No More Behaving

Dr. Isis has a funny list of things she does not want to find in the lab...or in a potential love interest's apartment. I am amused by this, so I have composed my own. Enjoy.Drops of mercury anywhere but the mercury disposal container. I can't tell you how often this happens, nor can I tell you why.Random non-biohazard shit in the biohazard bins. Biohazard cleanup is my lab duty, so when the bins are filling up with other crap it's more unnecessary work for me.Mouse carcasses anywhere but the carcass freezer. Gross. Just gross. Usually they're left on the dissection bench between dissection and clean-up (fair enough) but sometimes that period stretches out for the better part of a day. Gross.Over-shared stories about you and your significant other's sexual exploits. It's great that you have a satisfying sex life but that's between you and your partner. It really has nothing to do with me and I'd like to keep it that way. Let's try for some modicum of professional demeanor here folks.Random puddles of unidentified liquids anywhere. Especially the floor.Pants with holes in unfortunate places. Why? Keep your underwear to yourself please. And have you considered the safety hazard? I mean holes in the knees are one thing but the implications of dropping something caustic on your barely covered crotch don't bear thinking about.Agar plates growing FSM-knows-what left in the incubator for weeks. Do people really forget that they put plates in there?Cardboard freezer boxes covered in several centimeters of hairy multi-colored mold which renders the label on said box unreadable and the contents of said box likely contaminated. (Our fridges aren't very good at humidity control.)Razor blades or disposable scalpels in the sink (or anywhere but the sharps containers really).Capes. On anyone.

Labels: Lab, Things, Top Ten

For obvious reasons our State of the Lab Address was postponed until just recently.GrAdvisor didn't really feel like sitting us all down to tell us how crappy things were back at the very beginning of the year...but they have since improved.Looks like our grant will get funded and people can return to their full-time salaries in a month or two. Huzzah!This also gives me a bit of wiggle-room with my defense date as it will not be quite so crucial to get out before the $$$ run out. Though GrAdvisor is still pushing for soon, as am I.We had a nice candid discussion about money and how to get it (all my info previously came from DrugMonkey) which was a nice change of pace.Another student asked if we could be more involved in the grant writing process (I have never even seen a copy of our current one, though I know that some of my data are in it). GrAdvisor seemed to think this was a strange request, and another student suggested taking the grant-writing class. First student and I countered that it is a more valuable experience to be actively working on a grant using your own data than it is to process generic information in a seminar. GrAdvisor seemed receptive? We'll see where that goes.In other news, BH got himself a pretty sweet post-doc here which is a de facto decision to stay in our current location for a few more years. This is a considerable relief, as it greatly focuses my own post-doctoral search (not to mention that we quite like our house and friends here). Still holding out hope for the Shining Star in candidate review for a faculty position here, though the timing might be awkward. However, I spoke to another faculty who uses the same model organism. S/he seems reluctant to commit to taking on new people in the next year as s/he is up for tenure review, but I imagine that I could fanagle a short-term position in hir lab until Shining Star is up and running which might work out great for everyone. S/he encouraged me to meet with hir to discuss projects so I will set up an appointment for the near future and see if we can't work something out.Things are starting to look up.On the other hand, GrAdvisor is pessimistic about both of these people. Not sure what to make of this really other than to look at other options as well and hope that his tendency to be rather out of touch regarding these things holds true in this case too.

Labels: Lab