5 ms·

What I found interesting of this article is that most of it is also applicable to a many tech sector jobs. High pressure to deliver something (because we squeez

by oaiey 3y ago

What I found interesting of this article is that most of it is also applicable to a many tech sector jobs. High pressure to deliver something (because we squeeze the last of people), hire-and-fire practices everywhere, politics and toxic environments (because that is what people do and what is the current social perspective on what is okay). Developers, like scientists, are very outcome driven (number of lines, number of features, RoI, ...) The only - very big difference - is pay.

fullshark 3y ago
It's what you get when you put intelligent, ambitious and arguably insecure people in a high pressure environment with status/economic rewards and punishments. Also yes you are judged based on output not how cordial you are in the workplace or whatever. Sales I guess would also qualify.
PaulHoule 3y ago
Tech job hunts are easy in good times. (e.g. leave one employer, take a day off, interview at another employer the day after that, start working the week after) Academic jobs are nothing like that.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  notice that "leading" tech companies fixed this, with artificial hazing behavior in interviews, and changing the norms of hiring from two interviews to more than six, as widely reported.
- _Wintermute 3y ago
  There's actually a huge shortage of postdocs at the moment, if you're remotely qualified and a somewhat normal human being you can easily get a job. The problem is that the job is awful, stressful, temporary, and poorly paid - hence the shortage of candidates willing to apply for them.
tptacek 3y ago
Having now two lab scientists living under my roof, there is nothing even in the stories I've heard of the video game industry that compares to how toxic research culture is. It is next-level, as if being vexatious was a goal on its own --- which, given the culture generation after generation of PIs have come up through, might at this point actually be the case: students and employees are threatened, berated, harassed, and coerced into ludicrous hours as part of a dues-paying process.
- michaelt 3y ago
  I've heard of incredibly variable experiences from people working on science PhDs. I've known maths PhD students who found they could only really do 2-3 hours of truly productive maths in a day, allowing them to spend the rest of the day playing games and suchlike, and after two years their supervisor told them they'd got enough interesting results to graduate. And I've known chemistry PhD students whose supervisors felt if you're doing a mere 8 hours a day of work you might as well drop out now because you're obviously not serious about graduating, and expected their students to be in the lab tending to long-running experiments on evenings, weekends and even christmas day. And yes, we only give you three years of funding but everyone takes four years to graduate.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I believe it. I've surveyed friends and friends of friends about chem and bio because one of my kids is a biochemist, and that's where most of my telemetry comes from; lab STEM in general has a bad rap, but chem and bio might be distinctively awful.
  - nomadpenguin 3y ago
    I think there's a huge division in toxicity between wet bench and computational/dry lab work. If your math PhD friends go on a wild goose chase or slack off for a few weeks, the only thing that is lost is time. In a wet lab, it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. The stakes, stress, and constant attention required from experiments feeds into the toxicity in wet labs. Adding to that, a large portion of (important) wet bench work is mind-numbing manual labor. This work really should be done by a tech, but techs are just as if not more expensive than grad students, and techs can leave the job if they're not happy. Which means that grad students are at the bottom of the totem pole of intellectual respect, and PIs who had to do the same expect a lot more "due paying". Meanwhile, students in computational labs are working from home.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
abhayhegde 3y ago
I would say the job market is another stark differentiator. People with BS or MS degrees in CS would end up owning a job that an academic would have to wait until a tenure-track job to earn. The difference is CS jobs are obtainable right off the bat, while the tenure-track professorship requires a solid 8-10 years post graduation.

by oaiey 3y ago

fullshark 3y ago

It's what you get when you put intelligent, ambitious and arguably insecure people in a high pressure environment with status/economic rewards and punishments. Also yes you are judged based on output not how cordial you are in the workplace or whatever. Sales I guess would also qualify.

PaulHoule 3y ago

Tech job hunts are easy in good times. (e.g. leave one employer, take a day off, interview at another employer the day after that, start working the week after) Academic jobs are nothing like that.

mistrial9 3y ago
notice that "leading" tech companies fixed this, with artificial hazing behavior in interviews, and changing the norms of hiring from two interviews to more than six, as widely reported.
_Wintermute 3y ago
There's actually a huge shortage of postdocs at the moment, if you're remotely qualified and a somewhat normal human being you can easily get a job. The problem is that the job is awful, stressful, temporary, and poorly paid - hence the shortage of candidates willing to apply for them.

tptacek 3y ago

Having now two lab scientists living under my roof, there is nothing even in the stories I've heard of the video game industry that compares to how toxic research culture is. It is next-level, as if being vexatious was a goal on its own --- which, given the culture generation after generation of PIs have come up through, might at this point actually be the case: students and employees are threatened, berated, harassed, and coerced into ludicrous hours as part of a dues-paying process.

michaelt 3y ago
I've heard of incredibly variable experiences from people working on science PhDs. I've known maths PhD students who found they could only really do 2-3 hours of truly productive maths in a day, allowing them to spend the rest of the day playing games and suchlike, and after two years their supervisor told them they'd got enough interesting results to graduate. And I've known chemistry PhD students whose supervisors felt if you're doing a mere 8 hours a day of work you might as well drop out now because you're obviously not serious about graduating, and expected their students to be in the lab tending to long-running experiments on evenings, weekends and even christmas day. And yes, we only give you three years of funding but everyone takes four years to graduate.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I believe it. I've surveyed friends and friends of friends about chem and bio because one of my kids is a biochemist, and that's where most of my telemetry comes from; lab STEM in general has a bad rap, but chem and bio might be distinctively awful.
- nomadpenguin 3y ago
  I think there's a huge division in toxicity between wet bench and computational/dry lab work. If your math PhD friends go on a wild goose chase or slack off for a few weeks, the only thing that is lost is time. In a wet lab, it could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars. The stakes, stress, and constant attention required from experiments feeds into the toxicity in wet labs. Adding to that, a large portion of (important) wet bench work is mind-numbing manual labor. This work really should be done by a tech, but techs are just as if not more expensive than grad students, and techs can leave the job if they're not happy. Which means that grad students are at the bottom of the totem pole of intellectual respect, and PIs who had to do the same expect a lot more "due paying". Meanwhile, students in computational labs are working from home.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

abhayhegde 3y ago

I would say the job market is another stark differentiator. People with BS or MS degrees in CS would end up owning a job that an academic would have to wait until a tenure-track job to earn. The difference is CS jobs are obtainable right off the bat, while the tenure-track professorship requires a solid 8-10 years post graduation.