Imagine spending all day every day with your co-workers. Imagine having breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them. Imagine working together at all hours of the night and day, whether it’s 10pm or 4am.

If you can picture yourself doing that, you ought to consider working on a research vessel. At sea, people get to know each other very well very quickly. We see our shipmates when they are happy and excited, as well as stressed, frustrated, or annoyed. We live together in all states of being: sleep deprived, highly caffeinated, completely exhausted, overjoyed.

We spend almost all our time together. And we spend much of that time talking.