Recommender playing hardball

I really don't know what to suggest. That's just a terrible situation. If you try to make him write the rec, it will probably be half-hearted. If you don't get the rec from him it won't look good - especially if you can't get another supervisor from your current job. I'm going to think about this some and see if I can help with a creative solution.

Can you write one and get him to sign it? take him out for dinner and buy him drinks

Holy sh*T that would piss me off. Jeez, some people. You know, man, once you get into your school of choice, don't feel obligated to give him anything more than 2 weeks. I know its being vindicative, but man.

GMATT73, maybe you could write it as willget800 suggested? Or, I know some consulting firms will interview the recommender and write a rec for them. (Accepted.com does it I think)

I've seriously considered that option. It could have disasterous repercussions though if the adcoms notice any parallel lines of reasoning or similiarities in grammatical structure. Pretty sure they are savvy to picking out those clues these days. I also considered the client option, but all of the schools I am applying to require an immediate supervisor's recommendation.

In my industry, 99.8% of my colleagues work as translators, interpreters, and corporate trainers or instructors reporting to one Kansai regional manager --Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto. He is unfortunately the ONLY boss who is familiar with my work on a professional level, and since most of my work is done autonomously, our relationship is perfunctory at best.

It's like he's relishing his position of power to decide the fate of my future. #*@#!

Just write it yourself. The adcomms are not mindreaders. Writing two might be different.

But writing one won't be bad.

do you have a relative with distinct writing style?