In the world of busy worker bees, there’s only one specimen that can do all and any tasks necessary: the scientist. While other lower animals can often be found in concerted work, where opportunity costs and benefits of specialization define who does what, the scientist is well above the need for help. Preferring solitude to socialization and caffeine to cooperation, the solitary scientist is an image of good old days, when society was driven forward by heroic explorers and experimenters.
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How does the scientist retain this mastery over all matters? The answer is a combination of two issues. First of all, due to the solitary nature of the scientist, each one prefers to work on issues on their own. Trying to cooperate would result in loss of status, because the other individual might be better at something (gasp!). After all, isn’t image above all? Better to do your web app for the experiment from scratch, rather than enlist the help of a computer scientist. On another level, the inclusion of additional people would mean a larger group for dividing spoils. You see, publishing a paper just by yourself in The New England Hyperprogressive Journal of Foucauldian Energy Fields is surely better than one in Nature, if in the latter you have to share the spoils with other people. Working alone, you can be the heroic explorer of your dreams. Working together, you’re just a cog in a machine, and nobody will remember your name. Especially if that other one is the first author.

This way of noncooperation manifests itself also in the physical structure of scientist life. Whereas other species tend to have open-plan dwellings that promote interaction, scientists’ lairs are typically made of single-person rooms. This ensures that each individual can stay nonproductive at their own pace, and means that interaction tends to happen only when the scientists gather around the local coffee pond to drink. Even that isn’t universal: in many societies, scientists have long learned that they can avoid these semi-forced interactions by having their own source of nourishment – a small espresso machine. This is a great way to show that you are not dependent on the tribe for anything. In contrast, if you are forced to accept other scientists in your territory, it shows that you have not earned your stripes to obtain the honorary title of a doctor. Or if you have, then sharing territory is a sign of weakness, both of your research and yourself.
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As the night appears, almost nothing changes. Since in daytime everyone would be sitting behind closed doors anyway, just by observation you can’t tell it’s already late. The disappearance of administrative personnel, however, signals the end of the hottest time of day. But if you could see behind those closed doors, you could find many a scientist, still procrastinating profusely. It’s a world of publish or perish, and there’s this critical deadline that you are close to missing (because you just spent two months learning how to do PHP, instead of that conference paper).

If you read almost any book about ”productivity”, ”efficiency” or similar, one of the tips you’re bound to get is to have fewer meetings. In my job, I’d say I have a meeting on average twice a month. So I must be the happiest, most efficient worker in the history of the universe, right? Not exactly.

I’ve found out that I love meetings. Not because they are often basically a group of people sitting around, drinking coffee, and pretending that the discussion totally justifies spending 15 minutes on the current state of politics, sports, or playing didyouseethatarticleaboutthethingilove. Or how many meetings are just rehashes of the old ones, because people a) don’t remember what you talked about last time, and b) haven’t done what was agreed on previously. So you pretty much keep going through the same points again (well, at least you won’t need new slides).

All this aside, I’ve found that meetings have an important motivational effect on me. Working from Germany for projects in Finland means that on a lot of days, I’m basically sitting alone in my yuge office (well, huge for a PhD student). We do have lunches together with colleagues at the office – but otherwise the social interaction is very academic: everyone says “hi” in the morning, and then retreats to their own cave…I mean room for the day. So, for most of the time it’s just me and the computer. Actually, it’s me and two computers, since I’m carrying a laptop to work in the train. Fantastic, twice the capacity for procrastinating online!

Oh yeah, the meetings. It may sound silly or obvious, but I see now that it’s way much easier to work, when you get to have a meeting every once in a while, talk to your supervisor about your work, and get at least a fleeting feeling that someone actually cares about the project you’re working on. I do realise that research is very much driven by intrinsic motivation – most people do the PhD because they’re really curious about some topic, not because they want to get a better wage or impress someone else (btw, these reasons seem way more common in Germany). But the fact that someone else is also invested in the project totally sparks me. I don’t know why, but so far I get the feeling that it’s related to a sense that I’m not willing to let other people down. So, at least for me, there definitely seems to be a floor level of meetings that I should have, because it helps to keep up my motivation. No book has ever mentioned this effect, but I guess most workplaces are chock full of meetings, so that this is not a relevant risk – unlike coffee and bun overdoses.
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With these thoughts in mind, I can honestly say I’m really looking forward to flying to Helsinki tomorrow, and attending some meetings! Another point to improve motivation would be to somehow make me seem more connected to our work group when here, but so far I’m lost on how to do that. If anyone else has any good tips from their teleworking experiences, help is appreciated!