Academic tantrums

Yesterday I got an email from someone who was rejected from a conservation conference that I'm hleping to organise for a wildlife conservation society. They had a tantrum - lots of exclamation marks and capital letters saying that it was unfair they were rejected and they will never ever go to any meetings by the society and will resign their membership.

I was asked by someone outside the conservation field whether it was usual that we get such childish and temperamental responses to rejections. Sadly we often do - whether it be journal rejections, job rejections or conference rejections.

However I also told that person that anyone who’s been in the academic business for anytime though gets used to being rejected by journals/journals and takes it in their stride. And anyone who is in conservation really cannot be a good conservation biologist if they go berserk at the slightest slight or hard knock, and have such a fragile ego. Conservation is often about conflict, and trying to resolve this conflict through reasoned argument and diplomacy. You often get knocked down, but to quote Chumbawumba, you just have to "get up again".

I’m really of the opinion that someone who is really childish, temperamental, rude etc , will not last long in real-world conservation (sadly they may last longer in academia, but that's another story).
But that person will be a pain in the butt in the field, and so their resigning or refusing to go to your conservation meetings is like natural selection, weeding the weak and unfit from the gene pool. If they are going to ditch the meetings of the Number 1 society for conservation academics over something like this, then it’s their loss not ours …

So if you get rejected for a journal, meeting "suck it up buttercup!" and to quote Wil Wheaton "don't be a dick".