Thursday, August 27, 2009

You know you've worked too long in lab!

There is a group on facebook called "you know you've worked too long in lab when" and its absolutely hilarious for those of us who actually have spent insane hours in lab! I thought I would post a few features here for the enjoyment of my old buddies from undergrad who would know EXACTLY what this is all about :P The rest of you who read this, just enjoy whatever you can understand or relate to! ;)

You wonder what absolute alcohol tastes like with orange juice

You can't watch CSI without cursing at least one scientific inaccuracy

You use acronyms for everything and never stop to elaborate (That happens even to Singaporeans)

Liquid nitrogen is only about a 1/3 as dangerous as you thought (Yeah, to some people its not even 1/16 as dangerous as they thought!)

You've wondered why you can't drink distilled water in the lab - It should be clean? (Hehe, the million dollar question!)

You give the lab equipment motivational pep talks "Work for me today or i'll reprogram you with a fire axe" (been there, done that)

You've worked out that a trained chimp could probably do 90% of your job (*sigh*)

You have to check the web to find out what the weather is outside (OMG!!! This is so so so so true!)

People wearing shorts under a lab coat disturb you slightly as they look as though they might be naked underneath (Clueless and soleil should be able to relate to this! ;) )

Safety equipment is optional unless it makes you look cool (like cool red shades from the dark room!)

You can no longer spell normal words but have no trouble with spelling things like immunohistochemistry or deoxyribonucleic acid

Burning eyes, nose and throat indicate that you haven't actually turned on the fumehood/downdraft bench

Your slightly too fond of the smell of (pick one or many) Xylene/Agar/Ethanol/Undergraduates/Alcoholic handwash

you have made some kind of puppet out of a nitrile glove and kept it as a pet (I had one with a smiley face! it had cool hairstyle!)

You have an irresistible urge to rip your shirt off superman stylie cos it has press stud fasteners just like your lab coat.....Most often occurring as you walk through a door just like exiting the lab (This reminds me of Soleil! The only one with a press stud fastener lab coat!)

You still get amusement out of "freezing" things in liquid nitrogen! (Clueless and I once froze a glove for the heck of it :P)

When you rejoice when grabbing a handfull of eppendorfs/bijous/anything and it turns outs to be the exact number you needed (Absolutely love the feeling!!!)

Your nose invariably itches when you're doing mucky stuff with your hands so you develop the habit of scratching it on your upper arm. Unfortunately you sometimes carry this habit over to real life, where it looks like you're sniffing your armpits (Trying to find a clean bit of lab coat can be fun as well!!! Disgusting, i know!)

When you start making patterns in your pipette tip box as you take the tips out (This is SOOOO me!!!!! :D :D )

You've seen how far away you can hit a target with a squirty water bottle or seeing how far away from the bin i can fire pipette tips (I made a pipette tip tower once! It reached the ceiling!)

When you've got that callus on the side of your thumb from opening PCR tubes (Soleil, we can feel your pain! It was normal eppendorfs for us!)

You open the toothpaste with one hand.

When you hear tween, you think of the surfactant not the age group

For you, media is something which increases your culture

You use the word "aliquot" in regular sentences (do you still use it, clueless?!)

Sometimes you momentarily vanish from social activities because of a time point. (can be annoying!)

You're very good at diluting things (exceptionally talented)

You consider a green laser pointer to be science bling (Isn't it??? :P)

You've used Kimwipes as Kleenex (only from unopened boxes!)

A timer clipped to the hip is not only practical, but dead sexy (definitely is!)

You think the following is a quality insult: "I've seen cells more competent than you!" (The best I have heard!)

5 comments:

doublehead said...

If you are a chemist

(A) The custard kind of dessert they serve in canteen reminds you of the polymeric junk you produced in an experiment.
(B) you tend to like the smell (pepe le pew!!) of hydrogen sulfide and it no longer gives you headache.
(C) you know that you are drinking phosphoric acid and sugar mix when you drink cola.
(D) you know being in love is only "chemical"

Confused Soul said...

LOL!!! That was a good one!

"When you rejoice when grabbing a handfull of eppendorfs/bijous/anything and it turns outs to be the exact number you needed" .. makes me wonder.. we really do lose it when we work too long in the lab don't we? haha.. and yes I agree that sometimes 90% of the stuff can be done by trained chimps.. it's only the analysis part that needs our tiny brains :P

Anusha said...

Holy crap. It's like someone followed us around for a week, took down notes and then decided to make this list out of the notes. 100% spot on!

And no, I don't use "aliquot" any more, but that's because I don't have anything to refer to. I would love to be able to use it in daily conversation again, though!

simplime said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
simplime said...

also when you are trying to break a bunch of frozen peas in the frying pan and thinking how string the hydrogen bonding must be between them...happened with me today!!!!