Lab meetings and other rituals
The strange social choreography of academic science.
Lab meeting has its own grammar. There’s the person who asks a clarifying question that’s actually a comment. The senior student who goes quiet when something isn’t working. The PI who says “interesting” and means three different things depending on the day.
I’ve been in enough of them now that I mostly read the room correctly. I’m not sure that’s a skill I could put on a CV but it feels important.
Science is supposed to be about the ideas. It’s also very much about the room.