Olive: Yeah, well. Tell it to Greg.
Adam: I have. I explained the weaknesses in his study. He’ll revise his proposal accordingly, and then I’ll sign o
ff on his dissertation.
Olive: So you admit that you are the one behind the decision to fail him.
Olive: Or, whatever. To fail his proposal.
Adam: Yes. In its current state, the proposal is not going to produce findings of scientific value.
Olive bit the inside of her cheek, staring at her phone and wondering if continuing this conversation was a terrible idea. If what she wanted to say was too much. Then she remembered the way Greg had treated her earlier, muttered, “Fuck it,” and typed:
Olive: Don’t you think that maybe you could have delivered that feedback in a nicer way?
Adam: Why?
Olive: Because if you had maybe he wouldn’t be upset now?
Adam: I still don’t see why.
Olive: Seriously?
Adam: It’s not my job to manage your friend’s emotions. He’s in a Ph.D. program, not grade school. He’ll be inundated by feedback he doesn’t like for the rest of his life if he pursues academia. How he chooses to deal with it is his own business.
Olive: Still, maybe you could try not to look like you enjoy delaying his graduation.
Adam: This is irrational. The reason his proposal needs to be modified is that in its current state it’s setting him up for failure. Me and the rest of the committee are giving him feedback that will allow him to produce useful knowledge. He is a scientist in training: he should value guidance, not be upset by it.
Olive gritted her teeth as she typed her responses.
Olive: You must know that you fail more people than anyone else. And your criticism is needlessly harsh. As in, immediately-drop-out-of-grad-school-and-never-look-back harsh. You must know how grads perceive you.
Adam: I don’t.
Olive: Antagonistic. And unapproachable.
And that was sugarcoating it. You’re a dick, Olive meant. Except that I know you can not be, and I can’t figure out why you’re so different with me. I’m absolutely nothing to you, so it doesn’t make any sense that you’d have a personality transplant every time you’re in my presence.
The three dots at the bottom of the screen bounced for ten seconds, twenty, thirty. A whole minute. Olive reread her last text and wondered if this was it—if she’d finally gone too far. Maybe he was going to remind her that being insulted over text at 9:00 p.m. on a Friday night was not part of their fake-dating agreement.
Then a blue bubble appeared, filling up her entire screen.
Adam: I’m doing my job, Olive. Which is not to deliver feedback in a pleasant way or to make the department grads feel good about themselves. My job is to form rigorous researchers who won’t publish useless or harmful crap that will set back our field. Academia is cluttered with terrible science and mediocre scientists. I couldn’t care less about how your friends perceive me, as long as their work is up to standard. If they want to drop out when told that it’s not, then so be it. Not everyone has what it takes to be a scientist, and those who don’t should be weeded out.
She stared at her phone, hating how unfeeling and callous he sounded. The problem was—Olive understood exactly where Greg was coming from, because she’d been in similar situations. Perhaps not with Adam, but her overall experience in STEM academia had been punctuated by self-doubt, anxiety, and a sense of inferiority. She’d barely slept the two weeks before her qualifying exams, often wondered if her fear of public speaking was going to prevent her from having a career, and she was constantly terrified of being the stupidest person in the room. And yet, most of her time and energy was spent trying to be the best possible scientist, trying to carve a path for herself and amount to something. The idea of someone dismissing her work and her feelings this coldheartedly cut deep, which is why her response was so immature, it was almost fetal.
Olive: Well, fuck you, Adam.
She immediately regretted it, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to send an apology. It wasn’t until twenty minutes later that she realized that Adam wasn’t going to reply. A warning popped up on the upper part of her screen, informing her that her battery was at 5 percent.
With a deep sigh, Olive stood up from her bed and looked around the room in search of her charger.
* * *
—
“NOW GO RIGHT.”