knowing when to fold 'em

Quitting a bad situation is often much harder than staying in it, suffering and experiencing incremental daily losses. That's advice that I'm sure can be found in the pages of Glamour, but it is true, and maybe harder to apply in the workplace than in our love lives. After all, most of us hold our shortest jobs longer than we kept our shortest romantic partners around...

Quitting can be seen as failure, as a situation you couldn't deal with, a situation you couldn't suavely turn into a something good for you. That you couldn't cope with the hand you were dealt, or what you signed up for. What's worse, even if you know getting out of a toxic situation ASAP isn't a 'failure', often others view it that way, such as the boss you're quitting, other narrow-minded members of the department, or your extended family.

I have seen many people suffer in academia because they didn't quit a bad situation (a bad advisor, typically). At the time most of them thought that sticking it out wasn't just the inertial path... they thought it was the smartest thing to do. They thought the suffering would be worth the benefits they'd get from working with an asshole bignameprof at FancyPantsU. Why quit a lab and make an 'official' enemy of the advisor? Why waste time starting up a new project in a new lab, when you're only n years away from finishing their PhD, and then you can move into a better lab? What's the worst that could happen... it's not going to get worse than the situation is right now, right?

At least one of my friends felt explicitly trapped, like all his other choices brought significant losses of prestige, status, and potential for the future. Instead of quitting, he started having panic attacks, which (thankfully) cleared up after he graduated...

My reply to their feelings at the time was get out, get out now (sometimes I suggested trying to stay at FancyPantsU in another lab). The following is somewhat informed by hindsight, since they all stayed in their bad situations.

* If you and your advisor have really hit the skids, it's unlikely you will reconstruct a working relationship with him or her. That ship has sailed, get out and start working with someone who will give you a good recommendation letter.

* It takes longer to get a good number of papers when you do your PhD/postdoc in a toxic lab, so you're not losing as much time as you think if you find another lab. Plus, you probably have a more refined idea of what you'd like to study, and you can pick a better lab for your interests. This doesn't apply if you're really just about to leave (less than 12 months? This heavily depends on your life situation), then there is a value to just getting through your remaining time.

* Things can always get worse. You can't bargain with yourself based on exactly how bad things are for you at one exact moment. Imagine how your asshole advisor will react if you get married/pregnant/have a family crisis... if your experiments are equivocal for a year through no fault of your own... if your advisor's spouse gets cancer/alzheimers and your advisor stops showing up for months on end. These situations (all plucked from my and my friends' experiences) try the best of working relationships, and make the bad go to much worse.

But none of my friends chose to quit their bad academic situation. Perhaps I have a skewed circle of friends... but it's not universal because I've quit two bad situations in my academic past.

Neither was easy, but the first quitting was harder. I was quitting in large part because I could not handle a family crisis and the position, and I had to face disappointing people's expectations, for not doing the best/most prestigious thing. It actually had nothing to do with the very nice guy who was supervising me.

The second quitting was changing advisors after my first year of grad school. I had been told that the way to pick a grad program was to pick the person I wanted to work with, go work with them, and follow them if they leave that school. Well, I came to a certain university to work with a well-known female professor, and I did not enjoy that lab environment, and would not have thrived there. My apologies for the vague description... but she and I get along fine now that I don't work for her, so I'm not going to give too many identifying/entertaining details. Initially, I felt I would have to change institutions, and was worried that it was another gamble... what if I couldn't get along with the next advisor? Would I then move *again*? As many were aware I was feeling this way, I was gently approached by a younger professor with whom I was friendly, and I decided to stay and join his lab. I was very, very nervous about confronting my professor, and telling her I wanted to change advisors, but it was just one awkward conversation. And maybe a few slightly awkward months. She was completely professional, though clearly surprised. It was an unequivocally good decision. Through the grapevine, I have heard that she thinks I'm a decent scientist, she and I are friendly at meetings (and that's not an act, at least from my side), and I remained friends with the members of her lab. And that friendly professor became my wonderful PhD advisor.

My bad first PhD year was not as bad as the situations of those I know who suffered through their PhD. At least it hadn't gotten that bad yet, but I had more of a desire to act than they did. I think this was mostly because I'd quit something before (and hadn't been blackballed/struck with lightening), and because I'd had an amazing undergraduate advisor who had showed me what a mentor is/can be.

My best friend dragged herself through a PhD in a lab she should have quit years earlier. Despite graduating her, her asshole advisor has told lies about her to colleagues, won't write her letters, and always seems surprised to see her at meetings -- didn't I destroy your career? why are you still here? While I am amazed to see that the asshole advisor is being worn down, and has started admitting that she will have a career after all, my friend shouldn't have to deal with these ridiculous, extra obstacles to getting a TT job. She has experienced far more negatives to her science and to her career path from staying with a bad advisor than she would have experienced by changing labs. But she is stubborn, she is driven, and her science is very, very hot, so she's going to make it.

There's a lot of advice out there, of people telling others it's time to walk away... but fewer stories of how quitting can work out, or how staying in a bad situation takes more years from your life than leaving would. If people know of others, please link to them in the comments.