well...not literally but...we had a meeting on monday for about 2 hours, one yesterday for 1.5 hours with another colaborator for a paper...today we we're supposed to have a meeting at 11am, but he came up to my office (i am on a different floor) to say that could we change it to 9.30am as he had double booked- then at about 10am someone else turned up for another meeting and i got rescheduled for this afternoon. He's just popped in to my room to say I must read some paper as it is good...when will I get some time to actually do some work!!

Don't get me wrong, my supervisors are both really great but sometimes I need time to work through things at my own pace. Anyone else experience this?

Are you lab-based?

If not, working from home or my personal favourite, "hiding", might help.

i second the working from home/library/bit of grass outside

i see my once a week in term time and feel like that doesn't give me enough time to move on! i feel your pain...

No am not lab based...but can't work at home because I live with the in-laws and find them stressful enough in the evenings let alone seeing them during the day!

Yeah this happened to me too and still does a little but I had to tell him to back off and let me get on with things. Obviously he didn't really like me telling him that but our supervisor-student relationship has been better since we can openly discuss things and say whats on our mind. We have had a few arguments but we've managed to overcome it and he remains supportive.

Is your supervisor approachable? I suggest you talk to them about this.

Just been to my supervisors office for our meeting raorganised for 2:00 and he’s not in…! Do’h! Have sent him an email saying ring me when your in and I will come back downstairs. I bit annoying really, as I always end up not getting meetings or being squashed in!

I don't really want to say anything to him, as he is a good supervisor and very enuthusiastic about my PhD. I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. I think he is making up for the fact that we havn't been in contact for about 2 weeks, cos he was away/busy.