7 ms·
Back in 2015 when I still thought I'd be a physicist, I was a summer intern at Fermilab on the MicroBooNE experiment. The sense of excitement and teamwork on th
by dt23 3y ago
Back in 2015 when I still thought I'd be a physicist, I was a summer intern at Fermilab on the MicroBooNE experiment. The sense of excitement and teamwork on the 10th floor was something I dearly missed when I went to CERN the year after.
Every day at 3pm was "coffee and cookies", and my colleagues and I would join the line filled with physicists of all ages and from across the lab, to grab a cookie or maybe two. On Fridays the coffee turned into wine and the cookies into cheese.
The second floor, where the coffee was, had a rotating art installation, which at some point included an acrylic box filled with water. One day this box went from being empty to containing a live goldfish.
I hope Fermilab retains this sense of magic that I have found in so few other places.
- peteradio 3y agoYea well cern had beer on tap ... For lunch!
- brnt 3y ago"beer"... /ducks
- smcl 3y agoOk now I’m curious what beer is served at CERN. I am not familiar with any Swiss beer and only a handful of unspectacular French beers.
- fdeee 3y agoIn 1996 maybe Heineken: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/flaschen-im-ring-a-45296bec-0002-0001-0000-000008947207 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/flaschen-im-ring-a-45296...
- DoughnutHole 3y agoI don’t know about the beer at CERN specifically but the beer culture of Geneva generally is subpar.
- naves 3y agoLocal Calvinus Blanche and Calvinus Ambrée are pretty good for Swiss standards. And the country is starting to produce great biers, e.g. JA-MoM: https://www.brauerei-oerlikon.ch/shop/JA-MoM-p285045816 https://www.brauerei-oerlikon.ch/shop/JA-MoM-p285045816
- naves 3y agoIf my memory does not fail me, that would be Feldschlösschen: https://feldschloesschen.ch/ https://feldschloesschen.ch/ (2003-2007 period)
- harunurhan 3y agoI don't think it was particularly good or bad, when I was there. I don't drink beer none of my friends ever said "this beer is great" or "this beer sucks".
- brewdad 3y agoFree beer. Free beer. That’s my favorite brand. If I didn’t have to buy it it’s the best beer in the land. —The Yoopers
- ntsipina 3y agoIt still does! Source: Currently at CERN.
- peteradio 3y agoTell me, is it still in a goofy wooden barrel?
- nukeman 3y agoPerks of a stand-alone national lab I guess! My workplace (Savannah River Site) has a strict no-booze policy. Although people frequently bring donuts!
- pknomad 3y agoThat's awesome! I work over at ESnet (located w/ LBNL) and got to interact with some folks over at SRS. Y'all are cool bunch :)
- unethical_ban 3y agoWhen I last worked in person in IT, a few members of my team would get up at 2pm to get coffee and chat about work and life. Different people went in the mornings. It was really useful to team-build and feel decent about work. People who say "I don't have friends at work" with pride are completely foreign to me. I don't understand how people are supposed to have any joy at work, or get over comms barriers, when there is no opportunity to get to know coworkers as people.
- dylan604 3y agoI can have lunch and water cooler chat friends at work, but rarely do they turn into invite over to bbq on the weekend friends. There's a big difference. You can be friendly, but when something happens at work and one of you no longer works there...things get weird. Those weekend bbqs that you had with work friends no longer happen, or they keep going for a bit, but conversations are awkward since the still employed are no longer free to discuss or the no-longer employed harbors resentment that isn't exactly hidden. What kind of "friend" was that after all?
- Dalewyn 3y agoThis and other kinds of social issues are why some cultures put a very clear line between professional and personal. God forbid if it concerns intimate matters, which are the worst.
- good_boy 3y agoIt all depends. Most of my coworkers are friendly, some are friends. We respect each other, etc, but it most cases any contacts end when someone leaves the company. The key marker is can I discuss any matters, including inappropriate, politically incorrect? In most cases not. But with true friend we can discuss anything without a fear of being reported. And we are still in contact many year after.
- gopher_space 3y agoIsn't this just another downside to stacked ranking? Plenty of other professions allow you to make friends.
- DangitBobby 3y agoHa, based on this comment you could be one of my classmates! Did you do undergrad in TN?