Over at Imaginary Potential, which is written by half a dozen physics grad students and postdocs, Helen Czerski relates how one of the older academics in her office deeply offended her by suggesting that tea time was a drag on productivity.
.... the loudest snorter of them all actually said “well, you’re from Britain - you’re not used to working as hard as we do here. You don’t have money for the really big projects. And you stop for tea three times a day!”. I pointed out that it’s only twice a day, but my serious point about the work was no longer taken seriously.
So she did the scientific thing. She dug up some data.
Thomson, the scientific publisher, compiles tables showing the number of scientific papers published by country. Czerski folded in population data to get the number of papers per capita.
The results:
Papers per capita:
USA: 9.6 per thousand people per year
UK: 10.9 per thousand people per year.
Papers in the top 1% of papers cited in all fields:
USA: 0.18 per thousand people per year.
UK: 0.17 per thousand people per year.
Czerski writes:
Now, I’m happy to admit that simple statistics may not tell the whole story. But I’m also pretty confident that this is a strong indication that taking two 15 minutes breaks a day to consume cups of tea and eat biscuits is not doing us any harm at all, thank you very much.
The results, frankly, are no surprise to us. having read the impassioned defense of tea-time put forth by Marusa Bradac, Kirk Gilmore, Jonathan Granot, Phil Marshall, and Weiqun Zhang in the March 2006 issue of symmetry. They were looking forward to the opening of the new Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology building at SLAC, with its welcoming venues for chatting and sipping hot beverages.
When a colleague asks us if we want to take a break, we usually feel a strong gut response that says, “I don't have time right now,” but making the time always ends up being worthwhile. We all feel the pressure of deadlines pulling on us, but stepping out for tea lets our minds rest and helps us re-engage with our work after a brief respite.
Although we won't get too picky about our drink of choice, some of us have noticed a difference between tea culture in Europe and coffee culture in the United States. Coffee is something you have here on-the-go, while doing something else, but tea is a more leisurely ritual. That ritual is what we seek.
The benefits of tea are many: As students and postdocs, tea provides regular time for the moral and intellectual support we share. But having our advisors present is even better because we know there is a time when we catch them for a couple of minutes, without needing to make an appointment or interrupt some other task. It probably saves us time overall. Also, having administrative members of our groups join in is always more pleasant than only seeing them when we need help.
So lift that cup proudly! And grab an extra biscuit while you're at it.
