Ompog

Sounds like you are well set up in terms of advisor. One additional point - as in a workplace, think carefully about shitting where you eat. It’s incredibly common, but if things go south then it can make your PhD a bit of a nightmare. Better to go looking in another lab, or better yet, another department. Or swear yourself to science with a monastic devotion.

Plenty good advice here. You should be interested in your research topic, and be able to tolerate your supervisor, at the very least. Group culture is very important but can be difficult to assess from the outside. A lot depends on your field and country. If you don’t mind sharing, you could probably get some more targeted advice.

Did your reputation drop super low? Did you accidentally fry a nearby chef or librarian or something? That could do it. Otherwise, probably a bug as mentioned. Stoning and de-stoning can screw up a lot of stuff. Curious as to how you do in the finale; the fight is a real doozy.

The underfunding of postdoc positions in New Zealand has been a problem for decades. Though honestly, it’s so hard to get a faculty position in the country maybe it’s better to scare them off overseas earlier rather than later. It would be great if they could expand the current Rutherford scheme.

Fear of the bins