Hi all,

I've been having an issue for a little while now in my PhD. Work-wise, everything is great. I am way ahead of my supervisors' initial timetable and they are really happy with me and my progress. We have ethics in, three studies planned and my upgrade report is pretty much done. I've been doing other odd jobs around the department, such as organising our weekly seminars. I work from my shared office for two or three days a week and spend the rest of the time working from home.

The problem is that I am struggling to get along with most of my fellow PhD students. They have complained about the way I am running these seminars, but I pointed out that I have had next to no help with this, and upon asking for a list of the PhD students (we all need to speak) nobody could give me one. I had to arrange the seminars for the next few months just by asking for names of people who haven't spoken for a while, which has angered one or two people as they think I've been unfair. Added to this, my own name is not on the list - my primary supervisor has to be at my first year presentation to sign it off, and she doesn't work on Mondays. So I am arranging to do my presentation/talk on a different day, but apparently this is 'not an excuse'.

I've never found it easy to make friends, and I know I was the odd one out before this mess happened. I don't find it easy to talk to people, jokes often go right over my head and I struggle to know what to say. I have one good friend in the department, but apart from that I don't really spend much time with the others, who are all very close.

I just feel like this has been a failure on my part, and I'm not sure how to feel better about my relationship with my colleagues.

Hi, Kenziebob,

Try getting the list of students from the postgrad coordinator. Otherwise get it from the mailing list to all students in your institute.

About making friends, I won't worry too much into why it is a bit hard. It might be a case of pure jealously. You said that work is great for you. And that your work is ahead of schedule. Most students are not in such a good position and are stressed out, and perhaps jealous of you. Hence they take it out by complaining. Just continue being nice to everyone and try not to talk about how great your PhD is in front of other students who maybe struggling. If you bake, maybe bring in peace-making muffins during tea. They will come around, hopefully.

I would tell the other PhD students that if they don't like the way things are organised then they should either get off their backsides and volunteer to help out or keep their opinions to themselves. I'm quite surprised that this type of organisation is being left to a PhD student. Staff or postdocs should be getting paid to do this job. Did you request this responsibility or was it forced on you?
I don't pander to people who whine. You would never get genuine and meaningful friendships from these types of people anyway.

Hi both.

We have seminars twice a week, and the students are responsible for one, and the academics the other. The student who was doing it has left, and asked me if I'd like to take on the job. For some reason I decided to say yes.

I agree with what you both said - really, I need to remember that it is the PhD that is most important, and as I am the only one in my department in the field that I am in, none of my research relies on anybody else. I have my own friends outside of Uni, my supervisors are very happy with me and I'm happy apart from this one issue. To be honest I know a lot of people who find their PhD very stressful, and I know I'm lucky to be ahead of schedule.

Tru I might take your suggestion and bake something for the office, perhaps some peace-keeping brownies :)

I agree with everything that's been posted so far. Jealousy/insecurity is probably a significant factor.

However - in my own experience (and I'm not saying you do this at all, it's just worth bearing in mind!), there's a couple of people in my dept. who constantly bleat about how great their work is going, how great they are at 'networking', how many big names they know, and just transparently humble-brag to the point that it becomes unbearable. I've consciously distanced myself from one of these people - to the point of almost breaking off contact altogether - because constantly hearing this stuff is stressful, irritating and probably unhealthy. It's not the nicest thing to do, perhaps, but for the sake of preserving my own sanity I'm happy with that decision.

It doesn't sound like you're doing this, but just to echo what tru said with a personal experience - if things are going really great, it can be a bit alienating for others who aren't in such a good position to be constantly reminded of it. Just worth having in mind, although it sounds like you're being perfectly reasonable.

PhD communities ultimately can be quite weird and intense places, and if you've got friends outside I wouldn't sweat it so much, as long as you have functional professional relationships with your colleagues.

I think the only thing you can do is make the reason for why you did it transparent (e.g., I've selected people who haven't spoken in a while, as this seemed the logical way to do this), and try not to mind about people's attitudes. As long as you know you're not being arrogant or unfair here and you make that clear, then they will just have to get over it. It probably just arises from insecurities as you mention. It is hard to do much at your end to fix others' problems. Hard as it can be, try not to mind : )

Thank you for the replies all - it's been really hard, but luckily at the end of the day as long as my relationships with my colleagues are 'functional' as you suggest, I think I will be alright. I have sent a blanket email to the students explaining my rationale, calmly asking for preferred slots, and luckily a few people have sent me pleasant responses. I aim to go in on Monday and act normally, and hopefully we can carry on being at least civil colleagues.

I also try my best not to be too 'out there' with how great my PhD is going - but maybe I have come across in this way to someone. It's always possible, especially as I have a positive working relationship with my supervisors (and I know many don't).

Enjoy the weekend everyone :)

Thanks! And oh absolutely! One of my PhD friends always makes me feel a bit bad going on about how great her PhD is, and her supervisors are, and all her future prospects are! I'm not the sort to get jealous, but if I was, then I would be. Very! :-D I guess you can console yourself that you could have worse things to worry about :-D