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.