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[lke88]

I have a question that I would like to pose to see what others think about this situation.  I have had an assistantship with the same professor for the past several years in my program.  I would say that over those years the total amount of work that I have done is probably 10 hours worth.  At first, I would go to my supervisor and ask what was needed to be done and would get an apology for a lack of work and finally I just stopped asking.  Now understand that I am very grateful for this situation because I am still getting my tuition and monthly stipend, however I feel uneasy about it almost like I am cheating the system.  I had let those feelings of guilt go to the wayside until recently I learned that another student was asked to work with my supervisor for the remainder of his assistanship because his advisor had heard that my advisor "had been lacking an assistant for the past year and needed some help getting things off of the ground." 
I'm not sure how to take this.  On one hand I wonder if my advisor maybe just cannot stand me and would rather have me work for free than actually have to work with me himself.  However, I have worked on several projects (for which I was paid additionally) because he suggested me to the PIs of these projects.  I have heard from others around the university how he is very impressed by my work etc, etc and even found extra money for me to use to present at a research conference, which leads me to be even more perplexed by the situation.  The fact is I will probably keep my mouth shut about it and consider it a "gift" and one day (hopefully) I can do the same for a doc student.  I sure know that it has made my life in grad school a lot easier but it still leaves me wondering why he tells others that he is without an RA and asks to have other students work with him.

Any thoughts???

[temy05]

The professor just needed a new face. You've become a 'spent-horse' already. Better you look elsewhere before you're shown the way to the door.

[t_r_b]

Since you haven't discussed your assistantship with this person for a while, it's quite possible that he has forgotten that you have it. Graduate funding systems can be pretty byzantine (like many other things in academia), so anything is possible. The main thing is, if your department has enough money to keep you on an assistantship for years without doing anything, you're in pretty good shape. But you might want to remind your supervisor of your existence every once in a while. It sounds like a nice arrangement: the less work you do, the less he has to supervise!

It's also quite possible that your supervisor said he had no assistant as an excuse to get his colleague off his back about his lack of progress on his project. And the colleague may have reassigned the other assistant to your supervisor in order to call that bluff. Who knows what petty manipulations lurk within the hearts of faculty.