This post addresses some questions I am commonly asked by my non-academic friends. Readers working in academia may also find some familiar themes here. If they are bored by my descriptions, I apologize.
i) What do you do on weekends?
Short answer: Being employed in academia, single and without kids, there is not much of a difference between week days and weekends for me.
Long answer: Mine is not a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job (nothing wrong with those). I do not: punch a clock, have a boss to report to daily, have to be on campus (unless I am teaching class or attending non-Zoom meetings), or have to be online from home for a certain number of hours during any day.
If I need to get vaccinated on a weekday, or get my car serviced, or have music practice to attend, or take the pet to the vet (I do not have a pet), I can do it by scheduling around my hard commitments. Sometimes I prefer to work at home if I need a very quiet atmosphere for deep thinking, usually when I am trying to do some serious physics. In short, my job gives me a lot of flexibility; so I can be doing things during the week that people generally do on a weekend.
This should not be interpreted to mean that I do not have much work to do. On the contrary, I am almost constantly busy (I have heard it said that an academic's most precious resource is time). It's just that my work is not constrained by any formal hours. For example, I could be working nonstop during the weekend on a proposal for obtaining funding. After the proposal is submitted on Monday, I could keep the Tuesday workload light for recovery.
Since I am a theoretical physicist, I can - and do - work when I am driving to lunch, taking a shower, jogging for exercise, waiting at the airport, flying on a plane, etc. (I once wrote a paper while attending to my mother's stay at a hospital).
I also have a bunch of international collaborations, and timezone arrangements often mean that I end up having Zoom meetings quite late at night (~11pm-3am). So I could be catching up the next day by sleeping in a bit in the morning or by taking a nap in the afternoon.
Also, the job is quite a bit stop-drop-and-roll. If a physics idea seems to be coming into my head on Friday evening, I might not go out to attend a concert I may have planned on earlier (actually Friday evenings are often when I get my best ideas, when the department is empty and dead quiet); or if the idea overflows into Saturday, I am not going to to stop just because 'it is the weekend' - I don't want to duck out via the fire escape when inspiration is knocking at the door! Besides, the excitement is too pleasurable.
I hope it is clear that work is not work for me, it is play, because I love every aspect of it. Therefore the concept of a 'work-week' does not make sense in my case, and I suspect, for a good many of my colleagues as well. And an academic job (for me at least) is not a job, it's a lifestyle.
A similar question I am often asked is 'what do you do during vacations?' (the four months we get off when the students go home in the winter and summer). The answer: the same things I do over a weekend. (A joke I can't resist quoting: the only thing shorter than a weekend is a vacation).
ii) We just want to make sure you are not doing physics all the time - right?
Short answer: That would work fine, too.
Long answer: There is actually nothing wrong - and perhaps everything right - with doing physics 'all the time'. Physics is a tremendously deep, satisfying, enthralling, exciting, fun-imbued activity which supplies meaning, entertainment, and foundational balance to my life.
It can be solitary or social, analytical or computational, agreeable or controversial, aesthetical or useful, deep or playful, modern or ancient....at any given time, including right now, I have a huge stack of books and papers on physics that I can't wait to get to. The whole subject is like a playground littered with toys!
iii) When are you thinking of retiring?
Short answer: Not anytime soon.
Long answer: Many people consider work as a kind of rite of passage which they undergo in order to earn a salary, become financially independent, etc., so they can retire as soon as possible and finally do the things that they really want to do. What do they really want to do? Follow their intellectual inclinations, control their schedules, travel, interact with interesting people...
But I am doing all that right now! Why would I want to retire? I can read and publish on any topic I like; as I mentioned above, my schedule is almost completely determined by me; I travel all over the world giving talks, attending conferences and workshops (I was in France in March, will be in Spain in May, Turkey in June, and India in July, just to give a flavor), and interact with extremely bright students, colleagues, visitors and professionals locally, nationally, and internationally.
It's a party!
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