I have a friend who I often collaborate with. We don’t work in the same place anymore, we’re even in a different city. We work in a translational field, from very different backgrounds, which makes us quite complementary. I’m slightly older and now I hold a relatively senior position, with all that it accounts in terms of work hours occupied due to meetings, projects reporting and student hours. The other person is a senior post-doc with a position funded by a special grant that implies 100% of the time on a single project.
Whenever we’re writing a paper I keep getting notifications from google docs at random times saying “assigned to you: write this better”; “assigned to you: redo analysis according to XXX et al”; “assigned to you: justify this!!!”; “assigned to you: find a citation” (actual comments, not shortening anything)
I understand that in document comments it’s ok and effective to write this concisely. But I wouldn’t imagine talking this way to a slave, let alone a peer friend or a superior! Some comments then make me crazy. If I did something this way, after 15 years we have been doing experiments together, there’s a freaking reason. Getting a “redo this” without previous contact and maybe a call to explain why my first way was wrong drives me really angry. (wrong according to you, the non-expert on this part)
When then I answer writing just “call me to discuss” we talk for 10 minutes, and we find out what one of us 2 was missing in this specific case, clarifying the concept for both. Politely, friendly, and even productively!
So it’s not something between us, it’s really the mean of communication that seem to be truly counter-productive for constructive interaction.
So I was wondering… How do you deal with this?
Comments
Tagging “needs discussing” rather than “redo”. Meeting on Teams to discuss a dozen comments or so every two weeks.
That’s an obnoxious and unproductive way to communicate no matter who you are.
They do a terrible job of leaving comments. Tell them so. This isn’t the means of communication causing the issue, it’s how they use it.
I have a friend and longtime collaborator who will, on papers we are co-writing, comment things like “Add more here. ‘In this part, I XYZ.” I love working and thinking with her but that drives me nuts. HEY YOU’RE A CO-AUTHOR. YOU ADD MORE THERE!
Sounds like a pain but also ‘superior’, your not their boss that sounds arrogant as hell
Sounds like two different problems at once. One, your collaborator needs to write slightly more descriptive comments. Two, you are getting butt hurt that your friend isn’t being deferential to you. Ask your friend to be more descriptive and get over yourself and your problem will be solved:)