Originally Posted by IMBD

Hi all,

This is just my rant about my PI. Feel free to comment below or anything like that.
I worked for my PI for a year and then I asked for a letter of recommendation. At first, she refused because she felt that I was kind of clumsy at that time (I went on a trip over the summer for three months, and many things have been changed in the lab, e.g. the locations of the equipment, new enzymes and stuff so when I came back I made a few mistakes and then I had to others for help.)

I thought to myself, "****, I worked for this person for a year and now she's not doing me this favor because I made a few mistakes over the weeks?" and then I decided to move on and ask other profs for letters. After a few days, she came to me and said that she will write me a letter because she and other staffs discussed my performance in the lab and they all agreed that I contributed to the lab and it was not really fair for me to get rejected like that.

When she finished the letter, she told me that it was a strong and positive letter and she will show it other staffs to make sure that she doesn't miss any other good qualities of me.
One of the staffs even came to me and said that it was a really strong letter and she really recommended me using it.

Last week, I submitted my letters to an online service that can look at ppl's LOR's and I just got my result back from them. It turns out that my PI's letter was a negative letter and it has some pretty brutal criticism of me. Now because of her, I need to find other profs to write me another letter and the cycle is opening soon. I am so worried that i will not be able to find more letters.

I am just so pissed at my PI right now that she lied to me and tried to back-stab me like that. People, be careful.