The 'Politics' of Being a Biologist?

[bbrubaker]

In your opinion. how much of the Biological Scientist's workday is devoted to 'politics' and how much is spent studying the object of your intrest?

How does this compare with other jobs you may have had?

Is back-biting, avoiding getting your back bitten, all passive aggressive games, schmoozing, schmooping, schlopping, psychological or black-ops against rival scientists, etc. a large part of being a successful scientist?
...or even a successful Graduate Student?


Be honest!

[bbrubaker]

'personal anecdotes' welcome!

[canalon]

I have always been lucky enough to be shielded from the worse of the admin politics and been blessed to have good colleagues, or at worst non interferent dummies.

[MichaelXY]

I have only worked in electronic R&D, so I really could not say. But I would imagine there are office games no matter what the business is.

[mcar]

Yes good colleagues like as what canalon replied; as long as you are with them and you have unifying principles all of you stays together and even stronger. And whatever business as MichaelXY said, this is always present and there you must also know how to play the game.This happen much in our institution

[bbrubaker]

Wow, I thought there'd be a much better response to this.
No one wants to take a chance and discuss aloud the workplace culture of biologists?