PIXABAY, UNSPLASHThere was a stretch of time when I would spend a week or so each summer visiting some friends who were academic colleagues. Typically, our days were structured around generous amounts of “schmooze” time. First, there was the requisite two-hour breakfast at a quaint, hole-in-the-wall restaurant. These meetings were about more than sharing a meal; we covered a fair amount of ground over coffee, eggs, and whole-wheat toast. We hashed out serious questions related to our areas of scientific interests, argued over the changing politics of academic research, and strayed unflinchingly and irreverently into topics for which we have no particular claim to insight or expertise. Without breaking our conversational stride, we would eventually make our way to the university (a 20 minute drive), stopping for coffee along the way. From parking the car to entering the lab, we’d make another pit stop for coffee and decide when and where to have lunch.
Truth be told, my visits did disrupts my colleagues’ typical daily workflows. For the week or so I was in town, and to the extent that we could, we cleared our calendars of the usual meetings, conference calls, emails, and manuscript preparation and grant writing time. To make up for lost time, we stayed up too late and woke up too early—recalling the sleep deprivation that led to soaring bouts of creativity during our student and postdoc days. We indulged in those freewheeling discussions in which an out-of-left-field comment could completely alter the way we were pursuing a problem. But time is an expensive commodity and the freedom to really talk things through comes at a price.
I took heart thinking that when my visit ...
