Learning the unwritten rules

If you spend long enough in academia, you come to know them: the colleague whose behaviour everyone whispers about in the corridors, yet whose name never appears on any agenda.

I still remember the first time a senior professor made me cry during a lab meeting. I was the PhD candidate. The room froze.

Afterwards, a well-meaning colleague pulled me aside and whispered, “Just avoid him. That’s just how he is.” The lesson was clear: the problem wasn’t his behaviour. It was my proximity to it.

My survival depended on learning one of academia’s oldest rules: some transgressions aren’t offences to report, but pitfalls you need to learn to navigate.

Back then, after months of harassment from that same professor, I was naive enough to consider filing a formal complaint. The head of the department strongly advised against it: the consequences would hit me long before they hit him. I wasn’t the only one to hear this. Many PhD candidates have left academia because of situations like this.

Even later, when I became a professor myself, I regularly encountered “difficult” colleagues. Some were openly misogynistic. Others seemed determined to humiliate me in public. Still others yelled at will.

I once reported misogynistic behaviour to the Equal Treatment Committee. Their response was surprising and inadequate: they offered me a conflict management course. As if I was the one who needed to adjust, not the offender.

This is one of the reasons academic advancement can feel so unfair. The game isn’t just about merit; it’s also about behaviour that too often goes unpunished. Survival sometimes means learning to play on a field where the referee doesn’t blow the whistle.

What can you do?

After years of observing and surviving, I developed my own strategy. 

If someone who was ranked above me used their authority to undermine, bully, or obstruct — like that department head — I made it my goal to eventually reverse the power dynamic. So I became their boss, or higher up the hierarchy.

This is not a cure for the behaviour of “difficult” colleagues or the passivity that enables it. But it is a strategy to avoid being broken by it.

For those just starting out, feeling trapped by this same dynamic: Your first priority is to survive with your sanity and integrity intact. 

Observe the field, learn the unwritten rules, and pick your battles with extreme care. This isn't about condoning bad behaviour; it's about gathering the situational intelligence and positional strength you’ll need. 

Because sometimes, to change the rules, you first have to secure a seat at the table where they're written.