The temporary campus of N1 has very limited office space and we all have to share offices. As a postdoc, I had always dreamt vividly of the day when I would be an independent faculty member and have my own office. My second dream still remains a dream, but the joy at the realization of the first dream far exceeds the disappointment about not realizing the second.
I share an office with a really nice and easy-going office mate[1], let's call him OM.
We have co-ordinated our activities in such a way that we do not drive each other up the wall.
Firstly, while I am a morning person, OM is a night bird. Therefore, my most serious research-related work gets done in the morning before OM arrives or while he is away teaching. Similarly, his research work gets done in the evening or at night after I leave.
The timing that overlaps is late morning and afternoon, when we do teaching related work and/or have office hours for our students. I am a little sensitive to noise, but OM manages to hold discussions with his students in a not-too-loud voice, and mostly over his desk. By contrast, I like to discuss things with my students on the blackboard. Moreover, since I have spent long years teaching really big classes in North America, despite my best efforts, my voice does get a little loud at times! Therefore, my style of teaching is more disruptive. It is rather convenient that OM is not bothered by noise (or at least does not complain about it). Our office hours for students also do not coincide and therefore we have managed not to suffocate ourselves by an inflow of too many students at the same time. As it happens, our office does not receive good cell-phone signal. If either of us receives or makes a call, he or she is forced to go out of the office. So, there is no disturbance on this account.
We also have an unwritten understanding that whatever we say to each other about N1 does not go out of the office. Therefore, we often share our concerns and frustrations about troublesome matters. He is one of the very few people here with whom I can converse freely without worrying about the consequences.
To cut a long story short, if one cannot have one's own office, having an office mate like OM is decidedly the next best option[2,3].
Recently, our office-sharing fairy tale almost came to an end, when the powers in charge of office space decided to shift OM out of our office to make way for a new female colleague (NFC), who joined us this semester. It was perceived by the well-meaning authorities that two women would be more comfortable in the same office than a man and a woman. (Is this policy common in other institutes in India?)
OM accepted this new turn of affairs with a stoic silence. I believe in the fundamental premise that any resources that N1 is providing to us right now should be considered a luxury and not a right. So, I did not want to complain about this new arrangement[4]. But one day, at the conclusion of a very pleasant and successful meeting, I took some risk and approached the senior person responsible for office allocation and requested him to let OM continue in the office. To my relief, he happily agreed and mentioned that he was only acting on the assumption that I would prefer to share an office with a female colleague. I thanked him for his concern and assured him that the previous arrangement with OM worked well for both of us. So, OM and I continue to be office mates.
There's a small twist to our story.
NFC has been allocated office space in a different building which is currently under renovation. This building is not yet ready and while she waits for her real office to be ready, an extra desk and chair has been arranged for her in our office. NFC went through a short-lived trauma of her dream of her own office not materializing, but has adjusted well to the status quo. For now, we three seem to be doing very well with each other, although, we sure hope that the status quo does not last too long.
[1] He reminds me of the happy-go-lucky Dev Anand in this song in Nau Do Gyarah
[2] To me, sharing a spacious office with windows is much better than having a cubicle to oneself.
[3] Of course, we do have some points of conflict. While OM prefers to open windows and let in fresh air, I am more of an AC person! I also like to set the temperature at 26 C, which he finds too cold!
[4] I was also afraid of being branded a trouble maker.
I share an office with a really nice and easy-going office mate[1], let's call him OM.
We have co-ordinated our activities in such a way that we do not drive each other up the wall.
Firstly, while I am a morning person, OM is a night bird. Therefore, my most serious research-related work gets done in the morning before OM arrives or while he is away teaching. Similarly, his research work gets done in the evening or at night after I leave.
The timing that overlaps is late morning and afternoon, when we do teaching related work and/or have office hours for our students. I am a little sensitive to noise, but OM manages to hold discussions with his students in a not-too-loud voice, and mostly over his desk. By contrast, I like to discuss things with my students on the blackboard. Moreover, since I have spent long years teaching really big classes in North America, despite my best efforts, my voice does get a little loud at times! Therefore, my style of teaching is more disruptive. It is rather convenient that OM is not bothered by noise (or at least does not complain about it). Our office hours for students also do not coincide and therefore we have managed not to suffocate ourselves by an inflow of too many students at the same time. As it happens, our office does not receive good cell-phone signal. If either of us receives or makes a call, he or she is forced to go out of the office. So, there is no disturbance on this account.
We also have an unwritten understanding that whatever we say to each other about N1 does not go out of the office. Therefore, we often share our concerns and frustrations about troublesome matters. He is one of the very few people here with whom I can converse freely without worrying about the consequences.
To cut a long story short, if one cannot have one's own office, having an office mate like OM is decidedly the next best option[2,3].
Recently, our office-sharing fairy tale almost came to an end, when the powers in charge of office space decided to shift OM out of our office to make way for a new female colleague (NFC), who joined us this semester. It was perceived by the well-meaning authorities that two women would be more comfortable in the same office than a man and a woman. (Is this policy common in other institutes in India?)
OM accepted this new turn of affairs with a stoic silence. I believe in the fundamental premise that any resources that N1 is providing to us right now should be considered a luxury and not a right. So, I did not want to complain about this new arrangement[4]. But one day, at the conclusion of a very pleasant and successful meeting, I took some risk and approached the senior person responsible for office allocation and requested him to let OM continue in the office. To my relief, he happily agreed and mentioned that he was only acting on the assumption that I would prefer to share an office with a female colleague. I thanked him for his concern and assured him that the previous arrangement with OM worked well for both of us. So, OM and I continue to be office mates.
There's a small twist to our story.
NFC has been allocated office space in a different building which is currently under renovation. This building is not yet ready and while she waits for her real office to be ready, an extra desk and chair has been arranged for her in our office. NFC went through a short-lived trauma of her dream of her own office not materializing, but has adjusted well to the status quo. For now, we three seem to be doing very well with each other, although, we sure hope that the status quo does not last too long.
[1] He reminds me of the happy-go-lucky Dev Anand in this song in Nau Do Gyarah
[2] To me, sharing a spacious office with windows is much better than having a cubicle to oneself.
[3] Of course, we do have some points of conflict. While OM prefers to open windows and let in fresh air, I am more of an AC person! I also like to set the temperature at 26 C, which he finds too cold!
[4] I was also afraid of being branded a trouble maker.
6 comments:
i think that the office having a window(s) is a very important part of the story! sharing an office with a compatible colleague and having a view must be worth the sacrifice of not having your own private space :)
This is so true. Our office has three windows :)
Sometimes sharing office space with colleagues has interesting consequences. During my postdoc, my office colleague and I started a collaborative research project. The project was different from what each of us were working on and used our complimentary skills. Since we belonged to different research groups with no regular overlap, we wouldn't have collaborated if we didn't share an office and chatted over postdoc life in general.
-AA
As AA says, sharing an office can result in wonderful collaborations that are beyond what each could have done alone. Francis Crick ( of Crick and Watson fame) shared an office with Sydney Brenner for many years and much has been written about this! At a more terrestrial level, two reasonably smart people talking science always results in fun things happening. If you want to be alone for a bit, you can always take a walk.
Has the construction of the new campus for N1 started yet?
AA and Vijay, talking science with an office mate is a great idea. I also realized that we will both be teaching some similar topics in our respective courses, but we both approach it very differently. It made for a great discussion!
Chitta, yes, the construction of the new campus has started and some departments are gradually moving their activities to it.
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