A 40-hour workweek?

Posted on March 8, 2008 by | 1 Comment

In academia? See what they say:
Mad Hatter
EcoGeoFemme
ScienceGirl
Jennie
Mad Hatter again
DrugMonkey
Laurie Granieri
ScienceWoman
Telecommuting has its perks. But working only 40 hours is not one of them. Especially in my case in which the line between work, blogging, schmoozing and fun is blurry. Is posting this weekend post to be considered work (building and keeping my own community that, tomorrow, will click on a link to PLoS) or pleasure (doing what I always did – reading interesting stuff online and sharing with my readers)? Both? Who’s to tell? I have fun doing it. But I have fun doing my job, too.
And back when I was in grad school, my gregariousness/sociability was a drawback (wasting my time chatting with colleagues), so I did most of my work at night and on weekends (the Big Holidays were the best as there was absolutely nobody to talk to). And the nature of my research was such that I could not possibly work 9-5. I had to do big campaigns, i.e., experiments that lasted 24, 36 or even 72 hours straight, followed by a couple of days I am not expected to be seen on campus at all.

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One response to “A 40-hour workweek?”

  1. Propter Doc's avatar Propter Doc | March 8, 2008 at 10:36 pm |

    My guilty secret? I’m a postdoc who works about 40 hours a week. Not 9-5 5 days a week, but some variety of it. If I work a morning of the weekend, I skip out early one weekday afternoon. Yeah, a mixture of 10 hour days and 2 hour days in a week, but the work gets done so what’s to complain about?
    Like Laurie Granieri, I like getting home at a decent hour, and doing stuff like cooking and blogging (not sure about your case of hobby vs work though) and all that. I like my work, but I like my life too.