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So Asami, I heard that you have a new postdoc in your lab?
Yeah, well actually he's not new postdoc. He was here and then he left for the semester
to Oxford and then came back again. So yeah, we recently had him back and he's a very very sort
of like social one. So we are back to having lunches together, hanging out after the day,
like you know sometimes we get dinner or hang out on the weekends. Yeah, it's like very very
different. Well actually I've never really had postdoc for the most part of my PhD.
My lab is very small, like six-ish people at any given time and typically we don't have postdocs.
I don't know if it's just like my PI's policy or if we just didn't have money for postdoc or
something. But this is the first time I have a postdoc and yeah it's like so funny how like a
single person joining the lab can really change the lab dynamic. Yeah, that's true, yeah.
Like we didn't, well prior to him we would normally eat lunch at our own timing because
we're all doing experiments at different things and you know you don't always have a synced up
lunch time so we just ate on our own or in the lunch room in a department,
you know at your own timing of the day basically. But now around like 11 o'clock he'll be like
Asami, are you gonna go out for lunch or did you bring your lunch? And I'll say yes or no
and he's like so what time do you think you want to have lunch?
He's so friendly, he's very nice. I know, like he says that he hates eating lunch alone so maybe
there's that. Like I never thought of it in any way you know it doesn't really matter to me whether
I eat alone or with other people but yeah like so I've gotten used to solo lunching listening
to podcasts and stuff but now almost every day I have lunch with him and then he doesn't just ask
me to join the lunch he asks like everybody in the lab to you know like what time so sometimes
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he'll be like yeah it's not like oh so-and-so and I are gonna have lunch at 12 or like oh like
so-and-so and I are gonna go grab taco Tuesday you want to come to you know come together.
And so yeah he's a very very friendly guy sometimes I don't know what to do with that
level of friendliness. But he's very consistent, very consistent. He's very consistently friendly.
Yeah very nice. So no no he's very very nice and like you know I think because I know that he's
married and everything like it's a bit less creepy the fact that he's like always wants to hang out
with us you know because if it wasn't for that it's like oh I don't know what your motive is
but in his case it's purely friendly he just hates eating alone. So maybe so he's he had his
he had that kind of culture before in his lab in Oxford. So that's exactly what he said like
so he's not from Oxford for like his PhD is from elsewhere but back in his PhD days basically
there was no set rule but people always had lunch together you know around similar time every day
like if you like nobody ate lunch alone apparently and MPI like the boss would join
like in that lunch you know break room too to eat lunch once in a while and you know
sometimes they talk about science but most of the time they just talk about you know
funny shit that they saw on TV or department gossip or
politics news things like that you know and just like it just didn't happen
for the most part of my lab because when I joined people were already eating solo lunches everywhere
so I just didn't feel I was like I just like decided to start my own rhythm right and I didn't
think about having to have lunch with other people I also try to bring lunch it's like I try to pack
my lunch every day so I bring my bento like nothing nothing crazy it's really like tomorrow I'm
literally gonna bring rice with tofu on top of it like that's that's my obento
so like I really don't try hard for a fancy obento but I do try to bring my own lunch because
I don't have a lot of option to eat outside where I am like we're near my lab you know there's
like it's not like there's no restaurant there are actually quite a bit of restaurants but
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there are maybe like 12 of them and those option gets quite boring quite quickly yeah and also
it's also expensive right yeah very expensive as grad students we don't really get paid that well
I mean we do get paid which is a huge plus for you know considering most like many other
situations where you have to fund yourself but like it's it's still not a lot so I try to pack
my lunch but anyway so yeah it's just like fascinating how one person joins
and insists that we eat lunch together and now yeah like at least three or four of us
who are in the office would eat lunch together unless there's like some really pressing stuff
that's happening you're like oh I really can't do this right now so go ahead go have your lunch on
your own or you know if you're sometimes some of our colleagues are working from home so they're
not going to come out for lunch but um yeah so it's like lunch time together every day and it's
like I guess it's nice yeah sometimes it goes on for too long though like the like
I'm like oh shit it's like it's 1 p.m already like I spent like an hour having lunch
but then when I was working uh in a museum in New York uh in the lab there for whatever reason
there were lots of Italian people there and they take their lunches very seriously right it's one
full hour every day doesn't matter how busy they are they always take one hour uh they always eat
their dessert um no matter what they're eating um so like
lunch and not not taking along like uh with your colleagues like yeah like like no even if you're
super busy you still do the whole thing and like that that's not a part that you can cut which is
like I as an intern I thought it was kind of funny and um and they were complaining how
Americans don't take long enough time for lunch yeah eat lunch or sometimes they eat alone like
they also thought that eating lunches alone was a weird thing okay they were like you guys work
together why aren't you asking each other like hey we're gonna go grab lunch why don't you come
like I guess it's it's maybe this is uh American academic culture that I adapted
yeah and maybe it's not very good yeah yeah and also you Masako what's your case
well I think it depends on the lab um usually probably and um right now I I usually bring my
lunch and then I just eat it while I'm working which is not good I guess um like while you have
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your computer yeah yeah in front of me and writing emails while I'm taking lunch um yeah and in my
previous lab um I had a like a colleague um we we hang out and then we get lunch um sometimes when
I have experiment I can't I can't really you know go out oh so you had your like lunch buddy
yeah lunch buddy yeah yeah so that was nice um yeah sometimes we we chat you know it doesn't
have to be research related um like gossips or um complaining stuff about life in general
it was nice and uh in um in another lab um we had this uh TED talk watching lunch occasionally
really yeah that sounds very yeah yeah it was interesting so we would talk about science um
yeah TED talk um oh actually not necessarily um anything someone will pick up like a
um one of the TED talks that um he or she wanted to watch or already watched and then we would
yeah watch it together and then after the um after that we will discuss about the topics
and then that was like yeah lunchtime thing in that lab but other than did you like it did you
like it or did people like that it was uh it was okay it was just um um sometimes we didn't have
much to discuss yeah that made the kind of yeah the moment how big is the group it was it was
quite large there were um several postdocs and uh and also students um technical staff
um maybe probably about 10 10 or a little more than 10 people yeah like so like
you have 10-ish people watching the same thing and depending on a topic you don't have much to
talk about just like sitting inside right that was that was fine that was all right
and uh but i guess it's a good it's a good sort of like shared
um experience right yeah you you do this thing together and you sort of understand through
discussions you know what sort of stuff speak to other people in your lab or like what sort
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of stuff are they interested in outside of the research and stuff like that that's probably pretty
cool that's it for the show today thanks for listening and find us at aegode science on
twitter that is e-i-g-o-d-e-s-c-i-e-n-c-e see you next time
