It is a sad reality, postdocs work very hard in the labs and/or offices, and when they are "done" they just want to go home. Therefore, all the social activities that would promote and improve the scientific life are pushed out, they are added to the list of things to do "whenever i would have time"... in other words "walking the LATTER street you arrive to the NEVER avenue.
Why is this behavior so spread?
One possibility, is the "physical and psychological tiredness" exposed before. After 9 to 12 h of experiments and mind squeezing projects and seminars, it is not surprising that a person would not have energy or interest in participate or take any responsibility outside the current one.
The more frightening option, it is the fact that most of the people who choose to became a postdoctoral fellow, are just socially boring, introverted and non interested in know or interact with the world outside the laboratory. Within this hypothesis, rest the idea that scientist are awkward people not capable to survive in the human jungle, so they hide or shelter themselves in a solitary career.
Of course, they are a lot of exceptions, but this article is not about those great communicators and teachers. Fortunately some researchers are more social and they take the initiative to have networking events, meetings, postdocs days, etc. All of this projects are volunteer based and they just pay off with the good feeling of being helping your peers.
How can we solve this situation? do they want to be save or abducted to the "outside" world?
First, we can start with not freaking out when somebody answer "i am a PhD." to the question "what do you do for living?". on the other hand, the researches should be more outreaches, trying to find join in communicating they research to non-scientific public.
Second, is good to remember that no man is an island. Only trough collaborations and collective projects we can reach a successful career and discoveries.
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