It's a good life lesson, most of the time.
Here are some cases where it's a good life lesson, in my opinion, but willing to hear arguments.The Teaching Evaluation
Teachers are graded by their students once per semester. The evaluations range from "worst professor ever" to "best professor ever," with both comments coming from students in the same class. At the end of the semester, it's too late to go back and change your teaching style to meet more students where they are, and you have to look at the evaluation as, "This is what I get, I won't get pissed off, I'll close this document for now and come back to it with a glass of champagne to celebrate the kind comments and a box of tissue and a pint of icecream for the unkind ones." Really. It's hard to see those, "Worst professor ever" comments, even if they are buried in a bunch of, "This prof is the reason I chose to go into this field," kind of comments. You get what you get...The Proposal
Your proposal is rejected. I don't mean a marriage proposal, unless it was to Sheldon Cooper and he made you write up a 15 page document explaining why the union is required (honestly, that's not a bad idea to impose that on future suitors of mine). I mean a scientific proposal. You either spent 6 months of blood sweat and tears crafting the perfect document, or you tossed it together in the last week before it was due. Or the last 72 hours, you do you, I won't judge. No matter how much time you spent on it, it's a BIG part of yourself that you poured into that document, and getting it rejected feels like a personal blow, even if the comments are, "The proposal did not [do the thing the funding agency asked it to do]." You probably knew that going in, so it's a good time to get what you get, and not throw a fit, but instead pay attention to the criticisms and rewrite for next time. You get what you get....The Paper
For those of you not in science, let me tell you how science works. You spend a lot of time (usually over a year), usually with a team of people, crafting the most beautiful science possible, then spend the next 6 months turning it into the most beautiful report possible. You submit to a journal, and it gets returned without review. You are Noah, on your ark, and you just let your little birdie out into the world and it returns immediately, letting you know the flood is not over yet. You rewrite, submit to a more specialized journal, and it returns with a rejection after review. The bird comes back, but not immediately. You rewrite, submit again, and it returns with a decision of "major revision required." The bird comes back, this time with an olive branch in its beak. You rewrite, and this time it is accepted with minor revisions. The flood is over, the bird has found a place to nest. You get what you get...It's a really bad life lesson some of the time.
Sometimes, life doesn't hand you lemons, it hands you a challenge that is a call to fight for yourself and your people. Let's be clear here.
The Proposal
The proposal [did do a good job of doing the things the funding agency asked it to do], and spelled out how, but was reviewed as not doing so anyway. For heaven's sake, if it's a truly unfair review, do not accept it at face value, but ask the program officer to go through it with you. If your proposal was given an unfair review, try to figure out why and how, and work with the program officer to remedy the situation. You might not get it funded anyway (unfairly reviewed proposals are often not-selectable for other reasons), but you should at least figure out the bias that was applied to yours and work to ensure it is not an issue for you in further proposals nor for further proposers by bringing it to the attention of the program officers. ...Throw a fit
The Paper
The little birdie came back too soon given what you expected. WTF, it's a great paper and was submitted to the appropriate journal. Check yourself before you throw a fit - did your letter do a good job of explaining why it belonged in the journal? Was your abstract impactful and relevant to the current climate in your field? Do you honestly think it belongs in that journal rather than a lower-impact one? If the answers are all consistent, then you might be the subject of a bias. It's worth it to ask for a phone chat with the editor at this point. Go in prepared to discuss why it's the best paper for that journal, and why that journal doesn't want to see you publish it elsewhere, I mean, you as Science would HATE to see Nature get this because it's going to be incredibly highly sited. Back up your arguments where you can with statistics and hard data. Hand wavy stuff is easy to dismiss, but statistics like, "Papers involving this type of methodology had a 80% increase in submissions and a 300% increase in citations over the past 5 years, indicating a high interest field with little to few researchers actually doing it compared to the need." ...Throw a fit
The Interview
This one hit a little too close to home for me today. Here's why: female professors are consistently reviewed with lower stats than their male professors. A study found that even when professors are teaching the same content for the same class, students will rank the female as a worse professor than the male. Another several found that having a female name over a male name as the first / individual name (as opposed to family name) would result in the resume being evaluated more poorly than the EXACT SAME resume with a classically male name (there are so many of these studies that it's hard to cite just one, I suggest looking into Freakonomics' citation list). Similarly for having a name traditionally associated with an ethnic minority over a "white caucasian" name, e.g. "Shanique" or "Makayla" over "Isabella" or "Charlotte."
The thing that got me going today was a story of an interviewer interrupting, talking over, and basically "mansplaining" to the interviewee the interviewee's area of work. At this point, I have to admit that I hate that it's called "mansplaining." It's "rudesplaining," and there's nothing manly about it. I've been "rudesplained" to by women and by men (mostly men), and here's how it goes: "Oh, you said something I know a little bit about, let me express my authority by interrupting you, cutting you off, and making you listen to me tell you how I already know everything about your field." The best is when you get interrupted in the middle of a 10 minute talk to hear someone drone on for 5 minutes about their pet theory that has largely been discredited in the field (in which you are an expert and they are not), just to have them say, "Don't interrupt me," when you try to cut them off and get back to your presentation a couple times. That's the ultimate heights of rudesplaining.
If you're in an interview and you get rudesplained to, there are a couple ways to handle it. If you are one-on-one, you can try asking for the other party to allow you to complete your sentences and actually make the statements you are trying to make (shouldn't have to ask for this). If it's a one-on-many, ask that the rudesplainer please cease and desist so you can actually discuss your own work rather than their pet theory, and hope the group will back you up. I do not recommend sharply pointing out, "You invited me for the interview, so do you want to see what I can offer your department or do you just want to tell me things I already know because I am actually an expert in this field and you are not?" It's quite gratifying to do so, but it's seen as hostile whether you are male or female, even if its a totally legitimate thing to say. It's much better to let the rudesplainer make an ass of themselves in public and then bring it up with the chair later. If you get the sense that rudesplaining is just par for the course in the new job, don't take it. ....Throw a fit, actually don't. Walk away from that toxic work place faster than an olympic speed walker, and don't ever look back. Dodged a bullet with that one.
