Question: How long are your working days? Do you enjoy your work?

Kathryn McMahon answered on 18 Mar 2013:

Hi Amyapple. My working days vary as i do flexible work so i can pick up my daughter from her nursery. They work out at about 40 hours per week. Thats quite short hours for science though – before i had my daughter I worked 45 hours per week, and when I was doing my PhD it was often 50 hours per week. 9-10 hours a day is normal in science. Some of that was weekend work as well (its not unusual to work weekends as a scientist). In the uk, its not too bad – I have friends in America who normally work 12 hours a day, which i think is a bit mad.
I do enjoy my work – I get to do lots of things and learn new stuff all the time so I’m never bored. I work with really cool people and get to go to meetings around the world. There are times when its frustrating, however. Science can be very unpredictable – you can spend months working an experiment and if it doesn’t work it can be very disappointing. Also, there is not much money for science at the moment, so we spend a lot of time having to apply for what there is and you’re never quite sure how long your job will last. I think this is the same for a lot of jobs at the moment though!