“There are better uses for a PhD student than waiting around in a lab until 3 a.m. to make sure an experiment is run to the end,”

Roger, even for a well-seasoned investigator, if they do not yet have, or have not maintained more bench hours than they have "bureaucracy hours", then staying at the bench until 3 a.m. as often as necessary would be one of the most effective ways to catch up.

You just don't wait around, you get a hell of a lot of other bench stuff done while the long-term or super-delayed procedures are being carried on.

Bench stuff that the top PhD is supposed to be the very most brilliant at, and capable of leveraging the physical resources to the greatest degree.

When the bureaucracy or eminence-maintaining apparatus is more time-consuming during "business hours" than the experimental apparatus, you could maybe do something after hours to catch up.

Or maybe not, and end up with the physical and intellectual resources underutilized.

Remember, unique new findings come from the bench, at the average desk you only get progress that others have already achieved.

Looks like a good program after all, I love automated experimentation, that's been my primary ambition for decades.