Ok, I have a question regarding professional courtesy in Academia. When I was in grad school, I was very close with another person in the same program, who shall be called X. We were roommates for a few years, we shared similar interests, etc. We had a fallen out in my last year, an episode that hurt me a lot, but that it's not what I want to talk about. Our relationship became cold, polite and distant. After I graduated (she did it a year later), I sent her an email around six month after I had moved to my new job, and she replied politely and ending up with something like: "I'm sure we'll run into each other at some conference". We probably trade emails twice a year, mostly for professional reasons.
Last year, in the course of my research for a project, I came upon a book by a not very well not author (except for those with a very specialized sub-field). I loved the novel, but I knew it didn't fit in my project and I wouldn't do anything with it, professionally. However, I also realized it fit perfectly on X research, and that she didn't know its existence. So I emailed her, telling her about the book, and how I thought she might find it useful in her research. She wrote back an email of the sort of : "Thank you very much for sharing the book, I'll take a look at it, have a good day". That was it.
Just by complete chance, I recently discovered that she just finished an article on the book and sent it to a journal for publication. Now, to make it clear: I only made her aware of the existence of the book. I didn't suggest ideas, approaches, criticism, anything. However, I'm a little offended that she did not have the courtesy to at least send me a brief email thanking me for the suggestion and informing me that it had been fruitful, since she had written an article about it. Am I being overly sensitive? Or am I just expecting the correct amount of professional courtesy?
I'm not sure if this is about professional courtesy. This simply sounds like a person who doesn't have very good manners. The normal thing, of course, would be to write to you and express gratitude but there are rude people everywhere, so what is one going to do?
ReplyDeleteDid she acknowledge you in the paper? That's what I'd probably do, say thanks in acknowledgements and then send a copy of the paper to you once published (i.e. not yet at submission stage).
ReplyDeleteIt is about professional courtesy. She's very rude and the normal thing is what Anonymous says, not just a personal thank you note.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have noticed that people who behave as she does get ahead.
You are not being overly sensitive at all, but this type of behavior is typical in academe -- and I've seen worse, bordering on plagiarism (would have been considered plagiarism if the incident had involved published papers rather than a conference paper and a job talk). As sptc says, though, these people are often the ones who get ahead because they put self-promotion ahead of professional courtesy.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, as far as I know, she just submitted it. Maybe she did acknowledge me in the paper (although I'd be surprised). I guess I will have to wait until it gets published (I'm sure it will, she is good at what she does), and see. But if she did not acknowledge me, that is rude.
ReplyDeleteI had a falling out with a good friend in grad school. I didn't thank her in my book acknowledgements, even though I thanked others in our cohort, because the end of the friendship still stung at the time. In retrospect, I should have taken the high road. Since then we have tried to patch things up but the friendship is gone; now we are just colleagues who see each other sometimes at conferences. Today, by chance, I was looking up her CV to check on a citation and saw that her new book project actually seems builds on some of my work, in a tangential way. I felt... annoyed isn't quite the right word, but it seems weird to use my work and yet not contact me about it. I think I mostly regret the lost friendship; it would be great to be friends again and then I would be entirely pleased that she found my work useful.
ReplyDelete@Requin: Some things you say reminded me of other episodes among us. She didn't thank me in her book acknowledgments even though I had gone through her panick attacks for hours and calm her down. That bothered the hell out of me.
ReplyDeleteOne would ask why did I email her with the book recommendation? Two reasons: the first one is that I hate a good research opportunity going to waste, and I really wanted somebody writing on this particular author. The second is that I still miss the friendship, and regret not having it. Realistically, it won't happen, and it's a shame.
I'm glad you sent her the book recommendation and hope that she does have an acknowledgment for you. I do think it is odd that she didn't thank you personally though.
ReplyDeleteBy now I've had fallings out with several people from graduate school and I regret all of them. I do not know whether it was the atmosphere of graduate school and tenure track that destroyed these friendships, or whether it was those which created the illusion of some friendships which were not really that.
ReplyDeleteI don't have real friends in my job, although I get along well with most of my colleagues. It is probably related to the fact that I'm the only TT in the department, everybody else is tenured. But I also think that grad school gives you an illusion of a friendship that might not be as tight as you think. Also, with all the pressures, probably small problems get amplified.
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