There's a well-choreographed dance of meetings (with polls, e.g. go / no go) and head-down sequence writing. Meetings have a pretty rigid structure and there are zero off-topic comments. But the time for getting the actual sequencing done often has chatter with varying amounts of on-topic-ness. Generally, people are really great at not distracting each other-- I've only occasionally had an issue and when I bring it up, chatter ends. It's just that having a term for it would make it easier to bring up.
"Socialize with your colleagues" is actually an item on one of our checklists!
Do you feel that something as long running as Curiosity that things become a little more lax as everyone gets to a level of complacency? I could see where that might happen, but at the same time the concept of I'm controlling something on the surface of another planet is hard to forget. Basically, super curious about the day to day of a job I'm very jealous of in a very respectful way
Interesting question about complacency. Hard for me to speak objectively on this since I'm too close to it to be unbiased, but I'll try. I actually think the level of acceptable risk is gradually dropping. Each time something goes wrong, we add procedures. It's much easier to add rules than to remove them.
I do think the risk tolerance of individuals on the project does tend to gradually increase with experience, but we have fairly high turnover. It's common for MSL roles to have a year or more of training before certification during which you spend a lot of time focusing on what can go wrong, so new people definitely trend cautious.
"Socialize with your colleagues" is actually an item on one of our checklists!