I’m training a colleague to work in a lab for rapidly spreading diseases. The standard operating procedures are slightly different than for some of the other germs we usually work with, including wearing extra Personal Protective Equipment on top of the usual kit. As we are about to exit…
Colleague: “I want to watch you disrobe.”
Me: “I think the word for PPE is ‘doff.’ ‘Disrobe’ sounds like we’re about to have sex.”
We are told that someone is joining the team, starting in just a few days, and it’s one of the ex-apprentices. This is very odd; normally, we have weeks of notice, and it tends to be people who have had many years in the company under their belt.
We get talking. Apparently, when this new hire was an apprentice, she did as little as possible, and she moved around the departments until no one wanted her. We are all pretty welcoming so we don’t want to judge; after all, she could have grown out of it by now.
She arrives in the department for her first day and seems interested. The first week goes well. She doesn’t know what she is doing, but everyone is happy to teach her and she slowly works her way around the jobs in the lab.
I’m pretty new in the lab myself, so I don’t end up training her, and it is a month before we work together.
Me: “Hey, I was going to do [job #1]. Did you want to do [job #2]?”
Ex-Apprentice: “No, [Coworker] will do that for me.”
Me: *Pause* “Okay. Oh, I won’t have time to write the report for [test]. Would you mind picking that up?”
Ex-Apprentice: “No, I don’t really want to. I think [Coworker] will do that.”
Me: “No disrespect, but I haven’t seen you do anything today. We work together here, and I need some support.”
Ex-Apprentice: “You’re just pissed because everyone likes me more than you.”
Me: “No, I just think you should do some actual work, instead of fluttering your eyelashes and getting others to do it.”
She carries on in the same way for weeks, getting one of the older guys to do her work for her. Problems start when we have guys call in sick; suddenly, there is no one to cover her.
Rather than deal with the situation, my boss asks me to do her work for her. I refuse, so he eventually goes to speak with her. Forced to do some actual work, she makes a massive mess of everything and then disappears for the rest of the day, completely AWOL.
She lasted another month before being disciplined and had to re-sit all of her training. This took many more weeks, and she still couldn’t be bothered; she was caught trying to push her work onto others. She got transferred to yet another department and then suddenly didn’t work for the company at all.
Tap water in Holland is ridiculously clean. Pretty much the only ways to get water that is undrinkable or contaminated is having your toilet output connected to your tap by bad plumbing or drawing straight from the canals.
I work in the laboratory for a company that produces flower food. We make those little packets that come with bouquets, but we also make also bulk solutions that florists and such put in the buckets to keep flowers fresh. Most of our products are not unlike detergent or lemonade in that you have to dilute them in a certain dosage for optimal results.
One part of the job is troubleshooting, both for internal issues and for external issues like complaints about our product.
One time, we get a complaint from a new client saying that our product is too acidic and is killing the flowers. Immediately, alarm bells start ringing! Our product does contain a bit of acid because flowers actually prefer this, but too much of a good thing is obviously bad. If this customer is correct, we’ve probably shipped a bad batch to at least twenty other customers.
First, we receive a sample of our applied product. The customer is correct in that this is by far more acidic than flowers can handle. While further analysis suggests the dosage is correct — a common cause of these kinds of issues — the results are not entirely conclusive since the product has been used, so some of the components may have been absorbed by the flowers or have degraded.
About two weeks later, we finally get a sample of our pure product. We run all the checks on it and the results are perfect! This batch could have won an award for meeting our standards! It’s a relief for the sales team, but it thickens the mystery for us and the client. We prepare our own dosage and run checks on it, and we order some flowers and put them in the solution, and everything shows this product is fine.
We double-check with our consultant who reported the complaint and he guarantees us that the client is using the correct dosage.
Another week later, our consultant calls my coworker because he is still anxious to hear if we have found any explanation. Despite our best efforts, putting about 50% of our workforce on it for three weeks now, we haven’t.
Consultant: “That really makes me question your skills. You agree that the diluted solution the client uses is bad, but you claim the pure product is good. Clearly, something isn’t adding up.”
Coworker: “Well, at this point, the only thing we haven’t tested is the client’s water, but since it’s the same Dutch tap water that we use, that seems a very unlikely cause.”
Consultant: “Agreed. They just use tap water with some hydrochloric acid added to prevent bacterial growth.” *Pause* “Why are you laughing so hard?”
I work in a research lab where we use zebrafish to study genetics. When I joined, the first thing the professor told me was not to name the fish or get attached to them under any circumstances. We don’t kill the fish for our work; we just take tissue samples by clipping a small piece of a fin or the tip of their tail, which will grow back. If a fish gets sick or injured, though, we have to put it down quickly, to avoid it injuring or infecting the rest of the tank, or dying unnoticed and contaminating the water.
As such, when I notice that one of the young male fish we’re raising to restock our tanks is visibly deformed, I know he’s probably going to have to go, so I catch him and put him in a separate container.
Professor: “Any updates?”
Me: “Got some good results on the last sample set I’d like you to look over, and I pulled a fish with a birth defect out of the juvenile tank. I’m afraid we’re probably going to have to put him down.”
Professor: “Let me see.”
He takes the container and studies the deformed fish. The fish looks like someone took his head and his tail and twisted in opposite directions, but he’s still swimming, albeit slowly, and not showing any of the usual signs of distress or injury.
Professor: “Awww, but he’s so cute! Do we really have to put him down?”
Me: “Well, we can’t use him for research, and you’re the one who told me that any injured or sick fish have to go.”
Professor: “Yeah, I know, but he’s swimming pretty well, and I don’t want to put him down unless he’s in distress. I’m going to name him Austin. Keep Austin weird!”
Me: “What should I do with him, then? I don’t want to put him back in with our research fish.”
Professor: “How about putting him in the retirement tank with our older fish? They move pretty slowly anyway, so Austin will be able to keep up, and none of them are used for research anymore.”
Me: “Works for me. Austin gets an early retirement.”
I couldn’t be the one to make the decision, but if the professor okayed it, I was more than happy to move the fish to the retirement tank. Austin can’t move very fast, but he’s still around and has become our unofficial lab mascot. And at least half of our fish have been named.
This story is part of our Feel Good roundup for October 2020!
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Years ago, a student locked himself in a windowless supply room accidentally by panicking after the light blew out and hitting the push-lock while trying to open the door. A physics professor saved the day by kicking in the door.
That year…
Sophomore #1: “Did you hear about [Physics Professor]? He kicked a door off its hinges to save a student!”
Other Professor: “It wasn’t that impressive. It was a cheap door.”
One year after…
Sophomore #2: *To a new freshman* “Last year, [Physics Professor] had to rescue a student trapped in a locked room. He knocked the door over with a single kick.”
Two years after…
Freshman: “I heard a story about [Physics Professor]. There was this student stuck in a room, and no one could get the door open, but he looked at the door and worked out where it was weak because of physics and was able to break it down!”
Four years after…
Sophomore #3: “Hey, [My Name]. Were you teaching here when [Physics Professor] had to rescue a student locked in a room? I heard he analyzed door in his head and knocked it off its hinges with a single blow.”
Me: “No, it was a cheap interior door. He just kicked it and it broke.”
Five years after…
Student: “…so, the story is that [Physics Professor] is looking at this door, and he realizes that because of its shape there’s a single flaw, right, so he smashes it at the perfect spot and it just shatters. [Other Professor in my department] confirmed the story!”
Six years after, the topic of fire doors comes up in a safety lecture, and one professor jokes that we need to leave them open “because we can’t all smash our way through doors” like the physics professor.
Then, the year after that…
Sophomore #4: “…so, the student’s stuck in a room, the building is on fire, and [Physics Professor] saves the day by analyzing the door…”
Finally, eight years after it happened, the physics professor and I are talking.
Physics Professor: “By the way… one of my new students asked me if it’s true that I used math to break a door and save a room full of students trapped in a burning building. Any idea why?”
Me: “Do you remember [Student] from eight years ago? The story seems to have mutated a bit.”
Physics Professor: “OH. Huh. Well, I told them it was all true.”
This story is part of our July 2020 Roundup – the best stories of the month!
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