Here's why:
We never bothered to map out success.
Few labs have documented, readily available, and shared protocols. This usually means that people learn technique from an oral tradition. Strangely, oral tradition is an inexact method and seldom lends a deeper understanding of technique that a career scientist needs to troubleshoot, should things go awry (as they usually do).
Superiors/senior scientist advisors seldom establish clear goals for success for more junior scientists. Sure, projects come and go, but more long term goals (18- or 24-month long, or even 4- or 5- year long career-related landmarks) might lend better career perspective for scientists who frequently can't think far beyond the current experiment.
We expect a level of devotion that's religious to qualify for respect.
Unless you're an undergraduate (and sometimes even that won't help), your PI expects you to be at the bench during business hours and toiling on everything else before and/or after that work. Usually more.
People who pass on family commitments or personal needs in the name of scientific work wear these sacrifices like a badge of honor, whereas someone who strives to achieve a work-life balance is considered less dedicated. Recently, a co-worker of mine declared that they had to leave work early, at 5 p.m., to "babysit." I couldn't help but scoff. "I don't think it's babysitting if it's your own child," I mused.
I've been involved in roller derby since my third year of graduate school (that's nearly four years, including the two years I've been in my postdoc). Both of my superiors have reacted to my involvement in that community like it's the most insane thing they've ever heard. When I told one about making the team, he reacted like I had just told him that I was from outer space.
Professional conferences and workshop cruelly test your endurance in front of your peers (read: competition). For example, the annual meeting for Society for Neuroscience starts on a Saturday and runs through Wednesday. Talks start at 8 a.m. each day, and continue for 5 to 60 minutes, with more than a dozen ongoing sessions as any given time. Posters are presented in shifts, with hundreds simultaneously available for viewing. At 5 p.m., the at-conference bustle largely ends, but socials, meetings, lectures, and socializing (i.e., drinking) commence and continue into the morning hours. There are also several programs/events that precede or follow that main event. A couple of years ago, I spent a whole week at the SfN annual meeting in Washington, DC. It was so grueling that I skipped the last day of the conference in favor of spending the rainy day writing a manuscript and considered it a day "off."
We suck at communicating, but especially "thank you."
Everyone's been busy in the lab, using up the aliquot of this, the last of that, and spilling it on here. Sometimes, you fail to replace things or clean up after yourself before someone else also needs that resource. Both parties have the choice to be classy team players or unnecessary dickheads about the situation.
Dealing with equipment or facility issues can be a comedy of errors as each lab member independently discovers the issue or missing resource. A scientist could be royally screwed if they haven't accordingly planned ahead (which is probably most).
Periodically, the PI tries to show their appreciation for the lab team by providing food or drinks. It'd feel more meaningful if there was any real forethought, creativity, or commitment to it. Sure, they bought the food, but seldom is the act concurrently presented with an actual "thank you." It feels more like a tribute to an angry god than a team coming together to celebrate the group's efforts.
Team building and respect for one's peers is heavily undervalued and largely nonexistent.
Scientists, who appear to have a higher incidence of social awkwardness than the general population, work in groups that are hardly encouraged to communicate with one another. Without careful moderation, they won't actively challenge that difficulty. There needs to be a leader for or in the lab itself, aware of the social and functional culture of the lab. The chaos of every-awkward-(wo)man-for-themselves can easily devolve into shitty science work.
As a behavioral neuroscientist who works with operant chambers, I needed to quickly build up a competent crew of undergraduate assistants to help with the testing so that I could dedicate more time to the other things I need to learn, master, and accomplish as a postdoc. I solicited, interviewed, and trained an army of assistants with which I am excited to work everyday. It's a ton of front-end work and double checking that if implemented properly, pays major dividends in team member contributions. Because of them, I am frequently able to accomplish twice as much work as I would on my own and their efforts are a major factor in my scientific throughput. I get the feeling that my PI wouldn't agree with me, however, despite requisitioning my most senior assistant to take over a project dropped by someone under his own supervision.
Thinking is seldom considered to be productive, and haphazardly doing without thinking is generally promoted by the get-it-done-yesterday culture of science.
It wasn't until my fourth year of graduate student that an advisor demonstrated the importance of reading and thinking. It blew my mind! I had been focusing all my efforts on doing science with very little reading or understanding of science to guide it. Too few advisors and mentors encourage thinking about science in a creative way, especially when that time could be spent doing science.
I love having young science minds around me in the lab because I can't possibly espouse their worldview after 7 years of scientific devotion. Too few scientists solicit, or even value, the viewpoint or opinions of their fellow scientists. As a behavioral neuroscientist for seven years, I have developed firm opinions about how to get the best possible behavioral data out of my animals (obey their light cycles, avoid wearing or using perfumed products, approach animals with a calm, loving, but firm hand). Not that anyone would ask, however, so good luck with doing a cognitive task at the cusp of animals' day-night cycle while sporting that Axe body spray.
Likewise, my colleagues have strengths in techniques and fields that I don't know anything about. I wish asking for their help or opinion didn't feel so much like a confession of idiocy, even though it is completely normal and reasonable that I'm not the foremost expert in everything I do. Isn't having more smart people attacking a challenge better than fewer? Problem solving can be a funny thing - a novice could approach a problem with creative insight that a specialist in that field might not observe. Likewise, an expert might understand limitations with precision that can help modify a solution to fit the parameters at hand. Now that's fucking teamwork!
The only scientists you see working alone are in movies or TV, and they are generally "mad genious" scientists, and not in a good way (THERE'S AN ENTIRE WIKIPEDIA PAGE??!). I can think of villains whose desire for fame, money, or power drove reasonable people to extreme ends. Sure - real science isn't a Hollywood movie, but it's also not completely unlike its depiction in films, either.
I firmly believe that while science is an academic endeavor, it is too seldom considered to be a group or team venture. I think failing to recognize and act upon this can make good, rigorous, and thoughtful scientific work more difficult to accomplish, and we already have enough barriers to that outside of what we scientists can directly control.
