“You Failed to Show Up in the Lab on Several Nights and on Weekends”
A spoof letter to postdocs generated lots of discussion a decade ago but it has a whole different meaning in the changed world of 2023. Toxic working conditions are a political issue and not so funny.
Photo by Surface on Unsplash
2023 perspective
“Academic freedom is being able to choose which 80 hours a week you will work.”
This exchange about early career persons having to show up at a lab outside of 9-5 working hours has an interesting history. I posted a spoof letter on Facebook in 2010 supposedly showing a PI requiring such a commitment from the postdocs in his lab. The timing was right after I began receiving 30% salary support from University Medical Centre Groningen (UMCG) for having my H-index and the affiliation of all my new papers listing both UMCG and the University of Groningen. That novel arrangement deserves some explanation because it is an important part of the context for the discussion. I took seriously my commitment to improving productivity with respect to successful papers and grant applications in the Health Psychology Program. Differences between the research cultures of the US and the Netherlands become an issue to discuss without the prejudice that the pr…