But unofficial relationships matter in science. For example, I am currently doing an unpaid internship in the hopes of getting a paper out of it. If the profess

But unofficial relationships matter in science. For example, I am currently doing an unpaid internship in the hopes of getting a paper out of it. If the professor cancelled it, I might be left with nothing to show for months of hard work, similar to the guy in the story. That kind of thing is not uncommon at all at the PhD level.