• Question: Does your work have an effect on your social life?

    Asked by sammy0112 to Alex, Amy, Andy, Georgia, Ollie on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ollie Russell

      Ollie Russell answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Not really. Sometimes we might have to come in on the weekends or maybe work long hours on the odd day. Its like any job i suppose

    • Photo: Amy Reeve

      Amy Reeve answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      Definitely not. The good thing about science is that its quite flexible. But like Ollie says it does sometimes take over your weekends.

    • Photo: Alex Munro

      Alex Munro answered on 13 Jun 2011:

      No, not at all; but then again my 10 y old daughter probably has a better social life than me!! It’s like any job really (as Ollie says); sometimes you have to get your brain in gear on a Sunday evening so that you’re prepared for the week ahead… Or if you have a presentation to do, work late the day before so that you’re fully prepared…

    • Photo: Andy MacLeod

      Andy MacLeod answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      It’s 6:30 on a Friday night, and I’m still in the lab at my computer. What do you think? 😉

      Hi sammy. This week’s been a bit of an unusual one, because I’ve been answering IAS questions on top of trying to do my regular work. Generally I try not to let work interfere too much, but it sometimes does. I think that kind of comes with the job. Or at least, comes with the people who go into the job. Most people who choose science as a career do so because it’s something they want to do, something they’re interested in (it’s certainly not for the money…). And a lot of them are the sort of people who won’t let a problem go until they’ve solved it. I know I am. So I do sometimes stay pretty late at work, trying to get to the bottom of one particular problem or other. But a lot of my friends work in research too, so they’re pretty understanding, as most of them go through phases like that themselves.

      Having said that, I’m off to the pub now. A friend from the lab is leaving to go work in Italy, so we’re all going to have a few drinks to wish him well. But I’ve still got a whole bunch of IAS questions to answer – I’ve been telling all my colleagues about this, and they’re all seem interested. So I’m going to print off a few of the questions and see what they think of them.

      Science is all about collaboration. There is no “I” in Science. Oh, hang on….

      🙂

    • Photo: Georgia Campbell

      Georgia Campbell answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi Sammy,

      work does affect my social life a bit sometimes if I happen tohave a lotto do – itsrubbish having to come in at weekends sometimes!

      But mostly it doesn’t affect my social life too much 🙂 one of the great things about science is that you can organise the work for whenever you want to doit (as long as you make sure it does all get done of course!) So if I want to leave early one day to go and do something else, I can just make up the extra work over the rest of the week 🙂

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