insensitive fellow diner vent

[doctoranda]

Last night DH and I went out for dinner with a group of people for his work. It was a group of people from different countries working on international collaboration between various universities. I was sitting across from someone else's plus one and we're both Dutch so we started chatting. But I immediately regretted it. Everyone on this board knows how much I have been struggling with my dissertation writing by now (sorry I keep complaining to y'all). I shared some of my troubles and hoop jumping with him and he said: I finished my dissertation in 3 months; when you know what to write it really isn't that hard. I am sorry but I found this a little insensitive. It made me really sad. I know there are people who manage to get everything done in record time, or in more regular times than I have been able to do. I know this. I don't need to be reminded how long this is all taking, especially since I have very little control over it myself since I have been putting in the work just like I am supposed to. I feel it's a little bit like when someone is trying to conceive really hard and another person goes like "the moment I got off the pill I was pregnant." (obviously much more personal and more important than a dissertation but still) You just don't say stuff like that.

Thanks for letting me vent! Now I can start more dissertation writing

[crimsonandclover]

Jun 8, 2012 6:25:32 GMT -5 doctoranda said:

I shared some of my troubles and hoop jumping with him and he said: I finished my dissertation in 3 months; when you know what to write it really isn't that hard.

What an idiotic thing to say. He is obviously an arrogant jerk, and either a genius (don't you hate it when the jerks turn out to be really smart) or a moron who was just out for the title. I don't remember what your field is, but you cannot complete a political science PhD in 3 months. If you do, I guarantee that there was serious plagiarism involved.

Anyway, don't feel bad. I'm still trucking along 2.5 years after I started, just now actually getting into my empirical section.

[doctoranda]

Jun 8, 2012 6:55:44 GMT -5 crimsonandclover said:

Jun 8, 2012 6:25:32 GMT -5 doctoranda said:

I shared some of my troubles and hoop jumping with him and he said: I finished my dissertation in 3 months; when you know what to write it really isn't that hard.

What an idiotic thing to say. He is obviously an arrogant jerk, and either a genius (don't you hate it when the jerks turn out to be really smart) or a moron who was just out for the title. I don't remember what your field is, but you cannot complete a political science PhD in 3 months. If you do, I guarantee that there was serious plagiarism involved.

Anyway, don't feel bad. I'm still trucking along 2.5 years after I started, just now actually getting into my empirical section.

He is a professor in chemistry now and probably very smart. Just no social skills and clearly knows a lot about chemistry but nothing about how long it takes to get PhD's in most of the social sciences. (Btw I am getting my PhD in Cultural Anthropology -- which he thought was observing people in Africa and he could not understand that I did fieldwork in San Francisco and China)

[oneslybookworm]

Wow, what a total jerk! I don't care how smart you are, doesn't give you a right to be an ass. And that was a total ass thing to say. Reminds me of the time I was talking to a coworker of DH's about how hard I was struggling with law school. He was an engineer turned lawyer. He looked at me and said, "I thought law school was the easiest thing ever." Yeah, thanks for that, asshole.

[doctoranda]

Jun 8, 2012 7:15:57 GMT -5 oneslybookworm said:

Wow, what a total jerk! I don't care how smart you are, doesn't give you a right to be an ass. And that was a total ass thing to say. Reminds me of the time I was talking to a coworker of DH's about how hard I was struggling with law school. He was an engineer turned lawyer. He looked at me and said, "I thought law school was the easiest thing ever." Yeah, thanks for that, asshole.

Yikes! Engineer turned lawyer turned without friends, probably. Yeah some people are just jerks. Luckily most people are very encouraging.

[clogged]

You know, I never understood how people bragging about themselves or demonstrating your apparent suckatude by giving examples of the mythological "friend of a friend" is at all motivational. Or nice. Or polite. Or even wanted to be listened to.

[Cheesecake]

People suck, the end...

I have fat fingers, please excuse typos!

[clogged]

please tell me you dumped, er, accidentally spilled your drink in "Mr 3 Months" lap.

[doctoranda]

Jun 8, 2012 7:48:47 GMT -5 clogged said:

please tell me you dumped, er, accidentally spilled your drink in "Mr 3 Months" lap.

Actually I just quit talking to him (and no one besides me made an attempt so he was pretty much on his own). Tomorrow I will see him again though on an excursion so maybe I can take revenge

[crimsonandclover]

Jun 8, 2012 7:06:22 GMT -5 doctoranda said:

He is a professor in chemistry now and probably very smart. Just no social skills and clearly knows a lot about chemistry but nothing about how long it takes to get PhD's in most of the social sciences. (Btw I am getting my PhD in Cultural Anthropology -- which he thought was observing people in Africa and he could not understand that I did fieldwork in San Francisco and China)

In Germany, medical doctors often get their PhD and usually need about 6 months to complete it, turning in around 50 pages because they just hop on to a study currently being conducted and then write it up. Awesome. Luckily our friends who are MDs understand that it's not like that in the social sciences, so they're sympathetic to those of us who need longer.

Really, though, that guy isn't even worth your rage.

[mrsukyankee]

Clearly he is on the Asperger's continuum so doesn't know how to appropriately talk to people about things. Dont' take it personally!

[Cheesecake]

Also, I call bullshit on this guy. The amount of months/years whatever you write can be anything you want to call it depending on what you count as 'writing'.

I know people who did a number of years of research and writing draft chapters and then polished it all off in a couple of months and say their PhD took 4 years, 3.5 years of research and 6 months of writing or so. Obviously they'd started working on rough drafts for chapters for years, but they just don't count that as writing.

Again, people are stupid!

[doctoranda]

Jun 8, 2012 8:03:22 GMT -5 Cheesecake said:

Also, I call bullshit on this guy. The amount of months/years whatever you write can be anything you want to call it depending on what you count as 'writing'.

I know people who did a number of years of research and writing draft chapters and then polished it all off in a couple of months and say their PhD took 4 years, 3.5 years of research and 6 months of writing or so. Obviously they'd started working on rough drafts for chapters for years, but they just don't count that as writing.

Again, people are stupid!

This gives me ideas Later on, to feel better about myself I can do that too. ;D Honestly, I would never say anything like that to anyone in the process and once I have the PhD I will try to forget the time it actually took.

[livinitup]

That's the thing aobut talking about really personal things with complete strangers. You expected something supportive and he gave you a flip comment. He didn't do it to hurt you.

[potatopie]

Ha! I just had a meeting with my supervisor this morning. She looked at the timeline of my proposal, which I thought was cushioned, and told me that there was no way I would finish by February.

Dude is not the norm. No way.