In this morning’s edition of “My Life in the Laboratory is a Total Shitshow”, I have been chased out my side of our laboratory because a malfunctioning transfer box sparked, ignited, caught on fire, and melted the plastic transfer tank to the stir plate in the cold box. This was realized after smoke started seeping out the bottom vents of our “beer cooler” style refrigerator, emitting the foul smell of melting plastic, requiring a brave soul to slide open one of the doors, dive into the giant cloud of smoke, unplug the transfer tank, fill the entire lab with the the noxious odors, and cause the owner of said transfer to come running over hysterical concerned not with the safety of those of us who work on that side of the lab and had been breathing in the fumes, but only with the status of her membrane. Once all was said and done and the casualties had been tallied (transfer tank: melted; membrane: fine), Health & Safety came to inspect the damage and herded us into the other half of the lab, deeming my half of the lab a safety hazard, thereby preventing me from doing any of my experiments for the day and have thus threatened to take away my weekend off for Labor Day, leaving me dangerously on the verge of mental breakdown.
I am no stranger to long hours in the lab. I average between 12 – 14 hours/day in the laboratory, plus extra time I spend at home reading papers, analyzing data, etc. I generally work at least 6 days a week, typically 7, generally putting in even longer hours on the weekends than during the week because I have uninhibited access to the equipment that I need without having to wait for other people, without having to schedule time, and it just makes the most sense for me to just use it. Mind you, I do not by any stretch of the imagination enjoy working these hours – I just do what I feel I have to do, and I generally do it without complaining (too much).
But these past few weeks have just been totally out of control, and I have been on the verge of losing it for days now. Last week, during a normal seven day, Sunday-to-Sunday work week, I worked a total of 132 hours. That averages to 18.85 hours/day, or roughly 5 hours/day in which I am not in the lab. This of course does not include the time spent at home doing lab related work (analyzing data, writing up experiments, editing protocols). On the days which I actually made it back home, an hour was spent walking to/from the lab, and of course at some point I had to shower, eat (though rarely – I’ve lost almost 10 pounds this month alone because I just haven’t had time to eat since I’ve been so busy), maintain my normal housewife duties of laundry and packing lunches and running basic errands for my husband, and you can see why I’ve been more than a bit cranky and exhausted lately.
Now, if all these hours were contributing to some kick-ass data, that would be one thing. But they’re not. All these hours are because people are morons, and I keep getting held up for reasons over which I seem to have little control. Once in a while, fine. But back-to-back-to-back? I can’t even begin to get into all the shit that has gone done over the past month because it so overwhelming, but it has resulted in things like equipment malfunctions that suddenly require me to press a button every time 0.5mL of buffer has passed through the protein purification system – meaning every 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on flow rate – for an entire 5+ hour run. PUSHING A BUTTON EVERY 30 SECONDS TO ONE MINUTE FOR OVER FIVE HOURS. For three days. And this all could have been prevented had someone not changed tubing without telling me. And of course, because I wasn’t planning on this happening, I already had my typical 14 hours of work that had to be done, in addition to 5 hours of sitting on the floor tethered to the machine pushing the button to make the proteins to do the circular dichroism. And then I show up with my samples good to go to run the CD, and the person wit whom I scheduled the CD says “Ooops, sorry, I forgot, can you come back next week?” Except that these are horrid proteins and they don’t last a week and they cannot be frozen, and waiting a week would mean that I would have to go through the entire purification process again, so my PI ranted and raved and was able to convince them to let me use the machine on the weekend. Except oops, I ran out of nitrogen, and then the person who mis-scheduled me said “Sorry, I forgot, I thought I had some, I miscalculated.” For $16, I would have bought some stupid tanks out of my own pocket, and of course, for each step I had already incubated our protein with the small molecule and had to throw them away afterwards and required more protein, with more purification and more dialysis, etc etc etc.
And so, you can see why I was so thrilled at escaping the lab this weekend and going to the shore. Not exactly for a quite and relaxing weekend – a weekend with my husband’s “adopted family” (meaning 5 children under the age of 9 and 4 dog under the same roof – so honestly, being in the lab all weekend is probably more relaxing and peaceful) – but a science-free weekend, none-the-less (or at least experiment-free, since I am sure a stack of papers to read would make the journey). But now that I am stuck on the far side of the lab, and my experiments are on the near-side of the lab, I am stuck with a difficult decision. Do I say screw it, be totally irresponsible, and just go away this weekend anyway, ignore all the experiments in progress that I have, not finish them (and let them go to waste, as I have things which would need to be completed today), and face the potential wrath of my PI on Monday? Or do I suck it up and be responsible and send my husband away for the weekend without me, and come in this weekend, like every other weekend, and slave away like normal?
Like I said, my life in the laboratory is a total shitshow… and 99% of the time, it’s not even my fault.
I am no stranger to long hours in the lab. I average between 12 – 14 hours/day in the laboratory, plus extra time I spend at home reading papers, analyzing data, etc. I generally work at least 6 days a week, typically 7, generally putting in even longer hours on the weekends than during the week because I have uninhibited access to the equipment that I need without having to wait for other people, without having to schedule time, and it just makes the most sense for me to just use it. Mind you, I do not by any stretch of the imagination enjoy working these hours – I just do what I feel I have to do, and I generally do it without complaining (too much).
But these past few weeks have just been totally out of control, and I have been on the verge of losing it for days now. Last week, during a normal seven day, Sunday-to-Sunday work week, I worked a total of 132 hours. That averages to 18.85 hours/day, or roughly 5 hours/day in which I am not in the lab. This of course does not include the time spent at home doing lab related work (analyzing data, writing up experiments, editing protocols). On the days which I actually made it back home, an hour was spent walking to/from the lab, and of course at some point I had to shower, eat (though rarely – I’ve lost almost 10 pounds this month alone because I just haven’t had time to eat since I’ve been so busy), maintain my normal housewife duties of laundry and packing lunches and running basic errands for my husband, and you can see why I’ve been more than a bit cranky and exhausted lately.
Now, if all these hours were contributing to some kick-ass data, that would be one thing. But they’re not. All these hours are because people are morons, and I keep getting held up for reasons over which I seem to have little control. Once in a while, fine. But back-to-back-to-back? I can’t even begin to get into all the shit that has gone done over the past month because it so overwhelming, but it has resulted in things like equipment malfunctions that suddenly require me to press a button every time 0.5mL of buffer has passed through the protein purification system – meaning every 30 seconds to 1 minute depending on flow rate – for an entire 5+ hour run. PUSHING A BUTTON EVERY 30 SECONDS TO ONE MINUTE FOR OVER FIVE HOURS. For three days. And this all could have been prevented had someone not changed tubing without telling me. And of course, because I wasn’t planning on this happening, I already had my typical 14 hours of work that had to be done, in addition to 5 hours of sitting on the floor tethered to the machine pushing the button to make the proteins to do the circular dichroism. And then I show up with my samples good to go to run the CD, and the person wit whom I scheduled the CD says “Ooops, sorry, I forgot, can you come back next week?” Except that these are horrid proteins and they don’t last a week and they cannot be frozen, and waiting a week would mean that I would have to go through the entire purification process again, so my PI ranted and raved and was able to convince them to let me use the machine on the weekend. Except oops, I ran out of nitrogen, and then the person who mis-scheduled me said “Sorry, I forgot, I thought I had some, I miscalculated.” For $16, I would have bought some stupid tanks out of my own pocket, and of course, for each step I had already incubated our protein with the small molecule and had to throw them away afterwards and required more protein, with more purification and more dialysis, etc etc etc.
And so, you can see why I was so thrilled at escaping the lab this weekend and going to the shore. Not exactly for a quite and relaxing weekend – a weekend with my husband’s “adopted family” (meaning 5 children under the age of 9 and 4 dog under the same roof – so honestly, being in the lab all weekend is probably more relaxing and peaceful) – but a science-free weekend, none-the-less (or at least experiment-free, since I am sure a stack of papers to read would make the journey). But now that I am stuck on the far side of the lab, and my experiments are on the near-side of the lab, I am stuck with a difficult decision. Do I say screw it, be totally irresponsible, and just go away this weekend anyway, ignore all the experiments in progress that I have, not finish them (and let them go to waste, as I have things which would need to be completed today), and face the potential wrath of my PI on Monday? Or do I suck it up and be responsible and send my husband away for the weekend without me, and come in this weekend, like every other weekend, and slave away like normal?
Like I said, my life in the laboratory is a total shitshow… and 99% of the time, it’s not even my fault.