nucleargirl said:
yeah I should set some boundaries. if he doesn't want to be friendly, maybe I should stop trying to make him a friend. First priority is my project and my degree, if I do well, that is going to stay with me. Second is to get to know more people in the lab and see how things work in science. maybe make a few friends along the way. Thirdly is to get chummy with my supervisor, it takes two to do that. if he's not up for it, then I have limited time to try to make it work - I have other things to do as well. It makes sense, he has to mark my project so maybe he needs to be impartial and distant. I want to be closer so I can get more help from him. But I can get the help I need even if I keep my distance. I don't know, its difficult to strike a balance. I will see how it goes next week. But thanks for bringing this to my attention Borek!
I'm not a relationship expert or anything of the sort, but I can see you having problems you are trying have a kind of 'friendship' in the type of environment you are in.
This is just my opinion (IMO), but the best way IMO to to do this is just to act in a professional capacity.
Now the word 'professional' is often misused and misunderstood but by this I mean that you deal with him strictly on a basis that all understanding is out in the open, all expectations are out in the open, and that everyone is aware of their obligations, rights, responsibilities and other things that may be 'taken for granted'.
To me this is what distinguishes a professional from a non-professional: a professional has been in the game long enough to know that if things aren't made absolutely crystal clear in the beginning then the omissions end up turning into something sour. To a non-professional it might be interpreted as overkill, 'being mean or unfriendly', being 'too demanding', 'micromanaging' or something else but the fact is that when everything is on the table, no one can complain later (or at least if they do complain, you can point it out).
The process do to this in terms of specifics will ultimately depend on the people involved, the nature of the work, the nature of the workplace among other things but I still think my advice can be useful for obtaining more specifics.
The final thing I want to mention is to realize that the nature of the job often affects the personality of the person at work (not necessarily outside of work though).
Your supervisor probably has had a lot of experience dealing with people and over time may have come to the conclusion of being impartial and distant. Maybe the nature of science has forced him to become that way so that he does his job in a professional manner. If he is a busy man who comes in frequent contact with many people and is extremely busy, then impartiality might actually be a necessity to do the job effectively and to communicate with other people with different roles and backgrounds.
I have noticed that there are reasons why, at least, I observe some people to not be 'friendly' or 'distant' or something else and sometimes its not for the reason that they are 'cold' or 'unsocial' or something else along those lines.
Don't beat yourself up about it though, you may end up being the same and later realize why people in the kind of job, in the kind of workplace, with the kind of responsibilities actually act like this: life is all about learning and I gaurantee that you are placed in this situation to learn, just like the rest of us! :)
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