Professionalism part deux

[pdub]

Depends on what you do at work.
If you don't need full focus on what you're doing, then yea, keep the headphones off.
But if you have a job that requires you to drill in mentally, headphones can be key.

[PhDhawk]

I used to be adamantly opposed to wearing headphones at work, unless I was doing something alone, like late at night or on a weekend, or something very long and tedious. I always thought it was somehow sorta rude, because, to your point, I thought it would prevent people from feeling like they could talk to me.

Then I worked with a couple people I didn't like, and I started wearing headphones all the time in hopes that those people would talk to me less.

Based on my experience though, wearing headphones didn't deter the people I disliked from talking to me at all, although people I did like seemed to talk to me less. So, I guess, the answer is if you want to talk to someone wearing headphones you should.

[pdub]

It may be just a few industries, but it's common in my profession for people to drill in with headphones on.

I guess I don't have experience in other fields but I'd like to think if someone has headphones on that they have them on for a reason - they want/need to be left alone - so I would only bother them to take the headphones off if it was a work related question that was either urgent or couldn't be easily answered via email/instant message.

[twocoach]

Depends on what you do at work.
If you don't need full focus on what you're doing, then yea, keep the headphones off.
But if you have a job that requires you to drill in mentally, headphones can be key.

Yeah, this works well for me. When I need to really plow through a lot of mentally taxing work, my headphones go on. Mainly it keeps the distracting little drummer in my head occupied so that the core of my brain can stay focused on the task at hand but it does also let some folks know that I am not available to hear about the tedious details of their day.

Our new "open concept" workspace is very distracting because you see and hear everything that everyone is doing and saying. It's great when collaboration is needed but has largely resulted in less efficiency when big volumes of work needs to be cranked out.

[twocoach]

It may be just a few industries, but it's common in my profession for people to drill in with headphones on.

I guess I don't have experience in other fields but I'd like to think if someone has headphones on that they have them on for a reason - they want/need to be left alone - so I would only bother them to take the headphones off if it was a work related question that was either urgent or couldn't be easily answered via email/instant message.

Agreed. It is common in my work space. There's only a few coworkers on my team that dont utilize headphones at some point and they are the gruffest members whom people approach only when it is urgent anyways.

[Deleted User 89]

I wish I was smarter and could have qualified for academia.

it’s not all that great

[twocoach]

I wish I was smarter and could have qualified for academia.

I wish I was rich enough to quit my job and take college classes for the rest of my life.

[CrimsonNBlue]

From what I can tell, you can make decent money in a tenure-track position, but the workload is high and you deal with a lot of bullshit, e.g. having to do shit that's not your responsibility for free.

Which, I guess is most higher paying jobs save for the really high workload.

[PhDhawk]

From what I can tell, you can make decent money in a tenure-track position, but the workload is high and you deal with a lot of bullshit, e.g. having to do shit that's not your responsibility for free.

Which, I guess is most higher paying jobs save for the really high workload.

I mean. Decent is a pretty murky term.

Most jobs that would require that amount of training, that are that competitive to get (especially in the sciences) would get paid more.

Workload is really variable, both from job to job and depending on what point in your career you're at, and really depending on the person.

[Deleted User 89]

the two heads of the division i worked in at KU pulled six figures

same education, but my position made half that, and was still about $10-15k higher than the national average for similar positions

[CrimsonNBlue]

Most jobs that would require that amount of training, that are that competitive to get (especially in the sciences) would get paid more.

That's a good point. It seems that once you chase down that tenture-track road, you're all in or nothing.

I know some great and smart people that are doing quite well in academia and were helped by the fact that they used their measly grad-school stipends wisely. But, I can't help but think how great they would have also been in the field for all those years.

[PhDhawk]

Most jobs that would require that amount of training, that are that competitive to get (especially in the sciences) would get paid more.

That's a good point. It seems that once you chase down that tenture-track road, you're all in or nothing.

I know some great and smart people that are doing quite well in academia and were helped by the fact that they used their measly grad-school stipends wisely. But, I can't help but think how great they would have also been in the field for all those years.

That's another consideration.

In my field, you can't get a tenure job without doing a post-doc.

So, now you're talking about delaying when you can even start earning any of that decent money.

Realistically, it's almost impossible to get a tenure professor job (in my field) any younger than 30, and probably it's going to be more like mid to late 30s...and that's to be an assistant professor. So, instead of having 40 years to make money, invest, build retirement, you have more like 30, and as you mentioned, hopefully you didn't get into debt during grad school or as a post-doc.

[CrimsonNBlue]

the two heads of the division i worked in at KU pulled six figures

same education, but my position made half that, and was still about $10-15k higher than the national average for similar positions

Fairly or unfairly, it seems the asst./assoc./professor salaries are commensurate with how much the department/school pulls in for the university.

[Mjl]

Depends on what you do at work.
If you don't need full focus on what you're doing, then yea, keep the headphones off.
But if you have a job that requires you to drill in mentally, headphones can be key.

You work as a team? If so I think that falls under your ways of working. We say no disturbing any developer between 10:30 and 2:30 unless absolute emergency and communicate that outward to everyone - the company has been great about it. Then those hours define what is proper, rather than the state of the person's headset.

[pdub]

That would be great but there's too much in flux for that to work here.

[Mjl]

Also, that's a case for using Slack (or equivalent) even when someone is right next to you - then they can decide whether they are fine with a context switch at that moment.

[Mjl]

That would be great but there's too much in flux for that to work here.

That's what the business said when we proposed it. We said give us a couple sprints to try it. They love it now because we're producing more.

[PhDhawk]

Fucking Slack.

We use that to communicate. It's ok for DMs, I prefer to just talk to someone, but if they're not immediately available, it's a good tool.

We use it to announce things to, like if a meeting gets cancelled, or if someone brought donuts, or if someone's using a piece of equipment for a long time, or whatever.

So, one woman I work with, who thinks her shit doesn't stink, and is the most self-serving, self-interested, independent, non-team-working person I've ever met, decided a month or so ago, that she was just quitting slack, and she deleted her account. It really was one of the biggest workplace "fuck yous" I can remember. So now if there's an important anouncement, she needs to receive a separate e-mail. If you ask a question about something, you have to ask her separately. She's basically a non-participant in anything that happens. She's also the worst person about doing things like re-ordering chemicals she's used up etc. so, those issues will now only get worse.

It was a ballsy move. To just essentially tell everyone she works with, that she doesn't want to communicate by the agreed upon method everyone uses.

[pdub]

Also, that's a case for using Slack (or equivalent) even when someone is right next to you - then they can decide whether they are fine with a context switch at that moment.

Agreed.
Email or direct message.

[zsn]

So if she decides to ‘quit’ email then do you have to send her memos in triplicate? If she decided to quit Slack it’s her problem. Everyone else shouldn’t have to go to extra length to accommodate her.