Weird things I say in the #lab

Work gets weird when you're a drug-dealing ninja-surgeon scientist.

[fylgjarefr]

My lab is a mire of cortisol

Two of my coworkers are working on getting two separate papers ready for journal submission, so the entire lab space has turned into a mire of cortisol. It's been affecting my sleep--I had nightmares every night for two weeks. Hell, this week my supervisor and I both had similar imposter syndrome dreams on the same night! Everytime I mention this to scientist friends, the response is always, "Yep." It just comes with the territory.

[fylgjarefr]

Unclaimed, undated, potentially explosive bottle of acid

So today I had to deal with an unclaimed, undated, potentially explosive bottle of acid that I found in the lab.

Picric acid is a nasty organic acid that no one has actually used in our lab for years. Indeed, researchers generally avoid picric acid unless it’s absolutely necessary because in its solid form, IT IS MORE EXPLOSIVE THAN DYNAMITE.

I found a half empty bottle of the fucking stuff hiding in a cabinet today while I was working on updating the chemical inventory. It hadn’t been dated, there were no initials claiming it, and half-evaporated drops of fluid were forming on the empty portion of the inside of the bottle.

When I showed it to our safety officer, he immediately said, “HOLY SHIT. We should not even touch that stuff! Call DEHS and make them deal with it.”

DEHS helped me determine visually that it wasn’t an immediate explosion hazard as long as we didn’t open the container (which I was NOT planning to do), so it’s packaged and ready for pick up now. But good God, I never want to deal with picric acid ever again.

So yeah. That’s how I spent my morning. By dealing with a ridiculous chemical that shouldn’t have been in the lab in the first place. At least I didn’t blow up myself or anything else in the lab.

Honestly, considering everything, “I didn’t literally explode” is probably as good of an Inauguration Day as I could have hoped for. Here’s hoping that it won’t get any worse from here.

[fylgjarefr]

Queen of Prep

Me before becoming a scientist: Lol I'm a queen of procrastination Me in the the lab: I am the QUEEN of preparation! All hail glorious prep!!

[fylgjarefr]

Special hell

There is a special circle in hell reserved for scientists who don't write "Received" dates on their reagents. Updating the chemical inventory is turning out to be so much more frustrating than I anticipated.

[fylgjarefr]

Concerned compliment

In Lab Meeting today I summarized the safety binge I went on last week, and my PI said, "I've *never* had a tech do so much [safety stuff] on their own." 

I honestly couldn't tell if he was complimenting me or was really REALLY concerned about me. 

[fylgjarefr]

What’s better than posting updated chem and Rx Safety Data Sheets? Posting COLOR CODED chemical and Rx Safety Data Sheets!!!

[fylgjarefr]

Dumping bodies

Weird things I say in the #lab: “I’m very pleased about dumping all the bodies.”

Nothing is better than tossing 10+ year old 2° antibodies and their molding boxes so they’ll never been in the cold room EVER AGAIN.