Streamlining or laziness?

So, its now been two weeks since i left the fair shores of the UK and i have a project all sorted. I'm now in the midst of orientating myself in the ways of the lab - i had my official introductory briefing to the lab today and have a list of solutions ready to make up tomorrow. I even have some cells growing ready to start making my own stocks. Yay! However, having been here for a fortnight - and with my desk space integrated into the lab as a whole (a good idea - it saves people having to run off up and down stairs through corridors to find you - and also means not far to go when you have experiment breaks) - i've been able to watch the general comings and goings of my labmates as they go about their business. And it struck me how pre-made everything is here. This means that they use pre-made SDS gels (as opposed to hand-making each and every one as i used to do), pre-made running and blotting buffers, pre-made TBS. Hell, even pre-made Tris for goodness' sake! My reaction to each of these has been a "i can't believe they do that!" and a shake of the head, immediately followed by a grin and a "this will make my life a whole lot easier!". I asked a couple of the guys about it and their opinion was that the lab is so data-driven, that you have so much on, that it would not be possible to make EVERYTHING by hand. A fair point indeed.

We're all pretty aware of how driven the US work ethic is - they live to work, rather than the other way round as we do in the UK. So naturally, if they're gonna have such a busy lifestyle they haven't the time to spend on doing the menial chores. of life They patented fast food cause they didn't have time to cook it themselves (knew i'd get the burger thing in there somewhere, didn't ya?), and then they invented the Drive-Thru cause they haven't the time to go in and sit down (either that or walking into the restaurant would burn far too many calories for them). And now it seems to have spread to the lab as well - pre-made virtually everything. I'm certainly not complaining in this case - cause my life is a hell of a lot easier - but i merely ask the simple question: Is this streamlining or just laziness? If i return to the UK in three years time with a considerably larger waist - you can consider the question answered.