
I own you, and you're easily replaceable. - mikexstudios
http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2010/06/22/something-deeply-wrong-with-chemistry/
======
edw519
_In addition to the usual work-day schedule, I expect all of the members of
the group to work evenings and weekends. You will find that this is the norm
here at Caltech._

Then you're doing it wrong at Caltech.

We are often quick to assume that MoreHoursWorked = MoreWorkGettingDone. This
is true up to a point, but false beyond that point. Personally, I believe that
evenings and weekends are usually beyond that point.

I used to work 90 hours per week. But when I decided that I needed to get more
done, I started working 60 hours per week. Results per hour and quality of
results have both improved dramatically, so I'll never go back. And I would
never work for anyone who doesn't understand this.

~~~
loup-vaillant
I recall that some studies showed that long term productivity is maximized at
around 40 hours a week (at least on average) [citation needed, please]. When
we go from 40 hours to 60, productivity rises temporarily, then falls. The
fifth crunch time week is even less productive than a standard 40 hour week.
After 2 months, the benefits of the first week are cancelled out. Finally,
when we go back to 40 hours a week, productivity plummets, then rises to it's
standard level.

But the most interesting thing is that long term _perceived_ productivity is
higher at 60 hours a week than at 40. Because of that, it is very difficult to
realize that overtime is a mistake (emergencies aside).

I would also understand that not all people are alike. Some may be most
productive at 35 hours a week. Some may be most productive at 50. But 60 hours
sound like much. Maybe you could try to work even less for a month and see the
results? (And of course try to measure your productivity reliably. Going from
60 hours to 50 or 40 may be beneficial, but less so than going from 90 hours
to 60.)

~~~
radu_floricica
I know the same numbers, but they are for programmers. There are jobs where
number of hours worked is by far the best predictor of output. OP's work may
or may not be among them - sometimes science is a lot more like picking cotton
then creative design.

~~~
DannoHung
Then they need to change the way they operate their labs, because they don't
need someone with 25 years of education picking cotton.

------
Robin_Message
The writer of this letter now has a research group _named after himself_
(<http://www.carreira.ethz.ch/>) so lets go with uncurable egomania combined
with dangerous levels of political skill and charisma, all co-presenting with
a callous disregard for one's fellows, justified by the argument that "people
want to work for me." Frankly, we're lucky he's only a scientist and didn't
study economics, politics or law instead of chemistry.

\--- edit ---

If naming groups after yourself is normal, then it's not a bad apple, it's a
bad barrel! It sounds like academia could only be more feudal if you had to
call your professor "my liege."

~~~
yummyfajitas
Lots of research groups are named after the PI, this is nothing unusual. For
example:

<http://dft.uci.edu/>

<http://www.princeton.edu/~cargroup/>

~~~
_delirium
At my university, it's more common to give your research group a grandiose
name that implies it's got a bunch of profs in it, when it's actually just
you. Not sure if that's better or worse...

------
samd
Non-scientists love to talk about how important science is and how we need
more scientists, but the reality is that smart kids with some worldly
knowledge practically couldn't do worse than to go into science.

~~~
nollidge
That seems to be a rather sweeping claim to make on the basis of one asshole.

~~~
dlytle
It's probably on the basis of that one asshole, and the experiences of other
people he knows.

I personally know several people who have been taken advantage of by their
professors, so I'm inclined to believe him.

Also, "taken advantage of" is exactly the right term in my friends' cases.
Both are classic Aspergers cases (actual Aspergers, not just an excuse for bad
behavior), and their professors seem to be taking advantage of the trouble
they have mounting an effective resistance.

~~~
redrobot5050
>Also, "taken advantage of" is exactly the right term in my friends' cases.
Both are classic Aspergers cases (actual Aspergers, not just an excuse for bad
behavior), and their professors seem to be taking advantage of the trouble
they have mounting an effective resistance.

That's just the real world calling, and their refusal or inability to answer.
If they were in corporate america, a co-worker or middle manager would steal
their work and take credit, or capitalize on their inability to resist
additional assignments.

If they were in a start-up, they'd be overburdened and then forced out,
probably receiving the lowest equity of anyone and getting even less than out
of the deal, because they didn't make any decisions.

Its just a dog eat dog world out there, and if you can't say "No" or take
credit for your achievements, you're going to get taken advantage of.

~~~
csbrooks
>That's just the real world calling, and their refusal or inability to answer.
If they were in corporate america, a co-worker or middle manager would steal
their work and take credit, or capitalize on their inability to resist
additional assignments.

I've worked in corporate America for a while now, and I haven't seen managers
steal credit for their workers work before. Generally, if you're a manager and
you have someone you manage who is doing a great job and getting lots of stuff
done, that reflects well on you as a manager too.

~~~
redrobot5050
It all depends on the corporate culture. When I worked in the nuclear
industry, the culture was very sociopathic. New engineers were 4 to a cubicle.
It was "your fault" if a 40- or 80-hour task was not completed on time because
your manager let it sit on his desk for two weeks and gave it to you on the
day of the deadline.

I've also worked in places where engineers get the offices with windows, there
are lunchtime tech talks, and managers try their best to prioritize work and
then "get out of your way".

So it all depends. The people who email Scott Adams (of Dilbert) their
workplace horror stories are not [all] making them up. A "good" corporate
culture in America is still atypical, IMHO.

------
yellowbkpk
My wife is currently a grad student at a top 10 chemistry university studying
under a fairly well-known and respected female PhD (relevant because
"respected female chemistry PhD" is rare enough to really be "what's wrong
with chemistry now"...not the subject of this article...). This PhD does an
excellent job in motivating her students by pushing them for timely results,
but I don't think anyone in the lab feels like they are expected to work
evenings and weekends (indeed, some of them have brand new kids and a healthy
work/life balance).

Of course, most weekends the lab has least a couple people in it, but I don't
think it reflects the attitude presented in this memo. To be clearer, the
motivation to come in on weekends and stay late are not coming from a harshly-
worded memo, but from their desire to push their career forward.

The plural of anecdote is not data, but I thought I'd throw that perspective
in.

~~~
mcantor
_The plural of "anecdote" is not "data"._

That's brilliant. Can I steal that from you?

~~~
Sukotto
According to this [1] you can steal it from Frank Kotsonis who in turn stole
(and inverted) it from Raymond Wolfinger

[1] [http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-
anec...](http://askville.amazon.com/original-source-quote-plural-anecdote-
data/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=1415780)

~~~
flatline
Fascinating - according to that link, the Wolfinger quote stated the opposite,
that the plural of anecdote _is_ data. I guess I could see it going either way
depending on what you were arguing, which kind of makes the statement lose its
punch.

~~~
billswift
That has been my point several times. Anecdotes _are_ data, they just aren't
very good quality data, but sometimes they are all that is really available.
Their biggest problem are lack of controls, but then many statistical analyses
lack controls; and lack of consistent baselines and alternatives between
anecdotes.

------
bd
This is almost a perfect example of "sick system" (or how to keep people in
abusive work/personal relationships):

    
    
      Rule 1: Keep them too busy to think.
      Rule 2: Keep them tired.
      Rule 3: Keep them emotionally involved.
      Rule 4: Reward intermittently.
    

<http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html>

~~~
derefr
Interestingly, if you add:

    
    
        Rule 5: Allow them to quit or pause at any time
        Rule 6: Allow them to set their own input costs (to "place their own bets")
    

you have the basic tenets of _game design_.

------
patio11
We'd never be so gauche as to send _a memo_ about it. There are much more
efficient methods of getting employees to work every night and weekend, and if
you do it right, it won't even occur to them that that isn't normal.

I forget whether I'm talking about salaryman "we" or tech industry "we"...

~~~
kevindication
Presumably this is why Google is buying everyone breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

~~~
nostrademons
Probably not coincidentally, the end of breakfast and the beginning of dinner
are 9 hours apart.

~~~
fierarul
Isn't that because you also have an 1 hours lunch break ? Seems logic to me.

------
InclinedPlane
I always find it amusing how stunningly naive most people who work over 60
hours a week in salaried positions are. Your 100k job may seem swank but if
you're working 60-80 hours a week you're making effectively 30-20 dollars an
hour. You'd be better off working 2 separate jobs at $40 an hour at 50 hours a
week (or a single hourly job at $36/hr that pays regular overtime) than
killing yourself in the death march.

------
Raplh
I have a PhD from Caltech in Applied Physics/Engineering. I worked for a
physics prof when I felt like it. He didn't even KNOW when I was working for
the most part, and I took great vacations.

You payz your money and you takez your choice. Different profs, different
groups, had different cultures. I was in a group where the cultural values
were being really smart and having a great time. This letter is clearly from a
group where the cultural value is devoting your life to climbing the ladder.

Rejecting the work your butt off model is the wiener way out. Maybe it works
better, maybe not. Maybe it works well for some people, and that's why many of
them are represented among the full professor faculty at Caltech. I don't care
if it works that well, it is not my choice, and I had no problem finding full
professors at Caltech who asked for nothing of that kind.

R:

~~~
pvdm
In the OP's case, it was an assistant Prof trying to move up.

------
mildweed
Reminds me of a memo that got leaked from my previous employer back in '03.
Tanked the stock 20% in a day.

<http://technocrat.net/d/2006/8/28/7262/>

~~~
bitwize
Ah, but the company rebounded and is still doing pretty well, Neal Patterson
is still CEO -- and most likely, the parking lot is half full on Saturdays.

Guys like this win @ life. By doing this kind of shit.

~~~
abstractbill
_Guys like this win @ life. By doing this kind of shit._

It's likely that, no matter what else he does with his life, this memo will
always be the one thing he's most well known for, and just about everyone who
reads it will judge him for writing it.

That just doesn't sound like "winning" to me.

~~~
LaPingvino
Ah, but it's not bad to work for someone who has the guts to take action.

------
cageface
This attitude was the norm when I was in chem grad school in the 90s. Slacking
was working anything less than 70 hours a week and with 5-7 years of that kind
of work undoable in a word from your advisor you were powerless to do anything
about it.

Needless to say, I've never regretted my decision to drop out and write
software instead.

------
noonespecial
"This lab is what is known as a '40 hour lab'. You are not permitted to work
here for more than 40 hours each week. Sign ins and sign outs will be
rigorously monitored as well as periodic spot checks to make sure no research
tasks associated with this lab have taken place outside official hours.

As you well know there are many, many qualified applicants who would gladly
take your place if you feel that you are unable to follow these rules. The
simple truth is that if you are unable to get results in the 40 hours provided
each week, you will probably be unable to get results period and should look
for different employment."

Go ahead, professor, post it. I dare you.

------
ErrantX
I hate this kind of ethic; our competitors have it almost exclusively (from my
observation).

We are a much smaller company all round with a _very_ relaxed work schedule
(like today, our busiest day, we finished early to watch the football) and yet
we consistently outperform, outmanoeuvre and beat those competitors into the
dust.

It's _all_ about work ethic and the ability of a "team" to Get Things Done.

I think the leanest and most productive type of companies/groups/teams today
tend to:

\- work flexible hours

\- work relatively few hours

\- and most importantly works hard to reduce the hours you need to be
productive (this does wonders IMO)

------
CapitalistCartr
When choosing a field of work, it's important to look at the pay. I want to
work at something I love, but I also want to get paid well for it, and no
matter how much I love a field, I don't like being abused. If a field is
money-poor, it just is. Some industries are awash in money, some aren't.

Next thing is how many people are eager to be in the field, no matter the
cost. Don't enter a field overcrowded with good people. Sports, acting,
anything glamorous. For reasons that escape me, science fits in this category.
Find an area where you're genuinely appreciated. If there is no money
involved, the appreciation is fake.

~~~
xcombinator
I check the "many people" rule too. But sports, acting and science is big
enough to find good places to stay. In my experience in the electronics
sector, everybody wants to do "robots" and "lasers", so you really have to
compete with a lot of people for the limited job supply, but you could do
great things that are required but not so demanded.

------
netmau5
If this ever happens to IT, I think I'd rather go work in fast food and write
code on the side. I'm passionate about the work but not passionate about being
worked to death.

I guess some may argue it has happened in some tech circles (startups: at
least you usually give us a reason to work hard), but it's never been the norm
anywhere I've been employeed.

~~~
j_baker
Consider yourself lucky. These kinds of employers _do_ exist in the software
world. Generally speaking, they may even be correct to think that way (if you
twist your logic a bit). Poor to mediocre programmers are very easy to find,
and will usually be happy to get a job even if it's underpaid. This creates an
environment where you just hire tons of these kinds of programmers that are
underpaid and overworked. This can actually even get the job done, albeit not
very well.

~~~
mcknz
Unless you own the company or are a partner, never imagine you're anything
other than work for hire. The worst part is if you're a good soldier and do
your (unpaid) OT, there's no guarantee you'll see any kind of reward.
Employers who mandate 40+ weeks are ususally the kind who are looking to screw
their employees any way they can. It is, however, a perfect sign that you need
to be looking for a new job immediately.

~~~
faboo
I would loath to work for a place where I were just "work for hire". Case in
point: I was laid off at the last place I worked. My direct manager explained
the situation personally, apologized profusely. And then acted as a reference
for my next job. Sure, I lost my job, but I wasn't just dropped like a used
tool.

Employees can (and should) be people too.

------
p3ll0n
"Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people
burning the midnight oil. They pull all-nighters and sleep at the office. It’s
considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. Workaholics wind
up creating more problems than they solve. Workaholics miss the point, too.
They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up
for intellectual laziness with brute force."

\- Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, "Rework"

------
azharcs
I deal with this scenario everyday in a company I work with, where the founder
expects everyone to work on weekends and late night (most days). Since it is
an advertising agency, he accepts every work that comes his way from clients.
He comes from Sales background and somehow believes that more work is equal to
more money, which is not true. When it comes to any work where some amount of
thinking is involved, Less work (Quality) == more money.

Most of the people in the team are stressed and are complaining that they
don't have a personal life. They would quit the company, the day they get an
opportunity to apply leave, so that they can attend other interviews.

Very soon, I am going to buy him a book called "Peopleware: Productive
Projects and Teams". It's an amazing book, and is a must read for people who
are or want to manage teams.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware_%28book%29>

~~~
tdupree
I second that, "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams" is an awesome book
and I really encourage anyone who hasn't read it to pick it up some time. I
think it is an important read for both developers and managers.

------
dagw
Is this a US thing? a CalTech thing? or just one crazy professor? I know
several research scientists in various places in Europe and they have nothing
like this. Sure, when deadlines need to met they work longer or they get swept
up in their work they end up sitting until 3 am and sometimes you have to drop
by the lab on a weekend to check on an experiment, but all that is an
exception rather than a rule.

~~~
danielford
It depends entirely on the professor and the department. My adviser once said
that he expected forty hours a week, but if we really wanted to be successful
we should put in sixty.

I know plenty of other people with ridiculous horror stories though. Things
like professors demanding to know why a postdoc was taking so much time in the
bathroom, or confiscating a graduate student's plane ticket back to China
until an assignment was completed.

Academics desperately need a ratemyprofessor.com for advisers and lab
environments.

~~~
metageek
"confiscating a graduate student's plane ticket back to China" -- Theft.
Possibly grand theft, depending on the state and how much the ticket cost. And
possibly false imprisonment, if the student had no other reasonable way of
leaving the country (e.g., if they were a starving grad student who didn't
have the money for a second ticket).

------
adw
Organic chemistry - particularly total synthesis - is the Marines only without
the warm and fuzzy personal development. It's full of the bad crazy.

(My background's theoretical solid-state which is a lot less savage.)

------
jemfinch
I don't know any chem PhD/Grad students to ask this question, but I'm curious:
is this work schedule specific to Chemistry researchers? From my experience in
college chem classes (I was premed before CS) their research involves lots of
experimentation and waiting on reactions to run; a lot of butt-in-seat time
might be necessary for them to do their research.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Academic math/CS is not remotely this bad, at least in my experience. I've
never heard of anyone being told to work more hours. I've heard of people
being told to _get more done_ , but that's a different issue.

In general, a bad supervisor will neglect you rather than force you to do
ridiculous amounts of work, and will fail to put in the requisite effort to
get you a job.

~~~
_delirium
Same here. I think part of it is that in CS, at least in my area (AI), there's
a sort of "producing research progeny" mentality rather than "having a bunch
of low-paid staff" mentality. The way you ultimately put your stamp on the
field is that, in addition to your own work, you produce a bunch of brilliant
researchers who go on to basically found a "school" of AI strongly influenced
by your work/views.

It feels the profs who care that much about hours/wk are ones who really just
have a whole lot of gruntwork they want done, and want grad students to do it.
That's not really a good way to produce brilliant research progeny (grad
students whose PhD consists entirely of doing gruntwork for you aren't the
kind you want for that), but maybe in some areas it's the path to fame---
especially areas where hitting on a Big Result is the way you make your
career.

~~~
hyperbovine
Interesting. I always had a hard time squaring Dave Patterson's "grad students
are the coin of the realm" comment with my friends' experiences in other
disciplines, which were a lot more along the lines of what went on with this
Carreira jerk.

My impression regarding this divide is that major discoveries in math,
physics, CS etc. tend to be the result of very original, creative thinking--
ah-ha! moments--and that is not the sort of thing that can be stimulated by
simply doubling the amount of time you spend working. Whereas big papers in
chem and bio appear to result, in large part, from a tremendous amount of
trial-and-error gruntwork spent on the bench. Certainly, somebody's
inspiration (the PI's) is driving the overall research program, but you need a
huge amount of manual labor to bring it to fruition. Whereas, in the theory
fields, you can just sort of stare off into space until it comes to you.

My experience is definitely on the theory side, so I would love to hear what
the other sides's thoughts are...

------
neilk
Bad idea. Reward people for "putting in hours" and suddenly they'll figure out
ways to be present in the office without doing actual work.

Some employers avoid falling into this trap by refusing to make a record of
how long employees work, only their results.

------
Hates_
Currently wrong? The letter is dated 1996.

~~~
Vivtek
And yet it's all too current.

------
TrevorBurnham
I'm actually surprised that HN-ers aren't more sympathetic to the professor.

Let's suppose the prof is, himself, so passionate about his work that he's
devoting all of his time to it. He's made an effort to recruit people who are
equally dedicated, because when the colleagues he depends on go home before
him, that puts a bottleneck on his output. Furthermore, if most of his grad
students are content sacrificing their personal lives for this work, doesn't
it sour morale to have one guy who's always last to arrive and first to leave,
yet who expects equal status?

Plus, while other commenters have suggested that this professor is mainly
motivated by ego, it's also plausible that he's doing life-saving research,
thst he decided long ago that he has a moral responsibility to sacrifice every
waking hour to his work to save others from years of pain and sadness.

Again, I don't know if any of the above is true, but it's easy for me to
imagine circumstances under which this memo would be totally reasonable.
Surely anyone who's worked at a startup knows how important it is for
everyone's workload expectations to be aligned?

------
ibejoeb
Do associate professors really have that much clout over there that they can
do this? Maybe I'd expect something like that from a department head. Is that
what this is?

~~~
yummyfajitas
Over people in their research group, yes.

~~~
ibejoeb
I guess what I really mean then is: did this guy get his ass chewed by a
higher-up (who was smart enough not to put it in so many words) because it's
how the institution operates?

It's a little over the top. Trollish even.

~~~
_delirium
Usually tenured profs who're producing good research don't get hassled much;
heck, same with untenured profs who are producing good research to some
extent.

It does vary a little by school, if the school's administration wants to
cultivate a particular image. For example, CMU was getting a reputation for
taking 9-10 years for a PhD. It was for a variety of reasons not all the
profs' fault, but it did include some aspects of profs wanting to keep their
senior/productive students around producing more papers by dragging out their
PhDs. The administration decided they didn't want that reputation, so started
putting strong pressure to get people out within 6-7 years typically, 8 years
max, which reduced that considerably.

------
redrobot5050
Professors who treat their grad students like slave labor almost always create
their own comeuppance.

See, one day, that grad student will be a PhD. And because you abused him like
slave labor, instead of being a peer you can collaborate with, he becomes your
competitor.

You find yourself getting less funding and less people willing to go in on
grants with you because some young, hotshot upstart took own of his PhD level
ideas you don't own and turned it into something valuable. And you're
scrambling to catch up.

------
rbranson
Yikes. It's amazing how unenlightened people can be in such a time of supposed
enlightenment, and in such a field of rigor.

~~~
zackattack
In a time of supposed enlightenment? At least now we have free markets instead
of feudalism and puppet monarchies run by Great Pirates.

Last year, my neighbor was a PhD working in a lab at an institution in the
same equivalence class, and he told me that he made it clear that he expected
people to work nights and weekends. The attitude in the email linked above is
strict but the point is that the guy probably _had_ been slacking and if he
wanted to do something else then he should do something else instead of
slowing down the pace of important research and taking up a spot that could be
easily filled by somebody else.

------
adw
The thing that's being missed here is that it's a chemistry total synthesis
group. Organic chemistry's pretty bad, but total synthesis is evil.

Total synthesis (designing programs to build molecules from scratch) is a
global never-ending footrace - first to make the molecule wins. That's almost
uniquely startuppy/pressure-cookery among science; even among chemistry. I was
a postdoc in one of the world's leading chemistry departments, but that was in
chemoinformatics, which was less crazy. Before that I did my PhD in a
prestigious earth sciences department, working on problems in mineral physics,
and that was fine.

Total synthesis is unique.

------
slantyyz
In the end, it is irrelevant whether the bureaucrat is right or wrong about
the work week and productivity.

The bottom line is that the market dictates whether it's a buyer's market or a
seller's market. In the case of the letter in question, it's clearly a
-perceived- buyer's market at the time the letter was written.

No point in being outraged by the letter. The quick and easy solution is to
quit - why would any sane person want to continue to work in such a toxic
environment?

------
tzury
Trying to find some sense in this, I guess the chemistry work was focus on
developing new types of drugs, which should have make him so rich, that he got
mad thinking about the money's about to earn.

Otherwise, I see no reason for a person to be that nasty.

------
furyg3
I'm fairly certain that this is illegal in CA. This letter would certainly be
very useful in a lawsuit demanding retroactive payment for overtime hours
worked.

------
anirudh
<http://www.carreira.ethz.ch/people/emc>

~~~
tzury
nice googling job!

------
mkramlich
article says currently wrong yet the letter shown is dated 14 years ago

disconnect?

------
angrycoder
well its not like GLaDOS is going to build itself.

------
Aegean
It is amusing, if anything.

------
SoftwareMaven
My startup is working really closely with comp sci grad students in a lab at a
local university. I wish I could get their advisor to encourage this behavior.
;)

