Quality of Life (or lack thereof)

Despite my desperate desire to do another postdoc (or, more accurately, my desperate desire to leave the position I'm currently trapped in), I want to talk about quality of life in science.

This weekend, I caught up on my reading of my favorite comic strip -PhD (Piled Higher and Deeper) comics (www.phdcomics.com). PhD comics is written by a now assistant professor, although he started when he was a grad student I think. I highly recommend this comic for anyone who 1) is in graduate school 2) is dating/friends/married to someone in graduate school 3) is a PI who has graduate students or, mostly importantly, 4) is thinking about going to graduate school. I read this strip and relate to all of the jokes/situations and personally know people (many people) who fill each of the sterotypes.

What does this have to do with quality of life in science? My reading of PhD comics reminded me of a key truth - quality of life in science sucks. People work long hours and are motivated by guilt because their coworkers are working longer hours. Their bosses expect even longer hours. They get paid nothing, even at the prof level. Two career paths who work comparable hours are investment bankers and lawyers - yet fresh from college I-bankers make more money than tenured professors.

Interesting, a recent study (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123119236117055127.html) lists 'biologist' as #4 on the best jobs list. Apparently the survey didn't actually assess job satisfaction or sleep deprivation. Scientists, who are supposedly logical, should not want to be scientists. But people become scientists because they're driven. It's a calling, like the priesthood (and for many scientists, has similar results on their sex life). But it's the culture, not the actual duties, that impact quality of life so negatively. A consultant has to travel, because they can't do their job without traveling. But, while there are some 15 hour experiments, most scientists could stop after 10 hours a day and lead relatively normal lives.

Who maintains the culture? I think it's the PIs. It's sort of like hazing - I had to go through this so you do too. Every PI I've ever talked to has 'funny' stories about the terrible things they had to do as students/postdocs. This isn't exactly like medicine - where you can arguably believe that residents working 90+ hour weeks are seeing more patients and therefore will be better doctors someday. I did not learn more by doing 50 instead of 40 gel shift experiments. I hope when I get through my own period of hazing, I remember and provide for a better quality of life for my students and fellows. The cycle has to stop somewhere.