# 5.1 Hours

One of the benefits of a career in academic research is that it is typically more flexible than other kinds of jobs. However, you should still treat it like a job. If you are employed for 40 hours a week, you should be working 40 hours a week. You are not required to work over-time.

Lab staff members are expected to keep regular hours (e.g., somewhere in the ballpark of 9-5). Graduate students and postdocs have more flexibility. However, in order to encourage lab interaction, I expect that all lab members will be in the lab (or available on Slack, when working remotely), at minimum, most weekdays between 10am and 4pm or so. If you’re going to be taking off from work on a normal workday (i.e., taking vacation or a personal or sick day), please Slack or Email Tobias.

**PI availability**

In addition to poking my head into the lab regularly, I will be working on campus and available for meetings most days of the week. I’m happy to set ad-hoc meetings to discuss anything over and above our weekly lab and individual meetings.

When working remotely, I’ll be similarly available over Slack and for ad-hoc meetings during regular office hours. But I try to turn my notifications off when I’m going to be concentrating on something else for a long stretch.&#x20;
