Between a rock and my place

There's so much pressure to show up in the lab these days. When I'm not around, certain people (most notably those higher up the academic food chain) naturally assume that I'm slacking off and partying it up on my paltry stipend earnings. Sure, I work in a lab and to actually collect data I need to come in. There are definite advantages to bouncing ideas off people, getting feedback, and working collaboratively. And now that the summer is over (as far as the university administration is concerned), there are weekly scheduled meetings and gatherings where even if attendance isn't exactly mandatory, it's certainly frowned upon if you don't show up.

So I've spent most of the summer "working from home". I'm not going to lie and say that they were all productive hours and there weren't days when you could legitimately say I was slacking off. But, especially lately, I've never had more productive days than the last month or so...

• wake up without an alarm (bliss!)
• kiss my love on the forehead, give her the option to sleep in (which she always takes!), and stumble in my pjs/bathrobe into the living room
• check email, catch up on a blog or two, and random web browse for 45 minutes
• make coffee (inevitably result: the rising of sleeping beauty at the sound of the grinder and fresh coffee scent)
• sit back down in the living room, laptop comfortably warming lap, coffee by my side and ready to work
• within 90 minutes of waking up I'm actually working (not commuting to work)
  

The next step... work! (while waiting for my sweetheart to let the caffeine kick in and slowly lift from groggy sleep haze until she inevitably--the wonderful woman she is--makes breakfast: anything from a bowl of cereal to home-made pancakes. Jealous yet?)

And work I did.

Over the holiday weekend I spent 30 hours writing a 38-page draft of the fourth chapter of my thesis. This past week, I edited down a paper according to the reviewers' suggestions and have cobbled together 80% of a draft for another from that leviathan of a thesis chapter.

But I was beginning to feel guilty and came into the lab today. (Not to mention, there's a seminar today and Rani is working all afternoon. Poop.)

And what have I done?

Nothing. Well... nothing much. Certainly nothing as concrete as "finished a paper":

• organized data to burn to backup DVD and erase from my laptop hard drive
• caught up with the other students in the lab, letting them in on all the little things I "figured out" this week
• organized a "study schedule" with another near-completion PhD student so that we can get together and actually sift through all the literature we need to know inside and out by the time we defend
• caught up with a good friend (and full-fledged scientist here in the lab) over lunch and picked up a little gossip about the departmental behind-the-scenes workings (kinda miss that inside knowledge, actually)
• asked a few people for help (i.e. to send me slides) for the "intro talk" I've got to give next Tuesday afternoon
• and, oh yes, wrote this post

It's nice to list all that stuff. At least it feels "real" now and not just like I was a social butterfly who didn't do anything useful. (And I won't argue if you say that at least one or two of those items are, technically, useful things that were made much easier to do by being here.) There's just something about the environment here: the cramped office space, the people that are more fun and interesting to interact with than just look at, the stress of knowing my supervisor might be around the corner and ready to pounce, the need to share knowledge vocally rather than writing it down as I know I should. It's kinda fun, but never feels particularly productive.

Ironic that: that coming in to work makes me feel like I'm working less, while staying at home in my pjs (or, like I did yesterday, taking my laptop to the pub for a few hours), makes me feel like working hard and actually producing something.

I like working at home better. It's more relaxing and I have complete control of what I do and how I do it. I can handle more stress in an environment that I'm actually comfortable being in. I feel like I actually get things done there.