Thank you all for your responses, they are greatly appreciated.

Yeah, I figured that's what happened. Wow, that sucks. I guess I'm looking at these things as opportunities to collaborate but obviously doing it wrong. Thanks again. Cypress

No, the postdoc funding does not come from the gov department, it comes from the postdoc fellowship. I suggested I extend the gov job another 2 years with postdoc funding from a separate entity.

Sorry for the confusion.

The job is not a postdoc position, but a 2 year contract with a government ministry. The postdoc is a separate fellowship program. I approached the gov ministry about doing their advertised job as a postdoc funded by a separate fellowship program and applied for both. The gov job starts right away and the postdoc would start almost a year from now. Problem is the gov ministry awarded their job to someone else. I'm not sure what to think of that, but I'm not great at seeing the forest for the trees sometimes.

So if you were in my position (and you don't mind me asking), what would you do?

Hi there!

I'm looking for outside impressions on the mess I've presently gotten myself into.

I received a job posting that looked like it would make a really interesting postdoc (I'm at the end of my PhD), so I contacted the project manager and we started collaborating on the postdoc app with another academic. I applied for the job and was interviewed, and then applied for the postdoc. I set it up so that the work I'd do if hired would be the first phase of a 3 phase research project, and my proposed postdoc would complete the last 2 phases. It would have been 4 years worth of steady work for me. Unfortunately, yesterday I was notified that I wasn't hired for the job.

I have a gut feeling that this is a sign that the agency is not supportive of my postdoc, but honestly considering my previous experiences in academia I don't know what to think. So I'm asking for your impressions on this situation. Any insight and advice will be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,
Cypress

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!!

I have a meeting set up with counselling services to talk about these issues, they deal student-supervisor issues all the time on campus and will hopefully have some insight for me.

I have also contacted the university's health and safety department about who is liable for me if I get hurt doing lone fieldwork. I had the university's approval before attempting to go out into the field, but my adjunct supervisor cancelled the season because he didn't think it was safe. Then after cancelling me season he sent me the working alone policy the government department uses, so he clearly cancelled my season based on his own personal beliefs. So I'll have to clarify with the university's health and safety department what working alone policy I should be following.

I have talked to other MSc students who are co-supervised by the same university professor. They took the same steps I did, they planned their field season and got approval from the university for insurance purposes. The problem lies mostly with my adjunct supervisor's sexism and my university supervisor's intentional lack of involvement in my project.

However, I was wondering what the responsibilities of the graduate mentor are? We do not have a mentor in our department, but we do have a graduate coordinator whose responsibility is to help students deal with issues with their programs in their department. Is a graduate mentor similar to the coordinator position I describe above? Unfortunately, in my department the graduate coordinator is my university supervisor. However, I may be able to talk to the previous graduate coordinator.

Thanks again for all of your help and support, I really appreciate it!!

Hello everyone!! I am hoping no one has experienced my situation themselves, but that someone has some advice for me. I am a PhD student with two supervisors, one on-campus and one adjunct that is off-campus. I did my MSc with them both, and my office was on-campus so I had more contact with the university professor than the adjunct who is my primary supervisor. I thought the supervision I received during my MSc worked well and our relationship would be great for my PhD. However, when I started my PhD my adjunct had me move my office to where he works. I am having a lot of problems with this, because he simply doesn’t have time for me, and the government department I am working out of is not conducive to housing students (e.g., scanned documents end up on a locked file server, I have to ask someone to email them to me; I can’t download any programs not supported by government IT onto my computer). However, that part isn’t so bad, I can work around that. The biggest problem I’m having is with the favoritism occurring with the university professor. My adjunct supervisor cancelled my field season because I planned to do it alone. I planned it that way because we did not get funding to hire students. I had permission from the university to work alone, but my adjunct supervisor was not comfortable with a ‘young woman’ going out to do fieldwork by herself, and asked me what my dad would think of me working alone. Needless to say, I was not impressed, so I worked from home for a while. When I talked to my university supervisor, he said he couldn’t do anything because the adjunct is my primary supervisor now, and that he agrees with the adjunct anyways. Then at lab meeting yesterday, I watched an MSc student present on her field season, where she drove across country (Canada’s a pretty big country!!) and did four months of fieldwork by herself. My field season was supposed to be 2 ½ weeks long. I am furious, and I have no idea what to do now, so I’m hoping someone has some advice for me. Thanks very much!!