How Much Do You Really Like Your Labmates?
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Recently, we asked whether labs should operate more as a family unit or as a group of individuals and the overwhelming majority of respondents came down on the side of family. It seems people do best in a lab environment where ideas, questions and support can flow freely among members for the good of both the individual and the group. However, while it’s easy to say things should be like a family, our reality in the lab may prevent it.
Sometimes it can feel as though our best day in lab was the first one – full of optimism, hope and friendly people – a blank slate for the great science to follow. Of course, that’s before you find out that Eric hides reagents from you, Jane won’t let you onto “her” PCR machine and Donald smells like cat pee. Suddenly that once promising group now has a bit more “character”, for better or worse.
Breakthroughs are often made at the interface of fields or techniques and labs are places of great intellectual and technical diversity. Therefore, it stands to reason that operating as a group that communicates freely would be an advantage to everyone. However, sometimes it’s just not that easy. Heck, even families have the crazy uncle or the wicked stepmother, so it shouldn’t be surprising that lab environments aren’t always perfect.
So how many of your labmates would you say you like? We’re talking actually like. The kind that when you walk into lab in the morning and you see their face, you’re really happy to see them. If you have to fight off a huge sigh and an eye roll when you see their face, let’s not count that as a “like”…
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