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Asked by hi my name is... MARK! to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 15 Jun 2016.
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Christie Waddington answered on 15 Jun 2016:
There are many days when I don’t want to get out of bed! Science is up and down, you have good days and bad. Sometimes experiments work, and other times they don’t. When they don’t work, there are times when you have no idea why!
In general I enjoy being a scientist. I like the research project I am working on, I like the flexible working hours, I can travel all over the world to conferences and I’m doing loads of public engagement stuff (like this!) which I would not be able to do in another job.
All jobs will have good days and bad days, it’s just whether or not you enjoy it even when there are bad days!
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Dan Lewis answered on 15 Jun 2016:
Oh most definitely I have my good and bad days but I think that’s what makes life interesting. On a good day all my analysis’ will be spot on and no problems will occur, and on bad days nothing works. But I have found the bad days sometimes create unusual results that were not obvious when the projects were running well and they can sometimes lead onto some amazing discoveries. So yes I enjoy being a scientist just not all the time.
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Dawn Lau answered on 15 Jun 2016:
I definitely have days where I don’t want to get out of bed. Science isn’t always unicorns and rainbows! Sometimes I have a bad week where none of my experiments work and I can’t figure out why. Sometimes you have just submitted an article for peer review (constructive criticism by other scientists) and it gets rejected with awful comments. But there are also times when everything just works, your paper gets accepted, you get awarded a new grant, or you get great feedback from your students. There are good days and bad days – you can’t have one without the other!
Most of the time I really enjoy my job – just not 100% of the time 🙂 and that would probably go for any job you have, not just a scientist!
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Sian Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2016:
Hi Mark,
On the days I don’t want to get out of bed it is certainly not the science! I don’t enjoy every day equally – hosted a terrible workshop last Wednesday, but learned some lessons and will make sure that I don’t repeat the experience. This week has been unexpectedly awesome.
The best days are the ones where I learn something unexpectedly – and they happen often.
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David Robertson answered on 19 Jun 2016:
There are always good days and bad days. Most of the time I really enjoy the science part of my work. Some of the administration that goes with the work, and with working in a University is uninspiring.
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