The power of a friendly cuppa

I had a meeting today with a work colleague. We were meeting to discuss a project we are both working on and we did indeed get to some session planning. However, over the hot tea, bought for me, I hasten to add, far more took place than I was expecting.

There is existing, unwritten support amongst new researchers. It is because the competition of being published and critiqued hasn't yet come to the fore; academic rivalry remains a distant dream. Young researchers (and I refer not to age here, but experience) are wonderful. We are keen and interested and honest and most importantly we are intrinsically and forcefully supportive of one another. This was my experience today. A meeting that should have started with a friendly 'how are you?', 'good thanks' and then turned to work took a different turn as I poured out the woes of my research methods. My colleague listened attentively and with real interest. Then sensitively got me to explain the background, where I saw myself and my participants within the research, how I felt about certain theories, my relationship with language, my politics until I stopped noticing the big flashing sign over my head that reads 'you were a humanities student you don't know anything about social research methods' and I talked about the things I understood about my methods and methodologies.

I was concerned, it turned out, more by the fact that I couldn't justify the methods I WASN'T going to use than the ones I was. I was terrified that I had missed out on some wonderful opportunity to use a particular method and that if challenged I wouldn't be able to defend my decision. My colleague was hugely understanding about this and without a whiff of a patronising sniff. There then followed a wealth of practical advice; some books to read, some names to look up, some ideas to toss around. Notes were scribbled down. Promises were made about emails. Tea went cold.

I realised as I sat in the cafe that this kind of support was, indeed is, invaluable. It isn't about presenting your findings to a supervisor, it isn't peer review, it isn't organised support networking – all which have their merits. No, today was about the power of research and the way that in any given moment ideas will grip us. If the idea is good then people will go out of their way to ensure that it isn't lost by a lack of confidence. As I talked about what I wanted to achieve it gripped my colleague sitting opposite me and then we worked on how to nurture it, to help it grow. The power of ideas is immense and when paired with a genuine desire to see people achieve it's unstoppable. The ability to foster that infectious spirit that all researchers share is a beautiful thing and should be treasured.

Let me please be able to repay this favour one day to someone else who needs it and let the tea be on me.