I once threw out an opened package with custom PCBs (worth like 20k€) intended for one of the detectors at CERN, because i thought my colleague already took them out of the box. The PCBs are very lightweight and there is lots of packing material so you barely notice the difference from a full to empty box. Luckily the paper trash compactor hadnt run yet when i realized…

This post is causing some serious flashback to that asshole labmate who wouldn’t allow the phase contrast scope used for endospore counts to be serviced because he, the one out four who used it, “liked it better this way.” Just fucking do the proper maintenance on your goddamn equipment, this doesn’t need to be hard!

Some bastard walked off with The Good Allen Wrenches again, and his corpse was found in a pile of unassembled IKEA.

Everything is reading 50 microvolts higher on the left side of the room and nobody knows why.

All my equipment was made in the 50s and its full of sand.

“The lab fridge sandwich incident”

Which shipping dock is our crate sitting on? No, not that one either! (Better hurry, it’s starting to rain.)

Nobody ever turns on the ventilator because it makes A Bad Noise.

They Turned The Overhead Lights On And All The Grad Students Shriveled Up And Died.

The dry lab informatician sits by themselves in a tiny windowless corner, surrounded by the hottest and loudest machines known to man, staring unblinkingly at a dark rectangle on the screen for 12+ hours a day, muttering only to themselves whilst biting the corner of their thumbs, and interacting with no one except when grabbing a water or a coffee.

The wet lab drama is just around the corner but they refuse to acknowledge it nor participate in the endless discussions, nor even make eye contact with anyone in the outside world.

They are frequently praised by the Prof who has no idea what they actually do, only that they are by far the cheapest employee due to them not constantly ordering reagent kits every 30 seconds.

I have dumpster dove (diven?) for shit at work. It is unpleasant.

This all sounds like it could have been in a Sealab episode…