I’ve been trying to avoid ranting and bitching and so on lately because I know that some people are seeing my blog for the first time and I don’t want to scare them off (new people: nothing to see here, please go read these relatively sane posts).
But.
*huge intake of breath*
A HUGE NUMBER OF BOXES OF CONICAL TUBES JUST SHOWED UP IN THE LAB AND THEY ARE NOT THE KIND WE ALWAYS USE AND I LIKE THE KIND WE ALWAYS USE AND I’M TIRED OF PEOPLE* JUST RANDOMLY DECIDING TO CHANGE THINGS WITHOUT ASKING!
AAARRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. I feel much better now.
*By “people” I mean one specific person who is constantly doing this kind of thing in an effort to make things “better.” Apparently, this person’s motto is, “If it’s not broken, we should fix it.” For long time readers: you will know this person as someone with a lot of lab drama surrounding them.
February 25, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Wow! I could have written this post… in fact, maybe I did in my sleep or something. Except in my sleep I accidentally wrote ‘conical tubes’ when I meant to write ’style of sign-up sheet for the TC hood.’ Yep, that completely threw me for a loop and I couldn’t deal with it. Must be something about the end of grad school…
My favorite story like this though is a guy who got his PhD right before I joined the lab: “NO!!!!!!!! you can’t move that computer!! computers don’t work after you move them!!!!
March 2, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Kate, it’s not grad school. This kind of stuff drives everybody crazy. Or maybe it just gets worse when you’re a senior postdoc?
The thing about moving computers cracked me up, btw.
The last couple of labs I’ve worked in were fond of this sort of bs. It was usually in an effort to save money, which is even more futile than making things ‘better’, if you ask me, since it usually results in low-quality crap versions of what you used to have (which worked just fine, thank you) or a savings of pennies (or both).
For another kind of example like your TC signup sheet, this weekend I was shocked to discover my labmates had moved the freezer logbook. I had a moment of sheer panic when I thought maybe it was gone forever, followed immediately by rage that I have to waste my time hunting for it-!
Yeah, communication is way too hard. It’s much easier to make unilateral decisions and not tell anybody.
March 4, 2008 at 8:44 pm
They must have done something to tube pricing, because we had the same thing happen. We usually get the ones with the foam holders, but no more. Which means that we have to actually buy plastic holders, and I don’t like them, because you can’t read the labels on the conicals.
Once, the boss made the techs send back boxes of 15ml conicals because they ’smelled bad’ after you opened them.