When talking to students and post-docs

Dear senior investigators,

When you are invited to give a talk somewhere, and are thus scheduled to have lunch with students and post-docs, PLEASE don’t talk about the following topics:

•          The bad state of the economy

•           The recent sequester

•           How those two things lead to a sad state of funding

•           How that leads to very little job opportunities for students and post-docs that want to stay in academia

•           Oh wait, industry is not much better at the moment

Because really, we have heard that before and to talk about this a couple times a month with different people really doesn’t add to our morale. Please just talk about other stuff, like science, or your hobbies.