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What would be best solution for me to deal with toxic supervisor and lab environment

J

I am in 1st year of my PhD. My supervisor has sort of strange working system . He make me work as prisoner even during Christmas holidays . Despite sending him the usual work report he and his assistant connencted with me on teams and checked when and which document file I opened last and how much time I spent working. This happened during official Christmas holidays. I have been working constantly like a prisoner every time even on weekends and holidays to meet his strict deadlines. If I try to convince him that I will complete the work by this time depending upon the severity of work, he refuses and insults me badly . I have just been in the process of review since my entire first year and I dont know how much progress I have made or what I am doing. He basically gives commands and I follow like a prisoner and start working with no work life balance. This toxic environment impacted my personality because everything is driven by fear. Please share what I can do at this stage

T

Sorry you had to go through this, Jassica.

I would suggest you get out. You are still in the first year of PhD so you can start looking around and see which other lab you could jump to. Don't tell your supervisor until you are ready to make the jump. See which lab has good working culture and project that you are interested in. Start talking to other labs and their students to learn more about them but don't say anything about wanting to go until you are certain that that is the lab for you. Then talk to the new potential supervisor. Once you have confirmation of new supervisor, go through your Graduate school to change your supervisor. At that stage you can tell your current supervisor. All the best

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