As someone who never did lab work before lab, and now maintains a healthy work-life balance where I do work during work hours, I got a different message.
It gets worse, the deeper you get into it. The reason is that your work hours are rarely dictated by a boss, as much as by the progress of the experiment itself. In my case while in grad school, if an experiment was "running," after multiple false starts, it could be anywhere from 0.1 to 100 hours away from breaking down, and everybody in the group -- including the professor -- worked in shifts to reel the data in. I was good with hardware, so I was on call for repairs. In my wife's case, some reactions and tests just took a certain amount of time, and stuff began to deteriorate if you walked away from it.
There are people who accept these kinds of situations, others who are forced into it by circumstances. I'd never force anybody into it. There should be plenty of 9-5 careers.
At college, its expected you do prep and reading before the lab. If your first time reading the procedure is when you are in the lab, you are going to lose time.
Usually the prep work beforehand takes less time than bumblefucking it in the lab on the day of, results in cleaner work, and better grade outcomes.
Also, with chemistry lab work in a lot of cases you can't just abandon your work because its time for chow, that creates a safety hazard (grade loss being incidental).
Same as you are meant to do reading before lectures or seminars, or assignments.
In professional labs in industry, things are different. You are a cog in a machine, usually doing the same standard operating procedure daily, and you do tend to go home on time and get that balance.
analog31|3 years ago
It gets worse, the deeper you get into it. The reason is that your work hours are rarely dictated by a boss, as much as by the progress of the experiment itself. In my case while in grad school, if an experiment was "running," after multiple false starts, it could be anywhere from 0.1 to 100 hours away from breaking down, and everybody in the group -- including the professor -- worked in shifts to reel the data in. I was good with hardware, so I was on call for repairs. In my wife's case, some reactions and tests just took a certain amount of time, and stuff began to deteriorate if you walked away from it.
There are people who accept these kinds of situations, others who are forced into it by circumstances. I'd never force anybody into it. There should be plenty of 9-5 careers.
nibbleshifter|3 years ago
Usually the prep work beforehand takes less time than bumblefucking it in the lab on the day of, results in cleaner work, and better grade outcomes.
Also, with chemistry lab work in a lot of cases you can't just abandon your work because its time for chow, that creates a safety hazard (grade loss being incidental).
Same as you are meant to do reading before lectures or seminars, or assignments.
In professional labs in industry, things are different. You are a cog in a machine, usually doing the same standard operating procedure daily, and you do tend to go home on time and get that balance.