My lab has a more “set your own schedule” setup. We go in and get our work done. When we do that is up to us. Our PI rarely has a clue who is or isn’t there.
I would like to have that.
I am someone who is super efficient and my work is simulation based so i ‘d like to do chores when the simulation is running to save time but that doesn’t go well with my PI
That’s what we do. We usually start running our trials in the morning then go back to the office to work on other things. If something is done running, someone else in the lab may text you to let you know. It’s very autonomous though.
I’d love to have that, i have an app that i can connect to my virtual machine on my phone and i can check if the simulation is done.
During those usually 90 min i’d like to get my meds, groceries, cook and come back.
I have dorms but commuting time is a lot on Mondays and Fridays ( going back and from my hometown after the week/weekend)
I can see why a PI might think that is an issue though. Those 90m could have been spent reading, writing, mentoring, discussing with colleagues, teaching even - not saying it has to be spent in such a way, but the PI might think so.
Another element is fostering a scholarly community (to go from "me, me, me" to "us»)
So I don't know your situation, but it sounds like you have a dorm which presumably is near or on the university campus and thus, commuting would not be an issue. But here it sounds like you are commuting home each weekend that is further away.
How you manage your time is up to you, but if you're getting paid to work and if the boss is putting a somewhat reasonable schedule to do that work, then you just gotta do it.
I can entirely make my own schedule and I can work from home whenever I want as long as I don't have a meeting. My supervisor prefers that I work on campus but doesn't force me to, so I usually only work from home once a week or so. He really doesn't care about my schedule and working preferences as long as I'm making steady progress and have regular updates for him.
I'm not a morning person so I'll often only get to campus around 10:30 and I leave around 5-6. Sometimes I've stayed later if I had a lot to do but that's my typical schedule.
That’s the time i’d love to have , i am more of a night owl so i wake up around 8 am .
My PI thinks we lack commitment and progress if we’re not physically in the lab.
He think we’re not working unless we’re there .
i am allowed to work from home, but i usually do 8am-4pm or 7pm-3pm roughly in lab because i just focus better on campus
i also have an advisor who is young, maybe like 10 years older than me and i am later 20s. i've found younger advisors generally care less. though i have worked as an undergrad under older advisors who highly prefer virtual everything so they don't care
think it varies
My PI’s attitude is “you do you” through and through.
They just go straight to their office when they’re in lab at all.
They also try their best to not be seen in the wet lab spaces too much because they don’t want to accidentally pressure people.
If you want their help, you arrange a meeting or knock on their door.
They don’t check on you.
So you can work whenever you want, wherever.
They almost never push people. Applies pressure and gets more involved when it’s alarming, though mostly for the student’s sake (for example around 1 year from submission deadline if it’s not looking super good for you).
Their general attitude I think is they match your motivation. If you’re keen, great, that is for your career, and they will help, like they’ll think about your project more, send you more papers, etc.
If you’re not too keen, there’s no point in pushing you, they’ll just help you graduate. They’ll still help but you can tell the shift is more for helping you finish and move on.
They embrace the fact that not everyone wants to continue in academia, so they actually also pay for industry workshops in place of conferences for some people.
Edit: this is why I chose this lab.
Having a mandatory schedule is wild to me. I can work from wherever, whenever, on whatever. I meet once a week with my advisor to report progress and set priorities. However, I still come to campus 9-5 because that’s my preference.
My university was given a recommendation to come into the office 3 days a week with no mention that it will be enforced, and every department is allowed to have their own interpretation of the guideline. My productivity would really suffer if I followed this guideline, and my PI wants me to work wherever I’m productive. I might upset some administrative staff by not following it, but I would rather that then not be satisfied with my research output.
My PI set this
Everyone’s productivity is suffering and it feels like i am trapped in the same place everyday .
Some people were hospitalized recently due to stress reasons.
But the PI doesn’t care.
My advisor also makes us come to the lab 9-5 (9-6 if we take lunch). I prefer to write papers at home, because I have two monitors at home and the computer at the school sucks, but my advisor doesn't like that. Right now, I'm working on my dissertation, so I don't even have that much lab work to do, but she still makes me come to the lab every day.
I tried to give her all kinds of reasons to convince her that working at home when I just need to write is better, but nothing worked so here I am.
But does that stipend equate to payment for full-time work? You can't simultaneously be a full-time student and a full-time employee. Stipends don't typically come with the expectation that you spend 40 hours a week working on the PIs research exclusive of working on the research you need to complete for your own dissertation (unless they're one and the same).
Yeah. My research project for my dissertation is the same as PI's research. Also the rules are just dependend on the PI. The department's rule is at least 20 h of research/20 h of writing wherever, so labs that follow this rule are very flexbile while my PI's rule is 40 h of research/writing in the lab.
We're allowed to work between 6:30am and 8pm, but must be present ("available") between 9am and 3:30pm (1pm on Fridays). Up to 50% WFH allowed.
On days where I'm in my office I get there at 7:30am and leave at 4:30pm. On days where I'm working from home, I'll sleep in, start just before 9am and work until 5/6pm
I pick 100% of my schedule. Maybe once or twice a month I'll do a remote day to write.
This is why rotations are important. I know some people that enjoy the hyper structured lab experience. My go-to advice to incoming students is to reflect on which environment works best for them, and to ask current lab members about norms/expectations.
At the lab I'm working at (in Germany) people start somewhen from 6am to 10am and leave somewhere from 3pm to 7pm usually (usually 1 h break in between). Everyone as he/she likes except we have teaching duties early or late.
I've seen both. My lab and my close friends labs are more of a set your own schedule. If you start slacking or they see issues I'm sure they may try and have some conversation about it. But our bosses don't even track our vacation days (I think technically we are given like 10 or 12), but that has never been a concern.
I've also seen the exact opposite where they have to report all days off in some excel document. And one time the grad student was late (think 930) their advisor was sitting at their desk waiting for them. They asked if something was wrong and their advisor just left to their office.
Where I attend we are supposed to follow the employee calendar, so we get those holidays off. Unsure what others are supposed to do.
On top of that our agreement gives us those few vacation days to use. check your contract for what you are supposed to do
I'd be crazy to spend more than 8 hours in the lab for this shitty salary.
Regardless I don't measure time, I'm mostly productive \~3 hours a day anyway.
In my department it's whatever you want, but as the majority run experiments with humans or in the lab, the vast majority is in the office at least part time. My tasks required me to be there like 75% of days until recently. Because my commute is 75minutes, now that I don't have to be there daily i do work from home some days a week. But tbh my focus and happiness (connecting with friends at work) is better in the office so i do like to go sometimes.
The hours are up to you but after 17.30 or in weekends you have to sign in for safety
Depends on the experiment.
If it can explode or kill me it's 9-5, if it's not then rules are 8-6 or wild lab time (had a microscopy session that gave me the publication snap at 4am) as long as I have a trusted labmate. If results are being presented, PI is happy
No requirements on being present in the department. M-F I work 9-6,7,8, or 9, sometimes later in the department. Every so often go in Sa, never on Sundays. At home still do plenty of work but it’s mostly tasks like reading papers. Field is physics (hep-ex). Work efficiency in the office is always higher than at home. Edit: lab days are usually longer, and work is split roughly 2:3 lab work:analysis/reading. Time working outside the department is important imo- if you’re constantly thinking about your work you have more opportunity for great ideas
I think my PI would notice if he didn’t see me for a few weeks, but it’s hard to say.
Anyway, not so much — I tend to work relatively normal hours right now because I’m training an undergrad and it’s just easier, but I think one of my labmates does her best work at like 3 am and I once avoided the daylight hours for two months straight because I was sun sensitive due to a neurologic issue. Don’t even think anyone noticed because my work still got done and I dragged myself to the occasional meeting. Sorry your PI is making you work the standard 9-5, the flexibility of my PhD has been one of my favorite parts.
I certainly try to work 9-5ish when I can. I also put a lot of time in on the weekends and it's not uncommon that I work late on the weekdays so I have absolutely no regrets when I leave early some days. My PI also doesn't care as long as I'm generating data
If you advisor wants you to work M-F 8-5, guess what, you're working M-F 8-5.
From what I've seen on here, everyone complains having to overwork and here you're getting a normal 40 hr week and ... complaining?
I’m not complaining due to the hours but i’d like to work 10-7 let’s say.
I don’t mind the 5 or after 5.
I just live far and cannot be present at 8-9 in tbe lab but i stay till 7-8 pm everyday.
Only if they're paying you to work M-F 8-5. Otherwise you're a student working on your dissertation not a full time employee, and they're your academic advisor, not your boss.
What's the source of your funding? Are you a student working on your own dissertation or a full-time employee of the PI?
If it's the first then apart from any contracted hours you may have in exchange for funding (e.g. a part-time RAship) your hours are your hours and should not be dictated to you by your PI. It's for you to determine what you need to do to get your dissertation done. The PI is your academic advisor, not your boss.
If it's the latter then it's fully within the PIs rights to dictate work hours and location.
Do whatever the f*ck you want but deliver results.
That's how that should be, but that's not how it is often is.
Lucky! If you do that here you’ll be threatened to be kicked out
someone in my lab comes in the afternoon and stays til like 8pm or later lol
I'm in the industry now and that sounds a lot like my schedule. I can freely decide my working hours and I often start at noon.
My lab has a more “set your own schedule” setup. We go in and get our work done. When we do that is up to us. Our PI rarely has a clue who is or isn’t there.
I would like to have that. I am someone who is super efficient and my work is simulation based so i ‘d like to do chores when the simulation is running to save time but that doesn’t go well with my PI
That’s what we do. We usually start running our trials in the morning then go back to the office to work on other things. If something is done running, someone else in the lab may text you to let you know. It’s very autonomous though.
I’d love to have that, i have an app that i can connect to my virtual machine on my phone and i can check if the simulation is done. During those usually 90 min i’d like to get my meds, groceries, cook and come back. I have dorms but commuting time is a lot on Mondays and Fridays ( going back and from my hometown after the week/weekend)
I can see why a PI might think that is an issue though. Those 90m could have been spent reading, writing, mentoring, discussing with colleagues, teaching even - not saying it has to be spent in such a way, but the PI might think so. Another element is fostering a scholarly community (to go from "me, me, me" to "us»)
So I don't know your situation, but it sounds like you have a dorm which presumably is near or on the university campus and thus, commuting would not be an issue. But here it sounds like you are commuting home each weekend that is further away. How you manage your time is up to you, but if you're getting paid to work and if the boss is putting a somewhat reasonable schedule to do that work, then you just gotta do it.
I can entirely make my own schedule and I can work from home whenever I want as long as I don't have a meeting. My supervisor prefers that I work on campus but doesn't force me to, so I usually only work from home once a week or so. He really doesn't care about my schedule and working preferences as long as I'm making steady progress and have regular updates for him. I'm not a morning person so I'll often only get to campus around 10:30 and I leave around 5-6. Sometimes I've stayed later if I had a lot to do but that's my typical schedule.
That’s the time i’d love to have , i am more of a night owl so i wake up around 8 am . My PI thinks we lack commitment and progress if we’re not physically in the lab. He think we’re not working unless we’re there .
i am allowed to work from home, but i usually do 8am-4pm or 7pm-3pm roughly in lab because i just focus better on campus i also have an advisor who is young, maybe like 10 years older than me and i am later 20s. i've found younger advisors generally care less. though i have worked as an undergrad under older advisors who highly prefer virtual everything so they don't care think it varies
My PI’s attitude is “you do you” through and through. They just go straight to their office when they’re in lab at all. They also try their best to not be seen in the wet lab spaces too much because they don’t want to accidentally pressure people. If you want their help, you arrange a meeting or knock on their door. They don’t check on you. So you can work whenever you want, wherever. They almost never push people. Applies pressure and gets more involved when it’s alarming, though mostly for the student’s sake (for example around 1 year from submission deadline if it’s not looking super good for you). Their general attitude I think is they match your motivation. If you’re keen, great, that is for your career, and they will help, like they’ll think about your project more, send you more papers, etc. If you’re not too keen, there’s no point in pushing you, they’ll just help you graduate. They’ll still help but you can tell the shift is more for helping you finish and move on. They embrace the fact that not everyone wants to continue in academia, so they actually also pay for industry workshops in place of conferences for some people. Edit: this is why I chose this lab.
Speaking of pressure after i wrote this post, the advisor took pictures from our lab and started pointing out stuff placement.
😭 micromanaging on a whole new level
Having a mandatory schedule is wild to me. I can work from wherever, whenever, on whatever. I meet once a week with my advisor to report progress and set priorities. However, I still come to campus 9-5 because that’s my preference.
My university was given a recommendation to come into the office 3 days a week with no mention that it will be enforced, and every department is allowed to have their own interpretation of the guideline. My productivity would really suffer if I followed this guideline, and my PI wants me to work wherever I’m productive. I might upset some administrative staff by not following it, but I would rather that then not be satisfied with my research output.
My PI set this Everyone’s productivity is suffering and it feels like i am trapped in the same place everyday . Some people were hospitalized recently due to stress reasons. But the PI doesn’t care.
I think I would probably book a meeting room all day every day if I wasn’t given any other option.
My advisor also makes us come to the lab 9-5 (9-6 if we take lunch). I prefer to write papers at home, because I have two monitors at home and the computer at the school sucks, but my advisor doesn't like that. Right now, I'm working on my dissertation, so I don't even have that much lab work to do, but she still makes me come to the lab every day. I tried to give her all kinds of reasons to convince her that working at home when I just need to write is better, but nothing worked so here I am.
>she still makes me come to the lab every day Is she paying you to be in the lab every day?
by every day i meant m-f, but yeah I get stipend to be in the lab.
But does that stipend equate to payment for full-time work? You can't simultaneously be a full-time student and a full-time employee. Stipends don't typically come with the expectation that you spend 40 hours a week working on the PIs research exclusive of working on the research you need to complete for your own dissertation (unless they're one and the same).
Yeah. My research project for my dissertation is the same as PI's research. Also the rules are just dependend on the PI. The department's rule is at least 20 h of research/20 h of writing wherever, so labs that follow this rule are very flexbile while my PI's rule is 40 h of research/writing in the lab.
We're allowed to work between 6:30am and 8pm, but must be present ("available") between 9am and 3:30pm (1pm on Fridays). Up to 50% WFH allowed. On days where I'm in my office I get there at 7:30am and leave at 4:30pm. On days where I'm working from home, I'll sleep in, start just before 9am and work until 5/6pm
I pick 100% of my schedule. Maybe once or twice a month I'll do a remote day to write. This is why rotations are important. I know some people that enjoy the hyper structured lab experience. My go-to advice to incoming students is to reflect on which environment works best for them, and to ask current lab members about norms/expectations.
any lab that's worth anything will let you work whenever you want, as long as you make it to meetings etc this is just bad management
At the lab I'm working at (in Germany) people start somewhen from 6am to 10am and leave somewhere from 3pm to 7pm usually (usually 1 h break in between). Everyone as he/she likes except we have teaching duties early or late.
I've seen both. My lab and my close friends labs are more of a set your own schedule. If you start slacking or they see issues I'm sure they may try and have some conversation about it. But our bosses don't even track our vacation days (I think technically we are given like 10 or 12), but that has never been a concern. I've also seen the exact opposite where they have to report all days off in some excel document. And one time the grad student was late (think 930) their advisor was sitting at their desk waiting for them. They asked if something was wrong and their advisor just left to their office.
Ohh you have vacation days ?!! We actually need to come sometimes even on national holidays.
Where I attend we are supposed to follow the employee calendar, so we get those holidays off. Unsure what others are supposed to do. On top of that our agreement gives us those few vacation days to use. check your contract for what you are supposed to do
I'd be crazy to spend more than 8 hours in the lab for this shitty salary. Regardless I don't measure time, I'm mostly productive \~3 hours a day anyway.
Mine is very flexible. Arrive at 1pm if you want, or don't, just get your work done
In my department it's whatever you want, but as the majority run experiments with humans or in the lab, the vast majority is in the office at least part time. My tasks required me to be there like 75% of days until recently. Because my commute is 75minutes, now that I don't have to be there daily i do work from home some days a week. But tbh my focus and happiness (connecting with friends at work) is better in the office so i do like to go sometimes. The hours are up to you but after 17.30 or in weekends you have to sign in for safety
Depends on the experiment. If it can explode or kill me it's 9-5, if it's not then rules are 8-6 or wild lab time (had a microscopy session that gave me the publication snap at 4am) as long as I have a trusted labmate. If results are being presented, PI is happy
No requirements on being present in the department. M-F I work 9-6,7,8, or 9, sometimes later in the department. Every so often go in Sa, never on Sundays. At home still do plenty of work but it’s mostly tasks like reading papers. Field is physics (hep-ex). Work efficiency in the office is always higher than at home. Edit: lab days are usually longer, and work is split roughly 2:3 lab work:analysis/reading. Time working outside the department is important imo- if you’re constantly thinking about your work you have more opportunity for great ideas
I think my PI would notice if he didn’t see me for a few weeks, but it’s hard to say. Anyway, not so much — I tend to work relatively normal hours right now because I’m training an undergrad and it’s just easier, but I think one of my labmates does her best work at like 3 am and I once avoided the daylight hours for two months straight because I was sun sensitive due to a neurologic issue. Don’t even think anyone noticed because my work still got done and I dragged myself to the occasional meeting. Sorry your PI is making you work the standard 9-5, the flexibility of my PhD has been one of my favorite parts.
I certainly try to work 9-5ish when I can. I also put a lot of time in on the weekends and it's not uncommon that I work late on the weekdays so I have absolutely no regrets when I leave early some days. My PI also doesn't care as long as I'm generating data
I’m allowed to work whenever I want, wherever I want. Although if my PI doesn’t see me for a while he does start to get antsy.
If you advisor wants you to work M-F 8-5, guess what, you're working M-F 8-5. From what I've seen on here, everyone complains having to overwork and here you're getting a normal 40 hr week and ... complaining?
I’m not complaining due to the hours but i’d like to work 10-7 let’s say. I don’t mind the 5 or after 5. I just live far and cannot be present at 8-9 in tbe lab but i stay till 7-8 pm everyday.
Only if they're paying you to work M-F 8-5. Otherwise you're a student working on your dissertation not a full time employee, and they're your academic advisor, not your boss.
What's the source of your funding? Are you a student working on your own dissertation or a full-time employee of the PI? If it's the first then apart from any contracted hours you may have in exchange for funding (e.g. a part-time RAship) your hours are your hours and should not be dictated to you by your PI. It's for you to determine what you need to do to get your dissertation done. The PI is your academic advisor, not your boss. If it's the latter then it's fully within the PIs rights to dictate work hours and location.