• Question: Does your job get in the way of other social activies ?

    Asked by mercyolatunde to Andrew, Daniel, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 16 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Hayley Smith

      Hayley Smith answered on 15 Nov 2011:

      Not really… in fact, I find my job allows me to do a lot of social activities.

      At the lab we work on flexi-time. We have to do a set amount of hours each day, but it’s pretty flexible about when you can do them. For example, I usually get into work at 7.45am. But then that means I can leave around 4 / 4.30pm ish most days so I can have a nice long evening as I do tend to do a lot of other stuff (eg basketball, amateur astronomy, jazz band, gym, go out with friends etc etc etc…). Other people prefer to come in at 10am and work until 6/7pm, but I’m definitely more of a morning person and have too many other things to be doing in the evenings!

      However, working on an operating particle accelerator there are some duties that do interfere with social activities. When we start the machine up (or shut it down) I often work late shifts (until midnight) or weekend work. But this is the part of the job I really enjoy – hands on, playing with the accelerator – so it’s not that much of a hardship. It’s maybe one Saturday or Sunday a month, but again, it’s pretty flexible.

      Others working on the accelerator are “on-call”, these are the more experienced folks, so they often get called in to deal with emergencies – I guess this would interfere with your outside social life more, but I can’t say I’ve been affected by that yet!

      Also, there’s loads of socialising goes on at the lab. For example, I play in a 6-a-side football league at lunchtimes, there’s rounders leagues at lunch in the summer and there’s a recreational society on site with facilities including table tennis, snooker, bar etc etc so there’s even time for socialising in work (at lunch) and after work.

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      In many ways it’s actually helpful… People care more about what work I’ve done than when or where I did it. So if I worked extra hours the day before then it’s pretty easy to take a short day later.

    • Photo: Andrew Cairns

      Andrew Cairns answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Not usually – I am still a student and because we don’t have set classes like at school I can set my own working hours. This is more difficult than it sounds though, being disciplined and actually getting to the office can be surprisingly demanding! It is important though, if you stop working for too long it is difficult to get back on track to get things done, and that makes my supervisor very sad.

      Science sometimes happens at inconvenient times, but you just have to be flexible. For example, at the moment I am in France doing some experiments. This means putting my life on hold in Oxford, but it means I get to go to France! We are in Grenoble which is a very beautiful city right in the French Alps.

      I do many other things with my time in Oxford. Through my degree I have volunteered with several charities, been a photographer for a student newspaper, done a few science outreach events and been students’ union president. The last one was perhaps the most demanding of my time, but luckily it was only for one year!

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