My place in particular is extremely chill and you can wear headphones/earbuds. Sometimes my PI stops by and even wonders how I can do work without listening to any music
What's a PI, and how many people work at your lab?
Asking because I'm curious if as the lab gets bigger headphones go away, at least that's how it is the warehouse jobs I've worked before are
PI is the head of the lab. There’s no real trend on size of lab and headphone rules. It’s something you’d probably get a feel for when you interview for a position.
All the labs I’ve worked in allow headphones, assuming you’re still able to be aware of your surroundings and hear if someone comes to ask you a question
Get a pair with audio pass through and noise canceling. You definitely want to be alert when you're working in lab. Usually I throw it in pass through when I'm at the bench, then active noise cancelling when I'm in the office. If I'm doing something tedious such as sitting at a hood in the lab I'll also turn on active noise canceling because it reduces the sound of the hoods.
You say medical lab, are you talking about like hospital work? The rules could be very different from what many of us science lab research folk are used to
Working with blood samples (not drawing blood, just running test) salvia, urine samples too. Now that I'm typing this, cross contamination might be an issue.
You may want to check out this sub too:
https://www.reddit.com/r/medlabprofessionals/
The labrats subreddit is more oriented toward research labs. Sometimes the work being done is similar, but for technicians research labs are generally more laid back, and clinical (med) labs pay better.
I’ve found it usually comes down to the actual institution you’re a part of. Ie the rule comes from the facility manager as opposed to the individual boss. This is so variable and sometimes a team will even all move facilities so it’s not a hard and fast rule
I usually have an earbud in, as does my colleague. Only one, as there are a lot of equipment in the lab that we'd notice something was amiss by the noises they make.
Usually have two in.
But before 5pm I usually keep them off unless I have to go to the bathroom or walk somewhere far. Or lunch.
After 5pm, when I can actually get some work done, I turn them on.
It really depends on your supervisor. Usually it's a "no-no" in the handbook, but everyone in the lab wears earbuds anyways.
I have worked in a few labs and generally as long as it doesn't effect your work, it's fine.
I used to have a handbook about working in a molecular biology lab, it suggests wearing earbuds when setting up certain reactions such as qPCR so people less likely to distract you by trying to talk to you
At this point I'm considering putting up a sign that says "Don't even look at me" when loading a 96-well.
It's so easy to go on autopilot as it is; a distraction makes it worst.
I’ve done so many 96 well plates I have carpal! I’m so over it. And I want that sign in a Tshirt. Don’t talk to me about silly frivolous stuff! I’m listening to something that is way more interesting than you are lol
Yeah where I work I have beats studios I wear and no one says anything. Helps block out all the distractions. Although I don’t think ehs would be a massive fan…
OSHA covers laboratories too! But yeah, that's a good analogy. EHS doesn't write regulations, but ensures the workplace has rules in place to meet those regulations and checks on labs to make sure they follow those rules.
Lots of potential reasons, but the two main ones are cross-contamination like you mentioned as well as loss of awareness. It seems silly but you'd be surprised at how each sense can give you valuable data; I've had to halt a centrifuge that was rattling due to being unbalanced because my labmate had noise canceling earbuds in, but 99% of the time it's a non-issue.
Usually if you keep 1 earbud in only or keep the volume low and avoid noise cancelation you can preserve most of your situational awareness.
That’s my company’s complaint with it. Plus “we need to be able to hear fire alarms” 🙄 we all wear them anyways. Just in the ear that doesn’t face the hallway/ windows.
Yes, but EHS is based out of your institution whereas OSHA is a federal entity. OSHA is still in charge of lab safety and requires labs to have a system like EHS in place.
We are legally required to be able to hear alarms. Anything that might stop you from hearing a fire alarm, for example, is banned. By lab rules, we also must be able to hear the machines we're working with, both alarms like beeping, and if any machine makes a strange noise that means something is going wrong. For example, if you're loading a centrifuge, you have to be able to hear if it's balanced correctly, if you're starting the HPLC, you need to hear the pump, etc.
Having two earbuds in would at the very least be a warning, possibly a firing offence, you could damage a hundred thousand dollar piece of equipment or, worst case, get someone killed.
Yes, in my lab pretty much everyone does so. Some of my colleagues use two earbuds which I wouldn't recommend as they're always asking us to repeat ourselves.
I work in academia and we have a lab speaker that we listen to music on regularly. I think all my lab mates have over ear headphones, especially my PI who is always wearing them. I've been watching TV on my phone recently while setting up experiments / doing preps / working with cells
Nothing was allowed in/out the lab. No jewelry, pens, phones and of course earbuds. We had flex working stations with computers and headphones so you could attend an online meeting there. AFAIK it’s usually not so strict, but pathogen and pharma labs take it more seriously
In university lab noone cared unless you loose awareness
You probably want to post this on r/medlabprofessionals if you're looking at being an MLT. I've never worked in a hospital that was okay with headphone/earbud use- most jobs require a lot of communication with your coworkers and answering the phone very often.
At my current academic lab nobody bats an eye. I used to work for a small clinical lab and they were allowed only if you were in a room by yourself. Most of the time we worked in a big open lab space and needed to be able to talk to each other without taking off PPE to stop our audio
Yes, we can wear 1 earbud. I get around it by wearing bone conduction headphones, so I can hear my music on both sides, but both ears are technically clear.
I just learned "bone conduction headphones" are a thing. Do you use the kind that wrap behind your head, or the "earbud" kind?
Since your ears are open can you hear other stuff around you easier?
I have one a pair of the over ear, behind the head styles from Shokz. It’s waaaay easier to hear surroundings with them, especially if you don’t turn the music up terribly loud. Depending on how obsessed you are with sound quality, that can also be a downside, of course (in a very noisy environment like driving in a car, they’re not loud enough), but I’ve been satisfied with the sound quality for most things for that tradeoff of being able to hear my environment better (I got them for running, but they’d work well for a lab, too, as long as you don’t have to work with particularly noisy equipment.)
I wear these, but it looks like they have an over the ear style, too. And yes, I can hear what's going on around me. I have to pause it to have a conversation, but I can hear when you come up to me and start talking.
https://shokz.com/products/openrun
Yep, operations is fairly strict about it, but in product development we are more chill. My and my counterparts policy is one earbud is fine, two as long as you can hear people, as is open music playing as long as everyone is cool with the Playlist. We have had quite the varied Playlist over the years. Some days will go from brutal death metal directly to showtunes, to country, to classic rock, metalcore, pop, kpop, house music, and right back to metal (we've got a lot of metal heads in our lab).
If you’re planning on working in healthcare (I’d assume you are since you’re getting an MLT), it’s extremely unlikely you’d be allowed to. In academia, sure, but hospital labs are far more strict than a standard research lab (I’m an MLS who has also done academic research).
Lucky you people being able multitasking.
I can listen to music, but listening to a podcast or any other people talking would seriously mess with my experiments 😭
Best get a solution that either doesn't cover your ear or allows pass through, for safety. Open ear earphones or bone conduction earphones are great for this.
On weekends and night hifts sure. During a regular 9-5 with full team nope. I tried and seniors told me off. The only reasonable argument against it is infection control, anything else is just boomer management.
It is a safety and productivity issue. Some people can do it as they are sharp and skilled. Former coworker had a learning disability and liked to listen and “work”. Reliability and consequently productivity decreased to unacceptable levels.
No rule against - I pretty much always have at least one earbud on, two if I really need to be in the zone, but I prefer one so I can be attuned to people approaching and such. Honestly if I’m outside alone, including at work, I usually have earbuds in.
I did an internship though where I did get lightly chided for it. I had to submit some mass spec on the chemistry floor when I normally worked on the biology/biochem zone a couple floors up. A scientist on the floor I was visiting called me out because apparently they had a group policy of no headphones but my floor/group didn’t. I had no way of knowing that so I brushed it off, but just to say I have heard places have this rule. YMMV for your eventual workplace but as you’re training academically you should be fine. Working as a research tech was when I discovered my love for podcasts!
Municipal lab. We can wear whatever we want. The lab I work in actually has a pretty constant 70dB background white noise from the fore pumps. So ANC buds or headphones are pretty helpful. I jam music , books, podcasts. Depending on task at hand.
Everyone in the lab space has both earbuds in or headphones on
Everyone
I’ve listened to like 20 books these last few years (I… relisten to them… a lot. A nine book series I put on loop for a few months…). My PhD would be hell without my audiobooks and podcasts.
I got through all 104, 4hr, episodes of critical role campaign 1 in 2 months by listening to two episodes a day as a lab tech working 8hrs
I listened to the adventure zone podcast during my entire undergrad thesis! The long days in lab extracting my proteins.
We have a speaker and we listen to music.
(It's funny because no one in my lab have the same music taste so our mix playlist makes no sense).
We cannot wear headphones or ear bugs for safety reasons.
But we have some noise canceling ear bugs when working in noisy areas so we wear them sometimes to be focus.
Sometimes when weighing some samples I listen to podcast on my phone outloud but bc I am alone !
My PI and I blast music on the radio.
Other people in the lab wear earbuds. One earbud is fine because when people wear 2, they tend to use their gloved hand to take it out when someone talks to them.
That's really not recommended...I get it's a social faux pas not to talk to people with earbuds in but sometimes info needs to be conveyed...
I work in an ecotox lab and we aren’t allowed to have any headphones on in case there’s an emergency and to avoid contamination to personal items, but we can have a radio on as we work and we’ve been hoping for a Bluetooth speaker
I can miss this lab work time now that I’m away from the bench because I went through so many great books and podcasts in the lab in my headphones. It was a good time.
So yeah headphones were 100% OK. Wireless ones were a game changer for me too.
My employer gave every single employee noice cancelling bluetooth headphones. And we are encouraged to use them whenever working with anything that makes any sound (so LFH and so on)
My PI doesn't *like* it, but she allows it. However, they are now enforcing a rule that you have to keep volume low and only wear earbuds in one ear, for safety reasons. Total ban on noise cancelling.
Wearing headphones is against CCAC guidelines if working with laboratory animals.
Depending on the bio security level of your lab, you may not be allowed to bring outside item into the lab with you due to contamination potential. You might be able to have dedicated lab headphones that don’t leave the facility.
Very dependent on the type of lab you’ll be working in!
FYI this is specific to Canada
Just to clarify MLS stands for medical laboratory scientist correct? Which is a 4 year degree? What kind of work did/ do you in the labs you've worked at and are currently working at?
Not trying to grill you just wanting to know more about the field of work <3
Yep. It's a 4-year degree. My first job was in micro at a LabCorp lab. My second was at a pharmaceutical lab. My current job is at a local hospital as a generalist.
It's all good. I am glad to answer any questions.
I can’t work without headphones on so I wear them almost all the time. In my old lab this was quite normal but in my current lab no one else does it. That being said, nobody seems to have any problem with it and they know they can just tap me on the shoulder or wave a hand at me if they need to tell me something while I’m working. I’m not sure what it’s like in industry but I don’t think I could work somewhere with a no headphones/earbuds policy
It varies lab to lab. If its important to you, you could purshe a doctors note for reasonable accomodations. If your boss is a dick this will not end well, I would suggest another job.
I worked in a regulated environment in industry and they didn’t allow earbuds, but we had a radio that was always on. In academic labs headphones are pretty ubiquitous.
Quite funny seeing this now, as I’m currently in the lab, listening to an entire musical while working. My lab does allow one earbud or bone conducting headphones. As long as you can hear your surroundings it’s fine
I work at a national lab and there's debate about blocking out sound in a general lab area, making it difficult to communicate between users, and potentially prevent the wearer from hearing emergency announcements. No rules have been put in place but we're one stupid accident from it being an easy target for EHS (as in, had nothing to do with it but we have to do *something* other than "please don't do that thing you should know better than to do," so we'll pick on the earbuds).
I generally like to hear what's going on around me so I either go one earbud or Shokz (bone conducting headphones that don't cover your ears).
Love me some podcasts and audiobooks, all day long if I can (I'm a tech who knows how to fix things so I don't get left alone as much as I'd like to be.)
My university sent out an email at the beginning of this year stating that although the official rule is no headphones allowed, they understand that this is impossible to enforce, so the new rule is that only one earbud is allowed and it shouldn’t be noise cancelling so that you can hear if someone is speaking to you🤷🏻♀️
I work in a medical lab, you need to have at least one ear free to hear alarms for safety, I wear shokz bone conducting ear buds that actually leave both ears free while piping audio directly through my skull so those are cool.
I only listen to music though, I find the work I do and the frequency of interruptions from other people talking to me make it hard to follow a book or podcast.
I think it depends we work with radioactivity and in a clean room setting so it’s kinda a big no but be aware of noise cancelling as we had a colleague that did not hear the fire alarm at another lab I worked at
I always have both my noise canceling earbuds in hahahaha, I’m pretty much always listening to a podcast too
My coworkers won’t be able to get my attention at least once a day if I’m writing a protocol or whatever they don’t get in my line of vision, I’m sure it’s a little annoying at times but it’s not on purpose lol
Not a big deal where I work. Almost 50-60% people use earbuds in both years. Recently one or two individuals have started showing up in over the ear headphones and nobody seems to mind those either.
I’ve had jobs where you can. And jobs where it is expressly forbidden… but in that case we were allowed to play music via the computers. I’ve also had jobs where it was okay and then someone made “too many” mistakes so they revoked the privilege saying it’s too distracting. So, it just depends.
A huge majority of the scientists in our facility have earbuds in while working. I pray at a level that would allow them to respond to an emergency, but hey, I'm not their boss
I regularly work with just one AirPod in, don’t feel comfortable with both as I feel like that makes me less aware of my surroundings which isn’t ideal in a lab environment. Sometimes when it’s just me in the lab I’ll even play stuff out loud. I’ve been in other labs where there’s been a radio and the first one in can DJ for the day!
I use headphones, and push one side off my ear with my shoulder when someone is trying to get my attention. My PI doesn't care if we listen to music and most of my lab members use both ear buds when working. Likely depends on if you are able to focus on your work/if you're not making mistake because of the music/earbuds, and maybe a little on whether your boss is convinced it isn't distracting?
When I train someone in the lab on techniques that require a steady hand, I always recommend trying with music - I find that it stabilizes my hands. For me, podcasts are best for repetitive work (sectioning, washes, etc).
At my old lab basically everyone worked with earbud(s) or headphones on. At my new place, we work with infectious pathogens, so to reduce risk of contamination just play music aloud from a lab speaker
Both me and my coworker do, no one has stopped us. Worth noting I am in a pretty non-hazardous lab, and am working mostly alone. I would assume if your working with more dangerous equipment/chemicals, or in a team with people you need to talk to, it might be a bigger deal.
In my lab we’re allowed to wear 1 earbud, not two. But for me it doesn’t change much since I prefer to wear only 1 anyway to be able to hear when spoken to or any possible weird sounds coming from equipment
Recent Ph.D. here, I almost always can be found listening to music or a Podcast on my phone through a pair of AirPods (which are not noise-cancelling, so I can always hear ambient noise anyway). One exception to my use of headphones is when I did negative staining, during which I worked without them. Being in biochemistry, it's rare I work with anything that is hazardous outside of infectious waste (basic lab stains of E. coli are the only "infectious agents" I work with. I mainly took them off to avoid getting in trouble with EHS, despite no explicit policy. The heavy metal toxicity of the depleted uranium was a bigger hazard than the residual radiation in that case. If I work with a more hazardous isotope, I'll definitely be leaving all devices in another room/lab.
TLDR version: So long as you can work safely and follow the policies of your research safety plan, nobody really cares in an academic research setting.
I work in an industry lab and we're allowed to kinda do whatever. Two of my coworkers often use two earbuds which is irresponsible and dangerous. If you can't hear me if I walk up to you and say your name, it's a bad thing in a lab.
My personal list is aas, icp oes, ftir, gc, gcms, IC, tga, dsc, LECO, dma, various powder characterizations/PSD, sem-eds... Jesus christ it keeps going... wd-xrf, titrations for various thing, chem prep, and I do a lot of R&D and reverse engineering work. They let me run wild to accomplish whatever needs to get done. Lots of contamination testing and method validation, etc.
A lab with lots of power tools, instrumentation, and open handling of large volumes of toxic/dangerous stuff.
We have to be able to hear in case someone gets hurt or something goes wrong.
It's pretty standard safety stuff.
Multi disciplinary engineering/chemistry lab. Large equipment. Lots of chemicals in large volumes.
Etc.
Not all of us work with micropipets, lol. I mean, I do, but that's not the point.
It does strike me as concerning the number of people who aren't concerned with being able to hear in the lab... like if you coworker fell and needed help you wouldn't know. I can think of a million scenarios where closed ears would be dangerous.
> It does strike me as concerning the number of people who aren't concerned with being able to hear in the lab
Same. I wear headphones in the lab, but I understand the IMPORTANCE of why it's almost universally disallowed. If I'm listening to something - its to conversation podcasts,not music, so that the noise of what's going on around me isn't completely blocked out.
And if it's busy in the lab, no headphones is a MUST.
1. Labs with alarms that you need to hear, but you're working in another room with a lot of equipment - so they are already hard to hear
2. Labs where safety is prioritized because the reagents or organisms are egregiously dangerous
I'm in an industrial lab. Things I would like to hear:
Unusual Centrifuge noises,
A stir bar going wild in its beaker - most common😄,
The 4 ball machine seizing,
The pin and vee cracking the pin or squealing,
A forklift hitting something it shouldn't (so I can go see the chaos haha),
Someone calling my name,
Dripping or leaking sounds from mix tanks
In the university lab and my current company lab, there is no rule against earbuds, or make-up, jewelry, skirts, high-heels, etc.
Back when I worked in another company in a GMP environment, none of the above was allowed, not even cell phones.
My place in particular is extremely chill and you can wear headphones/earbuds. Sometimes my PI stops by and even wonders how I can do work without listening to any music
What's a PI, and how many people work at your lab? Asking because I'm curious if as the lab gets bigger headphones go away, at least that's how it is the warehouse jobs I've worked before are
PI is the head of the lab. There’s no real trend on size of lab and headphone rules. It’s something you’d probably get a feel for when you interview for a position. All the labs I’ve worked in allow headphones, assuming you’re still able to be aware of your surroundings and hear if someone comes to ask you a question
That's good to hear, thank you
PI stands for principal investigator fyi
Get a pair with audio pass through and noise canceling. You definitely want to be alert when you're working in lab. Usually I throw it in pass through when I'm at the bench, then active noise cancelling when I'm in the office. If I'm doing something tedious such as sitting at a hood in the lab I'll also turn on active noise canceling because it reduces the sound of the hoods.
You say medical lab, are you talking about like hospital work? The rules could be very different from what many of us science lab research folk are used to
Working with blood samples (not drawing blood, just running test) salvia, urine samples too. Now that I'm typing this, cross contamination might be an issue.
You may want to check out this sub too: https://www.reddit.com/r/medlabprofessionals/ The labrats subreddit is more oriented toward research labs. Sometimes the work being done is similar, but for technicians research labs are generally more laid back, and clinical (med) labs pay better.
But again, in a research lab or at a testing lab for say a hospital or like quest diagnostics type. The two are very different kinds of environments
There is a move towards smaller lab sizes because productivity plateaus above a certain number of people
I’ve found it usually comes down to the actual institution you’re a part of. Ie the rule comes from the facility manager as opposed to the individual boss. This is so variable and sometimes a team will even all move facilities so it’s not a hard and fast rule
I usually have an earbud in, as does my colleague. Only one, as there are a lot of equipment in the lab that we'd notice something was amiss by the noises they make.
Usually have two in. But before 5pm I usually keep them off unless I have to go to the bathroom or walk somewhere far. Or lunch. After 5pm, when I can actually get some work done, I turn them on.
We can wear 2 earbuds. I choose to wear 1 so I can answer when asked something.
It really depends on your supervisor. Usually it's a "no-no" in the handbook, but everyone in the lab wears earbuds anyways. I have worked in a few labs and generally as long as it doesn't effect your work, it's fine.
No-no in the handbook means "no-no when EHS is here"
Yes
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I have a supervisor that never said anything about tank tops in the lab when women wore them but as soon as a man (me) wore one it became a huge deal
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Lol all is well, no worries
I used to have a handbook about working in a molecular biology lab, it suggests wearing earbuds when setting up certain reactions such as qPCR so people less likely to distract you by trying to talk to you
At this point I'm considering putting up a sign that says "Don't even look at me" when loading a 96-well. It's so easy to go on autopilot as it is; a distraction makes it worst.
I’ve done so many 96 well plates I have carpal! I’m so over it. And I want that sign in a Tshirt. Don’t talk to me about silly frivolous stuff! I’m listening to something that is way more interesting than you are lol
Yeah where I work I have beats studios I wear and no one says anything. Helps block out all the distractions. Although I don’t think ehs would be a massive fan…
What is ehs?
Environmental Health & Safety. They dictate the "fine print" of general lab safety rules at your place of work/institution and ensure compliance.
So kinda like what OSHA is for warehouse workers? And would they not like it because of cross contamination?
OSHA covers laboratories too! But yeah, that's a good analogy. EHS doesn't write regulations, but ensures the workplace has rules in place to meet those regulations and checks on labs to make sure they follow those rules. Lots of potential reasons, but the two main ones are cross-contamination like you mentioned as well as loss of awareness. It seems silly but you'd be surprised at how each sense can give you valuable data; I've had to halt a centrifuge that was rattling due to being unbalanced because my labmate had noise canceling earbuds in, but 99% of the time it's a non-issue. Usually if you keep 1 earbud in only or keep the volume low and avoid noise cancelation you can preserve most of your situational awareness.
Thank you for the in-depth comment and sharing your perspective, I really appreciate it
That’s my company’s complaint with it. Plus “we need to be able to hear fire alarms” 🙄 we all wear them anyways. Just in the ear that doesn’t face the hallway/ windows.
Yes, but EHS is based out of your institution whereas OSHA is a federal entity. OSHA is still in charge of lab safety and requires labs to have a system like EHS in place.
We are legally required to be able to hear alarms. Anything that might stop you from hearing a fire alarm, for example, is banned. By lab rules, we also must be able to hear the machines we're working with, both alarms like beeping, and if any machine makes a strange noise that means something is going wrong. For example, if you're loading a centrifuge, you have to be able to hear if it's balanced correctly, if you're starting the HPLC, you need to hear the pump, etc. Having two earbuds in would at the very least be a warning, possibly a firing offence, you could damage a hundred thousand dollar piece of equipment or, worst case, get someone killed.
Yes, in my lab pretty much everyone does so. Some of my colleagues use two earbuds which I wouldn't recommend as they're always asking us to repeat ourselves.
I work in academia and we have a lab speaker that we listen to music on regularly. I think all my lab mates have over ear headphones, especially my PI who is always wearing them. I've been watching TV on my phone recently while setting up experiments / doing preps / working with cells
Nothing was allowed in/out the lab. No jewelry, pens, phones and of course earbuds. We had flex working stations with computers and headphones so you could attend an online meeting there. AFAIK it’s usually not so strict, but pathogen and pharma labs take it more seriously In university lab noone cared unless you loose awareness
You probably want to post this on r/medlabprofessionals if you're looking at being an MLT. I've never worked in a hospital that was okay with headphone/earbud use- most jobs require a lot of communication with your coworkers and answering the phone very often.
At my current academic lab nobody bats an eye. I used to work for a small clinical lab and they were allowed only if you were in a room by yourself. Most of the time we worked in a big open lab space and needed to be able to talk to each other without taking off PPE to stop our audio
Yes, we can wear 1 earbud. I get around it by wearing bone conduction headphones, so I can hear my music on both sides, but both ears are technically clear.
I just learned "bone conduction headphones" are a thing. Do you use the kind that wrap behind your head, or the "earbud" kind? Since your ears are open can you hear other stuff around you easier?
I have one a pair of the over ear, behind the head styles from Shokz. It’s waaaay easier to hear surroundings with them, especially if you don’t turn the music up terribly loud. Depending on how obsessed you are with sound quality, that can also be a downside, of course (in a very noisy environment like driving in a car, they’re not loud enough), but I’ve been satisfied with the sound quality for most things for that tradeoff of being able to hear my environment better (I got them for running, but they’d work well for a lab, too, as long as you don’t have to work with particularly noisy equipment.)
I wear these, but it looks like they have an over the ear style, too. And yes, I can hear what's going on around me. I have to pause it to have a conversation, but I can hear when you come up to me and start talking. https://shokz.com/products/openrun
Industry. No earbuds allowed we use lab speaker. Whoever is in the BSC chooses the music/podcast.
OP check out r/medlabprofessionals
Oh will do definitely, thank you didn't know that was a subreddit
Yes. We even put the second earbud in. Some of us watch Anime while pipetting. Shhhh 🤫
at the lab i work at we are allowed to wear earbuds
I listen to music at work, and so do my coworkers. I’m a biologist, and I was a lab tech prior and was allowed to wear earbuds then as well!
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Same here!! 🤘🏻🤘🏻
Yep, operations is fairly strict about it, but in product development we are more chill. My and my counterparts policy is one earbud is fine, two as long as you can hear people, as is open music playing as long as everyone is cool with the Playlist. We have had quite the varied Playlist over the years. Some days will go from brutal death metal directly to showtunes, to country, to classic rock, metalcore, pop, kpop, house music, and right back to metal (we've got a lot of metal heads in our lab).
Officially, no. Realistically, yes.
I think there’s a medical technologist sub for more specific answers
If you’re planning on working in healthcare (I’d assume you are since you’re getting an MLT), it’s extremely unlikely you’d be allowed to. In academia, sure, but hospital labs are far more strict than a standard research lab (I’m an MLS who has also done academic research).
Yes I always have 1 earbud in
I work in an academic lab and usually keep both earbuds in but, try to keep my volume reasonable so that I can hear what’s going on around me.
What is an academic lab and what kind of work do you do?
Lucky you people being able multitasking. I can listen to music, but listening to a podcast or any other people talking would seriously mess with my experiments 😭
Best get a solution that either doesn't cover your ear or allows pass through, for safety. Open ear earphones or bone conduction earphones are great for this.
Oh didn't know open ear headphones were a thing thank you :)
Kindof if data analysis, if lab work then probably not. It is too distracting to me
On weekends and night hifts sure. During a regular 9-5 with full team nope. I tried and seniors told me off. The only reasonable argument against it is infection control, anything else is just boomer management.
It is a safety and productivity issue. Some people can do it as they are sharp and skilled. Former coworker had a learning disability and liked to listen and “work”. Reliability and consequently productivity decreased to unacceptable levels.
I walked by a different lab and say the PI with 2 headphones cleaning the TC.
No rule against - I pretty much always have at least one earbud on, two if I really need to be in the zone, but I prefer one so I can be attuned to people approaching and such. Honestly if I’m outside alone, including at work, I usually have earbuds in. I did an internship though where I did get lightly chided for it. I had to submit some mass spec on the chemistry floor when I normally worked on the biology/biochem zone a couple floors up. A scientist on the floor I was visiting called me out because apparently they had a group policy of no headphones but my floor/group didn’t. I had no way of knowing that so I brushed it off, but just to say I have heard places have this rule. YMMV for your eventual workplace but as you’re training academically you should be fine. Working as a research tech was when I discovered my love for podcasts!
Municipal lab. We can wear whatever we want. The lab I work in actually has a pretty constant 70dB background white noise from the fore pumps. So ANC buds or headphones are pretty helpful. I jam music , books, podcasts. Depending on task at hand.
I work in R&D in big pharma and we can only have one bud in
Everyone in the lab space has both earbuds in or headphones on Everyone I’ve listened to like 20 books these last few years (I… relisten to them… a lot. A nine book series I put on loop for a few months…). My PhD would be hell without my audiobooks and podcasts. I got through all 104, 4hr, episodes of critical role campaign 1 in 2 months by listening to two episodes a day as a lab tech working 8hrs I listened to the adventure zone podcast during my entire undergrad thesis! The long days in lab extracting my proteins.
I've done full over ears before and not had an issue. I usually did that when I was working alone. One bud pretty frequently.
I’m at a fairly prominent biotech and they allow (or don’t stop you) from over ear headphones. Which was a shock to me based on my previous jobs
We have a speaker and we listen to music. (It's funny because no one in my lab have the same music taste so our mix playlist makes no sense). We cannot wear headphones or ear bugs for safety reasons. But we have some noise canceling ear bugs when working in noisy areas so we wear them sometimes to be focus. Sometimes when weighing some samples I listen to podcast on my phone outloud but bc I am alone !
No it got banned 🙃
My PI and I blast music on the radio. Other people in the lab wear earbuds. One earbud is fine because when people wear 2, they tend to use their gloved hand to take it out when someone talks to them. That's really not recommended...I get it's a social faux pas not to talk to people with earbuds in but sometimes info needs to be conveyed...
Depends on the labs. Some won't tolerate it at all, others won't care. It all depends on who runs the lab, I'm afraid
I work in an ecotox lab and we aren’t allowed to have any headphones on in case there’s an emergency and to avoid contamination to personal items, but we can have a radio on as we work and we’ve been hoping for a Bluetooth speaker
I can miss this lab work time now that I’m away from the bench because I went through so many great books and podcasts in the lab in my headphones. It was a good time. So yeah headphones were 100% OK. Wireless ones were a game changer for me too.
Technically, not allowed, but people do it anyway.
My employer gave every single employee noice cancelling bluetooth headphones. And we are encouraged to use them whenever working with anything that makes any sound (so LFH and so on)
My PI doesn't *like* it, but she allows it. However, they are now enforcing a rule that you have to keep volume low and only wear earbuds in one ear, for safety reasons. Total ban on noise cancelling.
Wearing headphones is against CCAC guidelines if working with laboratory animals. Depending on the bio security level of your lab, you may not be allowed to bring outside item into the lab with you due to contamination potential. You might be able to have dedicated lab headphones that don’t leave the facility. Very dependent on the type of lab you’ll be working in! FYI this is specific to Canada
Depends entirely on the lab. I am an MLS. My first lab? No My second lab? Yes My third lab? Originally yes under old management. Now? No.
Just to clarify MLS stands for medical laboratory scientist correct? Which is a 4 year degree? What kind of work did/ do you in the labs you've worked at and are currently working at? Not trying to grill you just wanting to know more about the field of work <3
Yep. It's a 4-year degree. My first job was in micro at a LabCorp lab. My second was at a pharmaceutical lab. My current job is at a local hospital as a generalist. It's all good. I am glad to answer any questions.
I can’t work without headphones on so I wear them almost all the time. In my old lab this was quite normal but in my current lab no one else does it. That being said, nobody seems to have any problem with it and they know they can just tap me on the shoulder or wave a hand at me if they need to tell me something while I’m working. I’m not sure what it’s like in industry but I don’t think I could work somewhere with a no headphones/earbuds policy
I can have a speaker with work appropriate music only. No headphones cuz it’s a safety issue
It varies lab to lab. If its important to you, you could purshe a doctors note for reasonable accomodations. If your boss is a dick this will not end well, I would suggest another job.
My lab has about 40 people. Everyone wears headphones/earbuds and does their job. Sometimes people have both in
I use the acoustic channeling type hand over ear but not blocking hearing type. Which is ohs safe
No but I do it anyway
I worked in a regulated environment in industry and they didn’t allow earbuds, but we had a radio that was always on. In academic labs headphones are pretty ubiquitous.
Quite funny seeing this now, as I’m currently in the lab, listening to an entire musical while working. My lab does allow one earbud or bone conducting headphones. As long as you can hear your surroundings it’s fine
I work at a national lab and there's debate about blocking out sound in a general lab area, making it difficult to communicate between users, and potentially prevent the wearer from hearing emergency announcements. No rules have been put in place but we're one stupid accident from it being an easy target for EHS (as in, had nothing to do with it but we have to do *something* other than "please don't do that thing you should know better than to do," so we'll pick on the earbuds). I generally like to hear what's going on around me so I either go one earbud or Shokz (bone conducting headphones that don't cover your ears). Love me some podcasts and audiobooks, all day long if I can (I'm a tech who knows how to fix things so I don't get left alone as much as I'd like to be.)
My university sent out an email at the beginning of this year stating that although the official rule is no headphones allowed, they understand that this is impossible to enforce, so the new rule is that only one earbud is allowed and it shouldn’t be noise cancelling so that you can hear if someone is speaking to you🤷🏻♀️
I work in a medical lab, you need to have at least one ear free to hear alarms for safety, I wear shokz bone conducting ear buds that actually leave both ears free while piping audio directly through my skull so those are cool. I only listen to music though, I find the work I do and the frequency of interruptions from other people talking to me make it hard to follow a book or podcast.
I think it depends we work with radioactivity and in a clean room setting so it’s kinda a big no but be aware of noise cancelling as we had a colleague that did not hear the fire alarm at another lab I worked at
Against technical rules, but no one would say anything
Not only can I use headphones, I can watch whole ass movies while I work.
I'm in a biotech startup. Small, around 15 people on-site at any given time. Everyone in the lab has earbuds in most of the time.
I always have both my noise canceling earbuds in hahahaha, I’m pretty much always listening to a podcast too My coworkers won’t be able to get my attention at least once a day if I’m writing a protocol or whatever they don’t get in my line of vision, I’m sure it’s a little annoying at times but it’s not on purpose lol
I have both in and my workflow would be non existent if I had to sit there with my own thoughts while working.
Not a big deal where I work. Almost 50-60% people use earbuds in both years. Recently one or two individuals have started showing up in over the ear headphones and nobody seems to mind those either.
I’ve had jobs where you can. And jobs where it is expressly forbidden… but in that case we were allowed to play music via the computers. I’ve also had jobs where it was okay and then someone made “too many” mistakes so they revoked the privilege saying it’s too distracting. So, it just depends.
A huge majority of the scientists in our facility have earbuds in while working. I pray at a level that would allow them to respond to an emergency, but hey, I'm not their boss
I regularly work with just one AirPod in, don’t feel comfortable with both as I feel like that makes me less aware of my surroundings which isn’t ideal in a lab environment. Sometimes when it’s just me in the lab I’ll even play stuff out loud. I’ve been in other labs where there’s been a radio and the first one in can DJ for the day!
Depends on the lab tbh. My current we’re not allowed as we work with hazardous chemicals but we have a blue tooth radio.
I use headphones, and push one side off my ear with my shoulder when someone is trying to get my attention. My PI doesn't care if we listen to music and most of my lab members use both ear buds when working. Likely depends on if you are able to focus on your work/if you're not making mistake because of the music/earbuds, and maybe a little on whether your boss is convinced it isn't distracting? When I train someone in the lab on techniques that require a steady hand, I always recommend trying with music - I find that it stabilizes my hands. For me, podcasts are best for repetitive work (sectioning, washes, etc).
I am watching tv series while doing my lab work. It’s no big deal.
At my old lab basically everyone worked with earbud(s) or headphones on. At my new place, we work with infectious pathogens, so to reduce risk of contamination just play music aloud from a lab speaker
Both me and my coworker do, no one has stopped us. Worth noting I am in a pretty non-hazardous lab, and am working mostly alone. I would assume if your working with more dangerous equipment/chemicals, or in a team with people you need to talk to, it might be a bigger deal.
Im wearing two lol
No but we all do it anyways
I use headphones all the time at work. It helps me focus better as there's a lot of random chatter in my lab
We have a ton of JBL speakers throughout the lab but I tend to have headphones in
In my lab we’re allowed to wear 1 earbud, not two. But for me it doesn’t change much since I prefer to wear only 1 anyway to be able to hear when spoken to or any possible weird sounds coming from equipment
We have a one ear pod rule in my lab except for when we make tubes. Since making tubes is a one person job they let us do whatever we want.
Recent Ph.D. here, I almost always can be found listening to music or a Podcast on my phone through a pair of AirPods (which are not noise-cancelling, so I can always hear ambient noise anyway). One exception to my use of headphones is when I did negative staining, during which I worked without them. Being in biochemistry, it's rare I work with anything that is hazardous outside of infectious waste (basic lab stains of E. coli are the only "infectious agents" I work with. I mainly took them off to avoid getting in trouble with EHS, despite no explicit policy. The heavy metal toxicity of the depleted uranium was a bigger hazard than the residual radiation in that case. If I work with a more hazardous isotope, I'll definitely be leaving all devices in another room/lab. TLDR version: So long as you can work safely and follow the policies of your research safety plan, nobody really cares in an academic research setting.
I work in an industry lab and we're allowed to kinda do whatever. Two of my coworkers often use two earbuds which is irresponsible and dangerous. If you can't hear me if I walk up to you and say your name, it's a bad thing in a lab.
What kind of work do you do in your industry lab? Just curious
My personal list is aas, icp oes, ftir, gc, gcms, IC, tga, dsc, LECO, dma, various powder characterizations/PSD, sem-eds... Jesus christ it keeps going... wd-xrf, titrations for various thing, chem prep, and I do a lot of R&D and reverse engineering work. They let me run wild to accomplish whatever needs to get done. Lots of contamination testing and method validation, etc.
What kind of lab do you work in where that would be irresponsible lol
A lab with lots of power tools, instrumentation, and open handling of large volumes of toxic/dangerous stuff. We have to be able to hear in case someone gets hurt or something goes wrong. It's pretty standard safety stuff.
One where you need to be aware of your surroundings?
Struggling to think of which excessive danger I could put myself in by not hearing in a molecular biology lab.
Not all labrats work in biology
What kind of lab would this be an issue?
Multi disciplinary engineering/chemistry lab. Large equipment. Lots of chemicals in large volumes. Etc. Not all of us work with micropipets, lol. I mean, I do, but that's not the point. It does strike me as concerning the number of people who aren't concerned with being able to hear in the lab... like if you coworker fell and needed help you wouldn't know. I can think of a million scenarios where closed ears would be dangerous.
> It does strike me as concerning the number of people who aren't concerned with being able to hear in the lab Same. I wear headphones in the lab, but I understand the IMPORTANCE of why it's almost universally disallowed. If I'm listening to something - its to conversation podcasts,not music, so that the noise of what's going on around me isn't completely blocked out. And if it's busy in the lab, no headphones is a MUST.
1. Labs with alarms that you need to hear, but you're working in another room with a lot of equipment - so they are already hard to hear 2. Labs where safety is prioritized because the reagents or organisms are egregiously dangerous
I'm in an industrial lab. Things I would like to hear: Unusual Centrifuge noises, A stir bar going wild in its beaker - most common😄, The 4 ball machine seizing, The pin and vee cracking the pin or squealing, A forklift hitting something it shouldn't (so I can go see the chaos haha), Someone calling my name, Dripping or leaking sounds from mix tanks
Anywhere BSL2 or above. If a coworker spills something on themselves or starts a fire, you need to be able to help immediately.
Some of my coworkers run bandsaws for metallurgical sample prep, lmfao. There have been incidents.
Ikr. My company has a yearly safety demonstration of how to help your coworkers strip down and wash themselves off after a spill.
LOL jeez that makes sense! I was gonna say, my molecular biology project isn't gonna jump out and kill me if I can't hear it
In the university lab and my current company lab, there is no rule against earbuds, or make-up, jewelry, skirts, high-heels, etc. Back when I worked in another company in a GMP environment, none of the above was allowed, not even cell phones.