Tag Archives: emails

“Going on leave…or not?”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

When an “Out of office autoreply” is received into your inbox, it is increasingly common to get something like this…

“Please note I am on annual leave for the next two weeks. I will only be checking my emails intermittently.”

Hmmm….

There are two reasons why this “halfway house” is a bad idea, regardless of your responsibilities or seniority. Firstly, by checking your emails at all, you are not getting away from work completely. By checking your emails, you will never get work out of your mind, the things in the laboratory which were stressing you will still be stressing you, defeating the purpose of leave in the first place. Time is a great healer…

And secondly, by checking emails whilst on leave, you are giving the perception of distrust for those colleagues who are covering for you. Leave them to it. They are more than capable.

There is not much that cannot wait in the microbiology laboratory. And anything that cannot wait, should never be sent by email.

With smartphones, the temptation to keep in touch with work whilst on leave is almost overwhelming. Don’t do it! Switch the notifications off. Even better disconnect the email app from the server. Remove yourself from temptation, you will still have a job to go back to when you return, and people won’t think any less of you because you have been totally incommunicado during your holidays. In fact they may well have a grudging respect….

Enjoy your holidays, spend quality time with your family, and forget all about work for a while. You will likely come back rejuvenated, and ready to provide value to your microbiology laboratory.

Trust me, the sky will not fall because you are not there.

So the next time you are on leave, put something like the following on your out of office autoreply.

“I am on leave until date X. Person Y is covering for me. If necessary I will get back to you on my return.”

Take leave like you mean it!

Michael

p.s. Worried about that mountain of emails that awaits you on your return? Don’t be. Give yourself 1 hour exactly to clear the bulk of your inbox. Be brutal, ruthless and without remorse. Many of the email topics will have been sorted, or forgotten about. You will soon work out which emails are actually important, which in reality is about 1%!

“Face to face”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

Sometimes your chair can be just too comfortable…

It can be all too easy to sit in front of a computer all day, allowing yourself to be sucked in by a vortex of emails, playing to the tune of other people’s agendas, and from which it is difficult to escape as work fatigue sets in. We become hypnotised by the screen and frozen to our chairs.

Or if you are a scientist, you might feel compelled to sit all morning at the bench reading agar plates, without any hope of reprieve…

So one of my resolutions for 2018 is more face to face time. Less time in front of a screen and more time talking to people, building relationships, and breaking down barriers. By this I don’t mean more formal meetings, just more informal chats, and not necessarily about work!

Sure, there will always be periods where I need to be in front of a computer:- reading articles, reviewing or writing laboratory policy, checking emails, analysing data, etc. But I want to ensure that this is the minority of my working day, not the majority.

The same applies if you are working at a bench. If you have a mountain of culture plates to read, or samples to set up, then the risk of boredom and consequent errors is a genuine one. Make sure such work is punctuated by occasional wandering and chats to your colleagues. Discuss possible ways to make the laboratory process more efficient, or just talk about what you got up to at the weekend! And never, ever feel compelled to stay at your bench just because your boss is sitting in the office nearby. This is not school anymore!

Being an introvert, I am not a natural conversationalist, but this year I am going to force myself out of my comfort zone. Disagreements with colleagues, which are inevitable from time to time,  are so much easier to navigate through if you have a good working relationship with them.

To quote the often used cliche. “Nobody has ever said on their deathbed ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office/at the bench.‘”

But it’s absolutely true.

So in 2018 I will endeavour to seek more face to face time, assuming I can find somebody who is not busy sending emails or reading plates…

Michael

 

“The Addicted Microbiologist”

Confessions of a Microbiologist, ,

Up until recently I used to check my work emails on my I-phone every 20-30 minutes throughout the evening, sitting at home on the couch.

Not only evenings, but weekends and holidays as well. It was all a bit sad really.

It wasn’t for any particular reason, it was more like an automatic reflex. And if I went a prolonged period without checking them, I started to get a bit edgy and irritable…

I was addicted.

I have always had an addictive personality, and I have been addicted to many different things throughout my life. But I never thought I would be addicted to work emails however.

Wow, I am getting old…

So on realising I had a problem, I decided to do something about it.

About 6 months ago, I went cold turkey.

I didn’t just switch the work emails off from my smartphone, I completely uninstalled the server, so as to resist temptation.

So now when I leave the laboratory I don’t check my emails again until I am back in the laboratory.

And sure enough,  the sky hasn’t fallen. The emails sit there quite happily, waiting patiently for me to look at them. And when I do get round to looking at them the next (working) day, there is a little pile of them which I can then deal with somewhat ruthlessly, and certainly much quicker than answering them “individually” at periodic intervals.

Apart from addiction there is another good reason for not checking emails out of normal working hours. The majority of incoming emails are from people looking for something, a bit of your time, a bit of your expertise, a bit of your life…

Follow your own agenda, not other people’s.

March to the beat of your own drum…

I have five children, and a sixth on the way. I now have better things to do in the evening, like changing nappies!

But checking work emails at home is now a thing of a past. Trust me, there is not much that cannot wait in the world of microbiology…

Michael