We managed to hold a remote FAB meeting this week and, while numbers of attendees were down on previous meetings, we had an excellent round table discussion about how everyone has been getting on working remotely during the COVID19 pandemic.
I’m pleased to report everyone seemed well and in good spirits and several positives were highlighted! For instance, while it is obviously very challenging to have children at home and try to work remotely (especially if they are little ones), it’s also been a lot of fun to spend more time with our kids. Often our children don’t see so much of their siblings, so it’s been great to see their relationships develop and strengthen as they spend more time playing together. One thing I certainly find is that I struggle to get much in the way of home schooling done and I often feel bad about this when I see all that is going on through social media. I guess the same considerations/caveats apply to social media now as much as in easier times– you tend to see the good moments: grant successes, weddings, sunny holidays etc… people don’t tend to post footage of themselves losing their rag at their kids, holidays ruined by rain or terrible reviews of carefully-crafted grant applications. There was a strong contrast between the experiences of those with children and those who live on their own in these strange times. Families with children where both partners work have had to adopt shift strategies to try to get some work done. Whereas perhaps the biggest change for those who live on their own is a loss of social interactions. It was great to hear about how people have been keeping in touch with their labs, colleagues, friends and families via Google hangouts etc. I’ve found myself wandering why I’ve not been playing board games across the internet with my family before this situation fell upon us! As well as social interactions, work provides an orderly framework and routine for many of us and this has quickly been dismantled. Several people discussed how they have made a new routine, but have tried not to be too hard on themselves in terms of how much progress they can make and also ensuring they factor in breaks. Mid-afternoon exercising seems to be popular and some have enjoyed more cycling, especially as roads are currently much quieter than usual. Everyone agreed the excellent weather has been very helpful and lifted their moods! For those of us who are more removed from lab work, the shift seems to have been more straightforward in what we can get on with. Getting feedback and thinking strategically about grants has become difficult, especially for those with mentors who are frontline NHS staff. Therefore it’s important for us all to communicate with colleagues and not be scared to ask for feedback and advice. Given that it’s far easier to write papers and grant applications from home than it is to conduct experiments, this crisis has no doubt had a much bigger impact on post-docs. For instance, experiments have had to be stopped at critical points, and while this is irritating if it is a member of your team, the likelihood is there are other things you can concentrate on as a PI. For some the lockdown has represented a chance to work on data backlogs though for some this is tricky owing to the computers available to them offsite, while first year PhD students may not have as much data as students who are further through – i.e there is much less for them to write up, although this will give them a head-start on those mini-theses. What has been harder to manage remotely is the supervision of lab members, with no one-size-fits-all solution. While many tools are available for communication, nothing quite beats sitting down together to hammer out solutions and brainstorm ideas for experiments. Masters students have found their projects are over prematurely (or not started at all) or replaced with computer-based tasks and training new members remotely is definitely much harder than doing it face-to-face and it makes getting the supervisor-student relationship set up that bit trickier. People have been making regular contact with members of their teams via email and video conferencing. One useful suggestion was to check in each morning via a Slack group or Google chat to see what everyone is up to for the day (and also to use this to set deadlines to keep everything moving and make people feel that they are making progress despite these challenging times). Many groups are making use of the range of courses to develop their skills (an Adobe Illustrator course seems to be a popular amongst PhD students). One positive note was how proud everyone is of the members of their team and how they are coping with this situation and the uncertainty it brings. On top of all these constraints, there are further issues that vary from person-to-person that make big impacts. For instance, a spouse who is a frontline NHS worker, partners who are teachers keeping schools open for key workers, people who are separated from family members or those of us who have been sick ourselves or lost family members. I’ve just shared a little of what we discussed, but I definitely found it helpful to share how I’ve been getting on and good to hear the successes and struggles of others. This helped me to see the bigger picture at this difficult time. It was also nice to hear about how some of us have been helping others through volunteering in the local community or getting involved in some of the direct research into COVID-19 at the University. Please feel free to comment below to give your own perspective or to share ideas. Take care, Iwan
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August 2021
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