Imagine being a graduate student doing research while you’re supervised by a professor who is getting grant money because he’s working with a grad student (you). If you found it very hard to work with him, would you stick it out anyway or look for another job knowing that it would put the professor in a difficult situation?

In this story, one grad student is in this exact situation, and he decides to to look for another job. However, he’s having second thoughts.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for quitting on my thesis supervisor at the last possible minute forcing him to lose his grant proposal

Up until recently, I was a Masters student doing research under a tenured professor at the university I did my undergraduate studies in.

I have been working with him for the last 18 months but our professional relationship deteriorated to the point where I jumped ship.

There are several pretty frustrating situations.

My main grievances:

• We had a design problem and I devised an, admittedly crude, solution that solved the problem and had empirical data to back up this data. He responded with “Your solution is not at a graduate level, an undergraduate student could have come up with this solution.”
• We had another design problem and I suggested to talk to my second committee member (which he approved of) to help. He said not to because he wanted to keep his research secret (it was not a government project). We were stuck on this design problem for 2 months. Over which he questioned my effort and asking why it was taking so long.
• For a problem, I gave a potential answer based on the class I took with my second committee member. He shot it down and said “do it my way”. When we finally got a face to face meeting with my second committee member, he basically asked why on earth are we doing it my supervisor’s way and confirmed that my math was correct.
• I once emailed him after a major breakthrough in our project. His response? “Let’s talk about it when we meet this week and please stop emailing me so much”. I went through my sent folder and the last time I initiated an email chain was 3 weeks before, all of my other emails were responses to his questions

Time to look for another job.

At a certain point, I was so fed up so I started sending out resumes.

I got an interview and the job some time later.

I soon gave my notice of withdrawal from the university which caught him off guard.

OP knows this will be a big problem for the supervisor.

Here’s where I may be the AH-

I know that my supervisor gets funding but the requirement is to have a graduate student assisting him. By leaving in the middle of the term, he does not have a chance to take in a new graduate student (intake is at the start of the next term) and he will not meet the December deadline and lose that portion of the grant money.

I have refused to give him live tutorials of how to work my software solutions. I have given him a comprehensive readme document and knowing that he glosses over things and doesn’t read things carefully, he will struggle and will set him back even further.

It seems that the supervisor brought these problems on himself by being so frustrating to work with, but should OP have stuck it out until the end of the term?

Let’s see what Reddit thinks about this situation.

OP really needs to think this through.

It could backfire.

But the professor would probably be in a tight spot no matter when OP left.

Here’s what one person thinks their father would say.

It might be the right decision, but it could have negative consequences.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.