They just continued the same way of working they had already before. I went through a similar stunt around the end of the 90s (yes also Romania) but I called it quits after half a year. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I'm aware that either I or the group would have exploded had I stayed more. I respect your resilience.
Had I decided to call it quits, I would have probably asked myself, even to this day, questions like: did I make the right choice, what if things would have improved, what would have happened if I've tried harder, maybe there was just a misunderstanding, maybe it was my fault, maybe working at the University would have been the smart choice, etc.
I actually still have the emails asking for the project coordinator, the one responsible for scholarships for all of us (I've searched them out, out of curiosity while writing this article and their CV is 12 pages long and, naturally, this project is listed there as a success) for ways to abandon the whole thing. I didn't even get a reply. I was already 2 years in so I've would have had to return the whole sum back, money I didn't have. I was penniless, as all PhD candidate seem to be. So I did what I had and could do, which is summarized in the post.
