PS: I'm starting to hate you

Dear Research Group Member:

We've been working together as a team with several other people for a few years now. This letter is to inform you that the honeymoon is officially over.

In short, I don't have any problem doing more of the work than you do. Even though you are from BIG NAME SCHOOL and I am from CRAPPY LITTLE SCHOOL, you are still a graduate student and I am not. This is, for better or for worse, more my project than yours. Better still, it's more Professor B's project than it is mine. I have ready access to resources that you don't have, I have passed my exams, I have done the dissertation thing, I have done the job market thing, and I know you have all that coming and are still getting used to teaching a full load. That's fine and it has been for several years. In short, I'm cool with mentoring you because you have good ideas, are a great writer, and an excellent presenter.

What's not fine is expecting other people to do all the work and then taking all the credit. What is even less fine is your continued meddling in my personal life--no really, get the hell out. In fact, if you don't get the hell out I'm going to walk away from this and any other project you ever touch because you do very little work till the last minute and I'm not about to continue floating someone who has mysteriously started treating me like shit.

And that other project? The one you told everybody else about but not me? Yeah? Prof B isn't happy with you about that. "But... you always get stuff done." Yes, I do. And done competently. When everyone else is slacking I make sure that stuff happens. When I start having to slack on our projects I make sure that other people know and understand what has to get done by what date on their end so that research projects get done and published on time.

Look, I don't know what the hell your problem is, but I can easily go work with other people (and at this point, I'm gesturing at the group of folks that have been trying to steal me away for some time, but this being the internet, you can't see that). The truth is I'm hoping we can somehow get back to the status quo we had before, but I'm not sure that is possible anymore. I'm not the kind of person that's going to make the group vote you off the island. I'm not even going to tell them why I've decided to go work on this other project for a bit. In fact, I've just told them "Oh yeah, I'm working on this now and look how totally awesome it is!" and smiled the entire time because I just don't do the "back stabby" thing that so many academics are good at.

But of course, we have loose ends to tie up on existing projects, speaking engagements that I'm sure as hell not going to drop out of, and so on.

I get it that you think you have to rub shoulders with BIG NAME PEOPLE all the time at conferences to IMPROVE YOUR CAREER. But those people you are using, blatantly hitting on, and kinda being creepy to? Those people are my friends.

I'm not going to continue to associate with you unless you get schooled fast and hard (and at your age, this is unlikely to happen) about balancing work and friendship. You're all over the board and it's making my head spin. You can't tell me to "not be friends with so and so because THEY WROTE X BOOK" when I've been friends with that person for longer than you've been in grad school. You also can't try and screw with that relationship without getting me royally pissed.

In short--you aren't the center of my universe. Get the fuck over it.

Love,

My Little Proffie