Our Lab Hours

During our core lab hours between 10 am and 4 pm, you can expect all assistants and myself to be there unless someone is on vacation. The office is also staffed during that time.
We spend the remainder of our working time (according to the RWTH TV-L contracts, currently 39 hours 50 minutes per week plus required breaks of at least half an hour per day) at the lab in a flexible model to accommodate for different personal needs and preferences. Some (especially those with young kids) start earlier, and others stay later, but everyone is here at least for 8 hours of work, plus the time of the lunch and other breaks, per day on average.
Lunch break: We typically head for the bakery or mensa to fetch a warm lunch around 11:30, and then eat together in our kitchen until around 12:15, so don't expect to find people in their office during that time.
As an example, one of us may arrive at 9 am, join everybody for lunch, have a short coffee break, and stay until 6 pm, to cover the basics. 8 to 5 or 10 to 7 would do the same.
We spend this working time at the lab, not in home office or elsewhere, to provide the opportunity to work with each other in person during the day, to make serendipitous conversations possible, and to allow us to have efficient, non-hybrid meetings. In return, we try to make our lab a functional and enjoyable work environment – suggestions for this are always welcome.
Completing a PhD is more than an ordinary job, and from experience, PhD students spend quite a bit more time beyond the above to work on their PhD research projects and publications in addition to their everyday tasks in projects, teaching, and administration. Sometimes we do this at the lab, sometimes at home in the evening or on the weekend – you may see us on Slack then. This is especially true in the weeks leading up to the annual CHI deadline.
Due to our contractual teaching commitments and to make planning meetings and events possible, we take our vacation outside the semester class dates, or during excursion week and other lecture-free days (DIES). See the RWTH academic calendar for current dates.
Our lab closes down completely during the lecture-free period over Christmas and New Year.