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When I first started my job, a professor once said to me, "How many hours are you working each week." My response was, "I'm not playing that game with you." I get that PIs need to see you are in the lab and working, in order to get a sense that you are committed. /1
But the idea of comparing your hours at work in some attempt to determine if you are "good" or not is ridiculous. No one gets promoted for working long hours. They get promoted for getting results. /2
I've been in environments where leaving a coat over the back of your chair was a good strategy when you went home for the evening. But I also know that no one cares how long you work if you have results. If your work is going great, no one pays any attention to your work hours/3
If you have no results, or take a long time to do something that shouldn't take a long time, people will pay more attention to long coffee breaks you take, or vacations you plan. That's just the reality. /4
As a grad student and postdoc I did work long hours and weekends, because I wanted to. I worked hard and played hard. I took time for dinners with friends and ski trips and long weeks visiting family. But I liked being with my lab mates and working on my projects. /5
If the environment was good, I loved spending all my time there. When it wasn't, I minimized how much time I spent there versus the library or working from home. But the great thing about science is we have that kind of flexibility and freedom. /6
Once I had children, that had to change. When your kids are young, they need more from you and you really don't want to miss their growing up. The days are long but the years are way too short. But wait! Am I now saying you can't do "world-class" science and have a family? No. /7
Once I had people in my group with children, I realized the difference between working and hanging around. I had a postdoc whose time management was killer. She had plans and lists and came in at 8am and left every day at 5pm. Sometimes worked on weekends. /8
She got more done than anyone in my group working 12+ hours a day. When she had kids, that didn't change AT ALL, because she worked when she was at work, and she left when her work was done. If we are honest, we aren't AT WORK focused every minute on research. /9
We are on Twitter🤔, we are taking breaks to talk to our lab members, we're taking coffee breaks, we're reading papers that are interesting but not related to our work, we're checking the news, serving on committees, taking classes, etc etc etc. Don't believe it? Time track. /10
Was said postdoc antisocial? Not at all. She went to lunch with the crew, she was a great lab citizen. She was just meticulous in planning and execution. She didn't waste time at work on things that weren't research related. /11
I want to be clear, research is difficult stuff. It does take time and effort, and if you are in lab 40 hours a week doing fluff and not research, no, you won't succeed. But if you work 100+ hours a week and only 40 of that is research related, you might. /12
So you could just work 40 hours on research and do well too. I think we'd all like to believe if we just "worked harder" we'd succeed. It's a safety net because if you fail, you can point to this concept and say, "I didn't work hard enough." /13
It's much harder to wrap your head around the idea that some of success in our field is luck, some is right-place, right-time, some of it is funding levels, some of it is politics, some of it is personality - there is a lot you have no control over. /14
So instead of living with the realities of that grey-zone, we insist we have to "work hard long hours" as our shield for the fact the enterprise isn't fair. And when you point to "world-class" scientists - don't forget to look at their funding. /15
If you can afford to have 20-30 people you work 60+ hours per week, you will get a lot more done and published than someone mentoring a few grads and undergrads. Don't equate someone's success with their work hours. There are a lot of bodies underneath those accolades. /16
Everywhere I've worked, at every level, had professors bemoaning how little their lab members worked, especially when compared to how that professor worked at the same stage. Kids these days! /17
If we care about students through early career researchers, we would do better teaching time management, strategic planning, and self-care. Work life balance is achievable and desirable, but not if we equate that with being a mediocre scientist. /18
Once you are in a position of power, like being a PI, that is when you can change things. Especially once you have tenure. So we can choose not to perpetuate the myth of "long hours" = success. And we should. /19x
