PennLINC Space at Richards

All of our work is highly collaborative, and collaboration is usually what makes science fun. Several basic notes on collaborating in an open work space follow below. In general, we strive for clear and constructive communication that helps us all do better science and enjoy our work. Because of the open floorplan, being quite attuned to noise and volume is important for everyone’s work environment. Please reach out to Ted anytime and suggest updates to this pages as other important situations arise.

Lab Noise

We try to maintain an environment conducive to focused work (coding/writing) in the open space in the pod. In the open space, conversations should always use quiet voices. For anything beyond a brief exchange (inc zoom calls), an office or the common area outside of the pod should be used. The facilty offices can be used for meetings or conversations if they are unoccupied. It is encouraged that we nicely remind each others of this – regardless of relative seniority/position – and strive for a practice of thanking the person who is providing the necessary reminder. Note that the soundproofing in the office spaces are not superb either and some volume control is needed even behind a closed door.

Shared Space / Desks / Offices

Full time employees get assigned a desk in the open space of the pod or one of the offices. Depending on the current capacity there might not be any desks available that can be assigned to visiting or rotating students. In this case we want to have a culture of just grabbing open desks and moving to another open desk in case the person that desk is assigned to arrives at the lab. People with an assigned permanent desk that only use their desk on certain days of the week are asked to leave a post-it note on their desk for people looking for a desk to know it is available. The #whereami channel on slack should be used to keep your colleagues aware if you will be away for an extended period and your desk can be used. There is a key to the pod’s offices in a lock box in the back at the office next to the printer. The code to the lock box is pinned to the #richards slack channel.