Myth busted! (sort of)

Americans are known as workaholics. In other countries, people might get 4 weeks vacation from the start of a job and use it. In academia, professors notoriously work long hours hunched over their desks doing something mysterious with only a dim desk light by which to see their work. You have research, analysis, papers to write, review papers to write, a million grants to apply for a year, committee meetings within the department and university, teaching prep/teaching/grading, students and/or post-docs to manage, department and university politics to navigate, job searches and student admissions to keep up with, etc. You may even have a life outside of work you want to visit once in a while.

So is it true academics work long hours? I have a few experiences.

When I was a research tech, the PIs had established careers. One of them seemed as though science was the only thing she could talk about; the other would randomly ask for movie recommendations or discuss travel and didn't really care if we talked about science. They would take their sabbaticals in France where they kept an apartment, so even with their work "trips", life couldn't have been too bad. When they were in town, they would probably be at their desks from about 10 to 6-ish. They would take trips for grant reviews or to give talks and when I was there, had quite a busy lab to try to keep up with.

My PhD advisor was a night person. The only time she regularly was in before 10:00 a.m. was if she was teaching or had a meeting. By then, my friend and I had sometimes been working for two hours already. At the end of the day she would stay "late". Although I think if she thought we had left for the day, she would leave. On several occasions I would pop back in to lab within 5 minutes of leaving, or would be staying later than usual, and she would be out the door already. In the office from 10 to 6 on average is not too bad.

My Post-doc advisor is a morning person. I have run into my advisor getting in a couple of times now around 8:30, so I know she does not get in SUPER early. I really have no idea what time she leaves or how much work she does before she comes in the morning, but I will say that woman is WORKING the entire time she is on campus.

It takes me about 45 minutes from door to door to get to work now (if the commute goes well), so I am usually in around 8:30 a.m., but my commute definitely has made me be in lab shorter hours (8:30 ~ 5:15 usually). Yesterday I had a long work day because of an experiment. I had to do something for half an hour in the morning, then take time points after that half hour at 1, 4, 8, and 12 hours. Because of the 12 hour time point, I was in lab for almost 14 hours. Now I am pointing this out only because when you are in a building that long, you see how many people are around. I would hazard to guess the building is largely unoccupied before 9:00 and after 6:00.

Granted, academia brings ups and downs - when you have a grant due, you are going to be working a lot longer hours; when you are lucky to have a couple of "regular" weeks, you will probably be able to take a day or two on the weekends without doing much work. Even though my post-doc advisor might not be on campus for 12 hours a day, I know she does work at home. So sometimes when you work it can be in the comfort of your own home and at least be around your partner and family. I think that makes long hours more palatable and maybe seem a little less long.