• Question: is being a scienctist good hours

    Asked by alphamaleraaaw to Charlie, Eoin, Jemma, Julian, Steve on 23 Mar 2011.
    • Photo: Eoin Lettice

      Eoin Lettice answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi,
      A good question!
      Most mornings I’m in the office or lab around 8.30 and I’ll stay until at least 5.30. It’s very flexible though, and if I need to leave early I can and just make up the time later in the week.
      Because it’s so flexible, I need to be disciplined so that I spend enough time in the lab to get all the work done. Usually that isn’t a problem as the work is pretty interesting!

      Eoin

    • Photo: Julian Rayner

      Julian Rayner answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi alphamale.

      Do you mean how long do we work? Sometimes the hours can be pretty full on, especially as a graduate student, but now I would work similar hours to most folks – 8 to 10 hours a day, depending on what is going on.

      Part of the trouble with my specific area of research is that I work on malaria parasites, which multiply in a 48 hour cycle. If you want to do an experiment on the parasites at a certain stage in the cycle, you have to be in the lab when they are ready, whenever that is – I certainly have done a few experiments at 2 or 3am! A student of mine once did an experiment where he had to take samples every 2 hours for 48 hours, so worked all through two days and nights, even though there was a hurricane warning in the city where we were! You have to be pretty dedicated to be a scientist, but the upside is that you are usually so involved in the experiment and interested in what the answer is, that you don’t mind much!

    • Photo: Jemma Ransom

      Jemma Ransom answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Being a scientist is really flexible. There’s a lot of work to be done, but noone cares if you do it at three in the afternoon or three in the morning, so you can organise your day according to your preferences. I prefer to do a standard 9 to 5 working day, but I know others who like to work longer, and there are always people who like to work short hours. However the workload increases as you get higher up the science tree, so it’s possible that your hours will get a bit more ridiculous.

    • Photo: Stephen Moss

      Stephen Moss answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi Alpha

      I suppose that depends on your perspective, because most scientists put in long hours – often way over the 37.5 hours defined by the European Union as the working week. The thing is, if you love what you do then you don’t mind all those extra hours because it doesn’t really seem like work.

      And the other thing is we don’t work ‘regular’ hours, like 9 to 5 for example. Nobody checks when I get in or when I leave (though this probably does happen in some areas of science), so I choose the hours I do. I like that flexibility, particularly as it means some days I can just work at home.

    • Photo: Charlie Ryan

      Charlie Ryan answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      hi alpha – i won’t lie its not the shortest of hours being a scientist. It does get a little bit to the point where people aren’t interested in the amount of hours that you work – only in the results you have!!
      But most of the time id on’t mind this – the reason i became i scientist was to find things out, and although i’d like to get the results asap, sometimes i don’t mind working a long shift.
      I think it’s like everything else really – to be good and sucessful at it you need a little bit of luck, a little bit of talent, but most of all you need hard work!!

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