disappointed with the quality of the desktop. My laptop had much better computing power and was much faster. 

As a group that "supposedly" did computer simulations we also had a "cluster". This cluster was a collection of 5-10 year old dusty computers. Nobody knew how to operate the cluster except for a previous student, Juan Carlos, who with a phd in chemical engineering decided to run away to peru and become a missionary. I didn't know how to use the cluster and didn't have any hopes that my stupid advisor, who asks me how to open a document, might have even the remote idea how to operate the cluster. I could remotely connect to the server, and run my simulations there. I should have left the day I discovered that but I wasn't strong enough.

Anyway most of my results were obtained on Lord Kelvin. I presented some of those results at APS (American physical society) on March 25 2011. The day before I started having some problems with the backlight on my laptop. The monitor would just go dark but you could see that it was working and sometimes it would miraculously work. For my presentation I borrowed Nati's Laptop. (Nati was another graduate student in our department who happened to present in the same session.) The presentation went really well. You can ask Nati!

My stupid advisor saw that my laptop had problems and I had to borrow Nati's for the presentation. I think a decent advisor at that point would offer to buy a laptop for their graduate student. But I have not seen much decency at Rice. Anyway, I made the laptop work with some tricks for some more months and finally the backlight stopped working and I had to connect it to a monitor to do anything with it. It wasn't much of a laptop anymore.

Around this time Jonathan started to have problems with my stupid advisor. And my stupid advisor's view about Jonathan changed from 0 to 180 degrees in less than a month. He change from this nice, helpful student to this terrible and weak student. They failed Jonathan on the proposal defense but he left with a masters. His father, I was told threatened to sue Rice. I, however, haven't failed any exam in my life and I left with nothing. I left after four successful years at graduate school with no degree. Life is so sweet and fair isn't it? Good job Rice. Go ahead an give each other titles and awards for your accomplishments. 

Finally, I gave up on Lord Kelvin and declared him dead. It the first time I had to take the hard drive out and move all my data and I managed to do it. My stupid advisor though has to contact IT for that. He bought at least three laptops in the four years I had to tolerate him and he killed each one of them by repeatedly spilling coffee on them. I was told that they were purchased with grant moneys. I have no evidence to support that but word gets around. Some of my fellowship money was coming from the Welch foundation and some from NSF. I am actually tempted to contact these agencies and ask them to stop funding my stupid advisor.

Grants usually have an expiration time associated with them. If you have not spent the money before the expiration you have to return the remaining money. I know, and that's because my stupid advisor was stupid enough to tell me that he and the department somehow went around that by changing numbers. Apparently, Jonathan was paid by the department and later they switched it back to the Welch grant in order not to have to return the remaining money. Sounds like fraud to me.

Still with all these tricks, I was told that some money about a $1000 was left on the grant. I asked for a new laptop which I think was a legitimate request but my stupid advisor made me order a bunch of polymers which we ended up never using, never. Bottles of 200 grams of polymers which to my knowledge were never even opened. Is he an asshole? Of course! Sure looks like that but anyway he is just a terrible manager. Apart from not buying me a laptop, all this shit seems like fraud to me and I would like to report it. So if anyone knows whether this is actually fraud they should let me know and advise me on who to contact. Please email me to mystupidadvisor@gmail.com .

Anyway, I was cleaning up today and I thought it is time to bury Lord Kelvin and pay respect to him for all he did for me. He was more than a laptop to me. He was actually an advisor to me that the one I didn't have. He taught me, he worked with me and supported me until he died. He was a true friend and companion. I will miss him. He will always stay in my heart. 

My stupid advisor would shout "these stupid computers!" whenever he was too stupid to do something on a computers. Computers are not stupid! Computers always do what you tell them to do. If you cannot make a computer do what you want you are just giving the wrong directions. Computers are 100% efficient graduate students. They don't sleep. They don't eat. They don't complain. If you cannot make a computer do what you want you are just being a very very stupid advisor.

Funny. Actually sad. Really embarrassing.

I watched "The Butler" few days ago. You see how the blacks were treated. It all looked funny. Actually sad. Really embarrassing.

I have a dream. To see the concept of tenure disappear. It is corruptive, illogical and worthless. It makes a young professors work like crazy and be super competitive with their colleges instead of actually collaborating with them. All of that pressure before tenure makes them tired, frustrated and at the end when they are finally tenured makes them feel entitled to the world. It causes corruption, entitlement and actually lowers the quality of science.

Why should a guy, any guy, be considered unfirable just because of what he had done 20 years ago? I understand what academic freedom is all about but I don't understand why an alcoholic, abusive and technology illiterate person cannot be fired. I don't.

The good thing is that I have the entire future in front of me but he doesn't. Because he lives in the past. In ancient past.

One time one of the people I talked to told me, "My advisor didn't know how to use email either." I don't know how a professor can possibly think that I should receive the same education he received 25 years ago. Funny. Actually sad. Really embarrassing. Not for me. I'm not a part of that rotten department any more.

Go look him up. "Marc Robert". His website has not been updated for over four years. He can't do it and he can't even conceive of doing it or asking somebody to do it for them. Funny. Actually sad. Really embarrassing.

And the people at Rice. Your actions were funny. Actually sad. Really embarrassing. You decided to be on the wrong side. No, I forgot you didn't have the balls to take a side. That's even funnier. Actually sad. Really embarrassing.

And why did I leave?

I left ...

because Dean Edwin Thomas thought it was appropriate to smash his laptop in front of me to intimidate me.
because Dean Paula Sanders was sitting there and didn't do a fucking thing about it.
because Russell Barnes said and I quote "he is an asshole and this bullshit should end" but didn't do anything about it.
because Kyriacos Zygourakis didn't answer the phone calls from Russell Barnes.
because Dana Hess didn't answer my emails regarding "hostile work environment" complaints. The words the department itself put into my mouth.
because Kyriacos Zygourakis told me "do you want to get a phd just because you complained?"

and mostly because of you two!

Assholes are everywhere. We know that and we do not expect them to do the right thing. But you are not an asshole. You just didn't have the balls to do what you would have done for your own children. You didn't fight for me. You didn't fight for anything. You are not assholes; you are just failures. You decided not to decide. You decided to teach me it is ok to be an asshole and get away with it. I will remember that. I wish you strength so that one day you have the guts to tell me you were wrong and you made a bad choice. But it is already too late. You were the only ones who could have help and didn't. You failed. I hope you are not given a second chance. I left because without you I feel stronger.

You are sacrificing your future

I received this email today from a faculty member:

> Hi ...,

>

> ... has told me that you have decided to withdraw from our PhD 

> program.  I am very sorry to hear this and I am writing to see if I 

> can change your mind.  You are a bright and talented young person.  

> You are so close to finishing and I would be disappointed if you did 

> not to receive acknowledgment and your doctorate degree for the work 

> you have performed over the past 4 years.  I would like you to think 

> carefully about if you really want to end your chance of being Dr. 

> ... and the future possibilities that this degree would bring for 

> you.  You already have a thesis drafted so all that is left is 

> defending.  I know you are frustrated and angry with your situation 

> but I would hate for you to sacrifice your future.  I will be around 

> on Monday and Tuesday afternoon next week if you would like to meet 

> and talk.

>

> Warm regards,

> ...

That's what I wanted to answer

Hi ...,

Thank you for your message.
I'm not the one you need to talk to and convince to act differently. My position and demands on my "situation" are clear and the department and the university have chosen to treat me like dirt. I was scientifically raped and they decided to watch me being raped over and over again and not interfere. What you are asking me know is to keep the child. No! Thank you. I'm not interested.

The department doesn't even have the courage to apologize to me. I don't want to be part of a department who tolerates what has happened to us. It is indeed a shame to be part of that department and I choose not to. It is a fucking big shame for me to be part of a group that tolerates student abuse and chooses to be silent about it.

Leaving Rice does not in anyway mean that there will be no chance for me to become a doctor. Do you really think you are the only university with a graduate program? I already AM a doctor; more qualified than many others, more qualified than some of the seminar speakers. I didn't sacrifice my future. Maybe you should ask yourself who did and then you will understand my decision. Can you imagine the opportunities that leaving this hell will bring me? Maybe you should try. I can imagine infinitely many future possibilities. The earth is so big!

I know my capabilities; I prefer to keep my dignity than to have a doctorate. I prefer to choose my affiliation based on what is important to me and not how cool two letters before my name would sound. I take my future in my own hands. Sorry, Rice lost the game. It is over.


But I never did. I don't respect that department enough to talk to them about how I think about them.

Eureka Eureka! It's him.

I recently came across a blog where I read

According to Wiedmer (2011, p. 38)  the bully at work often

• Possess vindictiveness in private but charming in public;
• Display self-assuredness to mask insecurity;
• Portray self as wonderful but actual behaviors contradict this
• Can’t distinguish between leadership and bullying behaviors
• Counter attacks and denies when asked to clarify
• Manipulates others through guilt
• Are obsessed with controlling others
• Use charm and behave appropriately when superiors are present
• Are convincing and compulsive liars in order to account for matters at hand
• Excel at deception, lack conscience, and are dysfunctional

And basically this is a very good description of my stupid advisor.

Here is a link to the source: 
http://bulliedacademics.blogspot.com/2013/01/academic-bullying-in-social-work.html

We know he is an asshole!

The problems I had with my stupid advisor made me take my complaints to the department. I thought the people there were logical enough to understand my complaints and help me get out of my mysteries. When I first talked to members of the department's graduate studies committee they all confirmed my accusations verbally. I was advised to document everything and Indeed I have been keeping written details of every meeting.

To give you a background, my stupid advisor was threatened to be sued by a previous student for repeatedly asking for personal favors. He did the same with me. He asked me to drive him to the dentist, wait there and drop him back home. On another occasion he asked me to take him to the hospital, wait for him and take him back. Just to clarify, these were not emergency situations. On each occasion I first said no and then was asked so many times until I gave up and said yes just to shut him up.

He was also banned from teaching undergraduate courses because he showed up half drunk to the class, missed quite a few classes and was extremely rude to students. He told them there were too stupid to become chemical engineers. Undergraduates should be saved from such behavior but apparently it is ok for a person with alcohol problems to supervise graduate students.

Dr. Michael Wong admitted that he has also experienced the paranoid behavior of my stupid advisor and that he is manipulative and tries to change facts to his advantage.  I told him to inform any students who want to work with my stupid advisor to contact me so that I can tell them what mistake they are making and he said he himself will make sure that my stupid advisor won't get any new students. So if he thinks my stupid advisor shouldn't take any new students why hasn't he informed the university? If he is not capable of handling students why should I work with him? Dr. Wong didn't do anything for me though. He "politely" threw me out of his office telling me his time is precious. What about my time? What about my life?

I talked to other faculty members. They made statements like "he is psychologically unstable", "he frequently lies", "he is manipulative", "there has been similar problems with other students", "he is a liability for the university", "he does not understand your experimental results", "your situation is a clear example of abuse" and "my favorite one he is taking very bright students from your country and takes advantage of them". You! Distinguished professor at Rice University! You know that and you watched it happen? You let it happen and didn't do anything about it? I'm speechless.

I also went to the counseling center at Rice and they told me I had a real case.

I was later passed to talk to the department chair, Kyriacos Zygourakis. When I started my complaints, he stopped me and told me I do not need to express my complaints. He has known my stupid advisor long enough and is aware of his unprofessional behaviors. To put it in his words we are used to his you.are.great-you.are.worthless games. You knew his judgement was impaired and you didn't report it? Could you explain why my stupid advisor was allowed to do the same to another student?

All these people knew what an asshole he was and either didn't have the courage or didn't care enough to do anything about it. Mostly though they told me they are willing to help me and be the hero and get me out of my mysteries. They told me I should talk to the dean of graduate studies about my complaints and to Russell Barnes because my situation falls under hostile work environment issues. I will telling the rest of the story which didn't end up having a happy ending in future posts.

Sending Videos

My research at some point involved imaging domains of fluorescent colloids. I needed to take long videos of these domains for further analysis. In these analyses it was important to store each frame with no compression to avoid loosing significant data. I had about >2 hours of video stored with no compression. The capacity I needed to store them was greater than 2 gigabytes.

Wanting to be able to show my videos to other groups and scientist especially at conferences and presentations, I uploaded the videos on youtube and labeled them as unlisted so that only people with a link would be able to see them.

So one day my stupid advisor sends me an email asking me for ALL my videos although I had previously sent him many links to those videos. So I go to my playlist and share it with him. He replies back to me that he has not received any videos. This time I share it again with him, myself and my officemate to ensure that the sharing actually works. My officemate and I receive the link and everything works perfectly. He again replies back and claims he has not received any videos.

My head starts to smoke so this time I just forward the sharing email I got from youtube to his email address and tell him that My officemate and I have tested the link and it works. He this time replied and I quote: "Cannot open attachment please reformat."

After laughing myself to death for a long long time and trying, really really trying to stay polite, I reply: "It is a link. You click on it."

That was one of the moments I realized how my time is being wasted with this stupid advisor with no fucking good reason. I shouldn't be spending time explaining the difference between a link and an attachment to my stupid advisor. I don't know where people who can't distinguish an attachment from a link should be but one is clear they shouldn't be a professor at Rice!

When I save a word document where does it go?

Another one of my favorite moments with my stupid advisor was when he asked me this question: "When I save a word document where does it go?"

So I answer it will be stored wherever you specify. You can tell it to be on your desktop, your documents folder or any other folder you want.

He being all confused tells me he doesn't know where the document went and keeps yelling at me that the document is lost.

I don't even bother to explain to him that saved documents don't go missing on a computer and of course he does not remember anything from the infinite times I explained him how to do a search for files on his computer. He again lost the paper on which he wrote the instructions.

I find the default saving route and show him where his document is. He tells me I am a genius and I see a corpse of a tenured professor fading loosing respect and credibility with every passing moment.

It's raining JPEGs

This story is written by a contributor:

As I was writing my thesis, I had to send a draft to my advisor while he was out of the country for a while. This was an advanced draft, so it was about 300 pages, and I sent it as a PDF, of course. Rather than using Acrobat's little comment widget feature to suggest revisions, my advisor insisted that he would rather print the whole thing out, and write his comments and suggestions in the margins with a pen. Of course, he's still in another country, so to get these revisions back, he would then have to scan his printed and revised copy back in as a PDF (at significantly reduced image quality, of course), and send it to me.

But he didn't even do that.

I just got his revisions back. Fifteen emails, each with a .rar archive attached. And what's in each one? Twenty. Fucking. JPEGs.

The minimize button

I think my stupid advisor never learned the concept that different programs are rendered in different windows. He also never figured out the function of the minimize button. Occasionally he wanted to print a document on my or my officemate's computer. He would begin his ritual by sitting down and closing every single open program one by one and finally opening his and printing it. We have tried too many times to explain to him the fact that today's computers are capable of running different programs simultaneously but we finally gave up and accepted him as simply too stupid to learn.

My favorite times were when he was writing an email. In Rice's mail service when you click on the compose button it automatically opens a new window. So he would be writing an email and then open another program or accidentally click on the minimize button and be all confused and say "where did it go?". Yes, of course he doesn't know where and what a taskbar is. And indeed he would start a new email and start typing again. Great efficiency!

And that is how NSF money is spent. It is spent to pay fossils like that.

How do I open a word document?

Yes, indeed we are in year 2013 and there are full professor advisors that ask:
"How do I open a new word document?"

So I go ahead and show him how to go through start and navigate towards MS word and open a new word document. He takes a piece of paper and writes down all I say. I also make him a shortcut of MS word and place it in the middle of his crowded desktop and tell him if he clicks on the shortcut he will start MS word.

Two weeks later, he asks the same question from my office mate this time already having a word document open in front of him. My office mates tries to tell him how to go through the menus to open a new document but before he gets a chance my stupid advisor closes the program. So he also starts explaining to the stupid advisor the simple task of opening a word document. While he is doing that though he realizes the Word icon in the middle of the desktop and tells the stupid advisor to click on it!

He tells me his story and I tell him mine and we have a long laugh together.

Nobody knows how many other students went through the same story with my stupid advisor. But one is clear: a tenured faculty must know how do perform simple tasks like this. It is indeed a shame to the scientific community that such fossils are allowed to supervise grad students.

I didn't sleep last night

These are a series of emails from my advisor. I put up a few just as examples. These are apart from the times when he didn't show up at all or called me on my cellphone. The number of meetings he missed speaks for itself. Apart from not having normal sleeping hours he would leave at 4 or 5pm to practice music with a friend, if , yes if he showed up. He was basically perpetually absent. 

The words in brackets are mine.

Thursday , 25 Aug 2011
...
I did my best to stay awake for our 1pm meeting, got super strong coffees at the Pavilion, following my class [It was a 9:30 class], but just cannot manage anymore [then resign]; in fact I nearly got hit by a fast moving car on Sunset, which I did not even see. That really scared me. As I did not sleep at all last night, I will try close my eyes for a bit.
...

Wednesday, 11 Jul 2012

...
Sorry, but in need of some sleep, I propose to meet today at 2pm rather than 10am. Let me know if this does not work for you.
...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012

...
Sorry to bug you, but this is yet one more sleepness night, and I am concerned about possibly missing our meeting today at 10am.
Thus, if you do not see me in my office around 10am [So you mean I have to sit there and wait to see whether you manage to show up or not???], may I ask you to please give me a call, so that I do not miss our appointment [As if I am an alarm clock! ].
...

At 9 am the same day:

...
In fact, I am still awake after the night, so will make it, although perhaps mentally and physically on another planet [Not that other days are different] . At 12 noon I must return to the dentist, so should leave Rice around 11:15am.
...

My stupid advisor thought science happens by showing up occasionally while he is mentally on another planet! Good job!

The blue screen of death*

One day, my advisor was complaining that his computer was "broken". When I asked him to explain, I was impressed to hear him use the term "blue screen of death," because I did not think he knew what that was. According to him, every time he booted his machine, it went straight to BSOD, and he didn't know what to do about it. That sounds like a rather serious problem, of course, and I immediately tried to remember if we had a Windows install disc around, because booting to that and trying to repair Windows was about the only thing I could think of to do.

But first, I wanted to see this happen. He said it went straight to BSOD, but I had never heard of that happening, and thought it might flash something on the screen first that might give a clue as to what was happening.

So he showed me his computer, and the screen was blue. However, it was definitely NOT the blue screen of death - it was just a blue screen, a soft, low saturation hue that I immediately recognized as the default background color for Windows XP. It turns out I was correct, my advisor DOESN'T know what the BSOD is.

On this particular computer, I happen to know, booting up takes the user to the regular XP login screen, which is the default background with a dialog box in the middle. The box, however, was nowhere to be found. It's then that I remembered that this computer has two monitors connected to it, and the one I was looking at was on the right. The one of the left was blank. I turned it on. The dialog box appeared.

"Oh my God!" my advisor exclaimed behind me, "What did you do? You're a genius! How did you fix it?" I decided not to bother explaining. He wouldn't have understood.

*This post was written by another graduate student who worked with my stupid advisor.

The google search box

One of the most comic moments of my life as a graduate student was when I was looking over the shoulders of my stupid adviser while he typed webmail.rice.edu in the google search box to access Rice's mail service. Apparently, by year 2013 he had never met the address bar.

My most favorite one among his searches though is youtube. Yes, he actually types youtube in the google search box!

The FBI Story

I really like summers at universities because there is just such a peaceful quiet atmosphere around. The undergrads are gone and most advisors travel and some graduate students are away doing internships and most importantly there are no classes so I can do my research in peace.

It was on a summer day in 2012 and I was working on my code and having fun with the KISS random number generator. KISS stands for keep is simple stupid. I'm not joking google it. My advisor came in. His office is just next to mine and when he comes in you hear the noise. As usual he started telling me about his personal life and when he starts he can keep going for ever. I tell the story from his perspective to keep the joke alive.

"I got an email from the FBI telling me I had child porn on my computer and if I do not pay a $500 fine to a certain bank account my computer will be locked. So I called the FBI. I told them I am Dr. Robert from Rice University and I don't have child porn and what is this email? Why do I have to pay $500? and the FBI person told me that there are some criminals sending these emails out and I should pay attention to the senders name and address before I open an email. But the email looked so professional. I mean it had the FBI logo on it and it looked so real and legit"

There we were standing two graduate students and an undergrad trying not to burst in laughter. I just imagine that person's face from FBI when he realizes a professor from Rice university cannot distinguish a phishing message from a real one and does not even have the critical thinking ability to realize that such message cannot actually be from FBI. It is very sad that this professor is so technology illiterate that he does not even know anybody could download the FBI logo and make a fake email address.

My Stupid Advisor

I'm starting this blog to share my memories as a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering. I had to work with a technology illiterate fossil named Marc Robert at Rice University. He is so distant from computers and technology that the situations I faced in my years as a graduate student became comic. So I decided to write a blog about my experiences. Also,  in order to raise awareness of graduate student abuse which happens more frequently as one would expect I will be happy to share other people's experiences with real or fake names. Contact me at MyStupidAdvisor@gmail.com with your stories.