Friday 7pm: Stacks of slides, empty teacup to be refilled, few “have a good weekends” to colleagues as they leave the lab. 10pm: Only me and Postdoc A left in the lab. She’s just started an overnight immunostaining and a time-lapse recording. I am trying to submit my thesis, but what the heck was she still doing in the lab so late on a Friday night? I asked, and the answer was she is trying to “submit her life”. A few minutes later her husband, a non-scientist but our lab regular, came to the lab to visit A. In the weekend when A is working the husband is often here too.
Long working hours is a norm if you want to be successful, to publish that paper before your competitors, to progress (or I gathered “to submit your life”). For a successful scientist, his/her partner has to be extremely understanding and patient to bear such work habit. What really struck me is the how hard it is to create a work-life balance for scientists. For a young researcher there is little job stability as most jobs are contracts, combining odd working hours and poor salary, I am not surprised several of my PhD friends have moved out of academic research. Fortunately for Postdoc A, her husband comes to the lab so they can “spend time together”, but really, how much must a scientist and family endure to be successful?
haha, look for a partner whom has the same job, or accepts your life style.
I think this is why there’s so many scientist couples. They have no life outside the lab, so…
But I sometimes worry how much I, as a science communicator, should encourage people into a career in science when this is what they have to look forward to.
Oct 04: I was engaged with a Minnesotan. My post-doc mentor moved from Mayo Clinic, MN to New Orleans. Three choices: 1. Follow him, and continue my training 2. Find another mentor and “waste” 2 years of experiments 3. Go back to my country, practice medicine, but no research. Although my fiancé had a good job at Mayo, he followed me to New Orleans.
Aug 05: Katrina came and he lost his job. I continued my research at Mayo Clinic again, but with one-year deadline before we had to relocate, he wanted to go to law school. I had to re-build the mice colony and do the experiments. My fiancé helped me breeding mice, measuring tumors, recording data, etc. We worked evenings, nights, and weekends. He had to study for his LSAT too.
Oct 05: Wilma destroyed our November’s weeding site: Cozumel. We kept working and studying instead.
Jan 06: We finally got married somewhere else.
Aug 06: We moved to D.C. he got into Georgetown Law. I got a second post-doc at Johns Hopkins.
Feb 07: My work after Katrina was published in Cancer Research!!
Oct 08: I received three job offers; my husband is doing well in his school. It is my time to help him. I commute to Baltimore and do all the housework so he can live close to his school and focus on studying.
My point is that if you want to succeed, no matter what career you have chosen, you had better act smart at picking that “right” person that is going to support your desire of success. Also both need to work hard and smart to keep each other happy.
Now this is my question: What does success mean? Publishing papers and get jobs… Having a baby…working 9 to 5 weekends free…money? I think it is a very personal feeling that isn’t set by any established standards.
There are of course perks being a scientist too! One of my favourite is going to conferences. The people contact of a researcher might be limited on a daily bases but I love how the scientists around the world could meet up and discuss ideas as easily as if they work on the same floor. This is something very unique and not found in other occupations. Fellowship contracts also allow to you live in foreign countries you couldn’t have otherwise, and no big language barrier either when you move.
I agree the definition of success in life is very personal, but in academia I think other definitions exist (publish or…). While you wish to progress in research I think it’s hard to escape from this particular kind of judgement.
I am a Ph.D. biologist married to a Ph.D. chemist. We’ve been married 15 years (we met in grad school). We both work in similar fields in industry. I am working at a small company spun off from the larger firm where she is employed; this allows us both to work on a similar technology without sharing a lab. Our interaction on technical subjects is very satisfying, with occasional co-authored papers and frequent dinner-table conversation (testing the limits of patience of our 3 and 7 year olds). We enjoy our life together away from the labs as well, and perhaps that is enhanced by our separate work environments. It’s a very nice situation.