Posts tagged with lab-life.
The daily grind of trying to find Nobel-worthy results
The following account of a typical day at the lab is drawn from a week's worth of my actual experiences at the lab. It is a scintillating account of what really happens behind the doors marked "Authorized Personnel Only". You will very shortly discover that this is not really very much at all.
8:46:32. Pull into small parking lot immediately adjacent to the lab in already-doomed attempt to score one of the good parking spots. Moment of dejection upon realizing all spots have been filled by the employees of the drug company upstairs.
9:02:36. Rinse out four-day-old coffee residue from mug on desk; briefly pause to consider scientific explanations for attendant lack of mold. Determine that coffee must contain a potentially toxic compound with antifungal activity. Moment of fear.
9:02:38. Need for coffee supersedes anxiety over potential toxicity of said coffee. Pay visit to coffee machine.
9:03:01. Find someone's forgotten quarter in coffee machine change slot. Think to self, "Today will be a good day."
9:10:54. Open e-mail to find request to revise a recently submitted manuscript. Think to self, "Maybe day not so good after all."
9:10:56. Console self with prolonged visits to favourite useless websites, extended bout of Spider Solitaire.
9:32:40. Decide it is time to stop playing Spider Solitaire and get to work. This proves difficult. Have heart-to-heart intervention with self. Grudgingly begin working.
9:40:32. Begin prolonged effort of updating and organizing disparate data sources into a single spreadsheet in preparation for later analysis. Ponder whether Einstein would have sorted out relativity if he had to spend all day pushing Excel cells around. Conclusion: nope.
11:23:46. Spider Solitaire relapse.
11:26:59. Return to spreadsheet. Pound keyboard repeatedly in frustration. Reconsider career choice for 16383298th time. Emit resigned sigh and return to work for 16383298th time.
12:05:27. Spreadsheet complete. Punch air with fist in defiant gesture of triumph.
12:05:51. Time for e-mails. Somebody wants me to review something. Someone else wants to me review a different thing. Somebody needs something rewritten; somebody needs a graphic. I should attend this thing, that thing and this other thing, and ohdidIforgettomention this other thing is now cancelled. Someone wants to replace my hair and increase my penis size, but nobody wants to buy my couch off Craigslist.
12:30:00. Weekly lab meeting begins. Busy self during meeting with different tasks, including stealth fingernail maintenance, observation of neighbour's shoe, cat hair removal.
1:02:32. Meeting proves to be half as long as usual. Revisit concept that perhaps this is indeed a good day. Return to desk and celebrate good fortune with a round of Spider Solitaire.
1:10:46. Take triumphantly complete spreadsheet and pass it to a second piece of software for analysis. Spend next few hours poking at resultant data hoping for Nobel Prize-worthy insight.
3:23:21. Realize Nobel prize-worthy insight is not coming. Decide will settle for insight that makes boss happy.
3:46:19. Cake! Thank the chocolate cake gods that I work in a lab large enough that someone has a birthday once every 9.125 days. Lick icing off fingers and return to desk.
4:32:12. Repeated prodding of data ultimately generates potentially boss-satisfying insight. Turn insight into attractive and catchy boss-satisfying graphic. Weigh options: pursue story further tonight, or reward insight with a well-deserved break?
4:32:13. Spider Solitaire.
And that's a day at the lab. I pack up around 5:00 and head out, having tallied one cup of coffee, one piece of cake, one insight and accompanying graphic, 18 keyboard-smashing fist pounds, 37 cat hairs removed, and 53 attempts at Spider Solitare with not a single victory. Maybe tomorrow.
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JENNIFER GARDY 
