The Dishwasher

A professor once told my class that if you have a question you should ask it and not feel stupid because most likely if it is not clear to you there will be more people who don't get it too but are too scared to ask and will be grateful you had the courage to. I took this lesson to heart and have found that when I have asked profs to clarify something there are a lot of murmurer and pens/pencils moving! So I have decided to apply this lesson to my blog, Nonna asked about the Dishwasher, who starred in my documentary about the pink goo. She wanted to know if he minded being called "The Dishwasher" and why I call him that (note: I call him by his real name most of the time).

To answer the first part of that question watch the documentary, notice that when I called him "The Dishwasher" he didn't miss a beat, the poor guy has been working in the same lab with me for way too long and so that totally didn't phase him nor upset him. The skip in the vid was my deciding to explain to him why I called him that (I totally forgot in my excitement to get the interview recorded to inform him of my privacy policy and what I named him for the blog) and asking if he minded or if he'd prefer another nickname or his real name. He laughed and said he liked "The Dishwasher" and so that he shall remain.

And as to the why, besides me being insane there are actually two reasons I call him "The Dishwasher". The first is because of the lab jerk (aka Prof Wannabe). The lab jerk is one of those go get 'em types in many regards, which can be good. His is a first class butt kisser when it comes to the higher powers (professors or people he can exploit), but us lowly fellow lab workers do not deserve his precious time that he doesn't have enough of. Idiot is a grad student in I have no idea how many clubs and wonder if he knows, and wonders why he has no time! I am in one club, which I might quit since he recently joined and seems to be taking it over, besides I don't have enough time for it really since I have to focus on my research, writing and prelims (currently 100% focus is on research). When he first started as a grad student it was after he had done a summer internship in the lab, during the summer he managed to piss everyone off including me, and I was only in for a few days before my wrist forced me to take the summer off.

Everyone but I was an undergrad in the lab and when I came back he was trying to be friends with me in hopes of having one person in the lab not loathing him. The arrogant SOB was telling me how he felt the lab dynamics should be, basically the undergrads should be our slaves and do all of our prep work and wash our dishes and basically do our job while we just do the thinking part. I tried to nicely explain that our lab did not work like that, the undergrads in our lab had experience and were among the top of their class and hand picked by the lab's prof to do actual research. These were not minimum wage freshmen, they were slightly above minimum wage upper classmen! They were hired for specific projects and undergrads here can only put in 20 hours a week working for the university while classes are in session as per university policy, that is not much time and really they did not have time to do their work and ours! His response was to say we should hire a slave then, I told him that was highly unlikely and that the prep and cleanup was our job and most grad students have to do that stuff too, least the ones I have worked with in all the labs I have worked in. His views have not changed, his attempts at trying to get me to change mine failed and we are currently mortal enemies. What has changed is the lab dynamic, the undergrads graduated and one got a real job while another decided that grad student life was for her (poor misguided soul!), suddenly we were a lab of grad students and there was but one undergrad, the lowly Dishwasher. Being the pain in the butt hilarious coworker that I am I would tease him about how he is the undergrad and I am the grad and so he should do all my work for me and wash my dishes and everything! He and I would go back and forth exaggerating the lab jerk's insane ideas a bit as a form of playing around and stress relief, working with someone like the lab jerk is highly stressful which is great for blogging since it triggers GI issues that make it hard to sleep so might as well write a blog post and feel guilty my brain is too mushy to do lit review to make my boss happy.

The other reason behind my naming him "The Dishwasher" is because as an undergrad he takes a ton of coursework, which requires a lot of time and does not leave as much time for him to do lab work. One thing that tends to suffer when one is busy and trying to get their job done is dishes. You HAVE to do prep work or you can't do the research, of course doing the research is the whole point, and in the end the only thing one can really slack on is doing the dishes afterwards. Sometimes this causes conflict, it is very annoying when you come in and all the dishes are dirty and my pet peeve is when all the sinks are full of them, the lab has 3 sinks with two basins each there is no excuse to fill them all! Also sometimes one of us who is feeling benevolent or who has given up on the person ever doing them, will just wash the dishes for that person, this makes Dishwasher feel very guilty. His way of trying to avoid conflict and guilt was to write a note on the board saying to leave the dishes for him to do. Being the smart ass comical coworker that I am I would usually either write under it that my test tubes are waiting for him on my bench or I'd tell him it in person if I saw him. Sometimes I would refer to him as the lab's dishwasher and such, yep I'm a hoot to work with!

And that my adoring public is why I call him "The Dishwasher", the combination of inside jokes and slight insult aimed at the lab jerk (who I'm naming my ulcer after if I have an ulcer, find out in a few months probably). The Dishwasher is a great person to work with, he is laid back and puts up with my silliness. I would never let him wash my dishes as that is my job, the only one I let do so is V and that is because we share when we are both working and rotate who cleans the dishes and does the prep work, easier than splitting everything up. And I told him I was going to make him famous so look forward to hearing of him in the future, when I get around to it, lol.

A Microblogologist Production

A few days ago I noticed a container in the hallway outside my lab. Being the snoop concerned citizen that I am I of course had to investigate. It was unlabeled and contained what appeared to be seeded pink hand soap. Yesterday I looked at it again and decided to make a documentary about it, enjoy:



Unfortunately the goo was gone by the time I got back to do my last set of plating so there was no explosion and no more trying to capture the pulsating/bubbling of the goo, it was fun while it lasted! The goo is actually a part of a competition thing that the food science major nerds do every year, it is a big deal to their kind and so the Dishwasher and I can't tell you what their ultra secret pink goo is at this point. If I am aware of it after the contest is over I can try and find out more about it and let you know if anyone wants. It has another endorsement from a coworker who has tried it, in its non-fermented form, no one seemed interested in trying the fermented form for some reason! If I get a memo about a taste panel for it I think I'll give it a try and maybe get a vid of it, if I have time.

Note: I am being exceedingly kind calling him the "lab jerk". He is a vile and loathsome creature (can be nice, chooses not to).

Special thanks to the Dishwasher for participating in the documentary!

Dearest Bugs

Dear Research Organisms,

You know that I love you all and enjoy working with you for the most part, yeah sometimes I get jealous of the others with their bugs* that do not have to be incubated without oxygen like you but all in all you are great bugs. The fact that first B. breve, my shining star bug, stopped growing after the initial revival step. That was bad enough but then when I got up early so I could inoculate for the last run of my last rep (not counting redoing some runs that did not turn out after I am done with rep 3), I was so excited! Then I pulled you out of the incubator and only B. bifidum grew well, B. breve grew a tiny bit, and B. infantis and B. longum, nothing!

It makes absolutely no sense that you did not grow, you grew in the first step and that was coming out of the -75°C freezer. It would make some sense if you did not revive at that point but the second pass, why!?! I am trying again but this puts me way off my schedule! Thankfully the new schedule works so that I will still be able to see Doc on Monday, though of course I am quite nervous about this appointment since it is basically a one way ticket to referral land and I do NOT want to go there! You all are so not helping, you know stress is a trigger for GI issues right? I will admit, I stress you out with my simulated GI tract, I'm sorry but it is for your own good. Have you all gone bad and made some sort of deal with Helicobacter pylori??? Giving me an ulcer will make this take longer but it is not going to stop me so you might as well be good little bugs and grow like you are supposed to!

Yours,
Karen



~~~~~Copy LiteralDan Section~~~~~
*Bugs means bacteria or other microorganisms, it is a somewhat common nickname in my field and I use it a lot.

Friday FAIL

As I have whined about for about two weeks now I am still sickly, sadly this is totally cramping Flat WeaselMomma's and my style. Thankfully she is a very sweet guest and has been helping to nurse me back to health, thanks FWM, your home made walmart brand condensed chicken noodle soup rocks!

Since my last Microbiology FAIL post was such a hit and I found this picture I had taken a few weeks ago up in the pathogens lab I have decided to post it as another nerdy imitation FAIL blog post (seriously check out the original, they are hilarious):

The purse is owned by a woman who hypothetically should know better than to have a purse, with candy in it, in the path lab, not only sitting right next to where the biohazardous trash is kept before making its pilgrimage to be sterilized but going in the purse to get candy to eat while in the pathogen lab! My lab bench is right by this spot and I was leaving my bench to go get something across the lab and happened to catch her in the act and tell her one should not eat in the path lab... She gave me a look that said, "Huh, when was this a rule?" and mumbled something incoherant, I mentioned it to the prof in case she gets sick so he has a heads up and can defend himself if need be. Seriously the only food that is supposed to enter the lab is for testing and once it enters it is no longer considered safe for human consumption. Oh and I totally did not see her wash her hands before trying for the snack... I was horrified by the entire thing to say the least and declare it an Epic FAIL!

Save Edna Jester

So I was checking my AOL mail and I often get distracted by the headlines and click them, especially funny sounding ones. Well I came across this gem and decided to share it with those of you paying attention to the less important news, such as the train wreck upcoming election (that is as political as I plan to get on this blog). Basically it is about an 89 year old woman who was arrested and is being charged with petty theft because some kid(s) threw a football in her yard and she was holding onto it to teach them a lesson.

The neighborhood is divided on this issue, according to the video this has been an ongoing issue with her and the neighborhood kids/families (or at least the one). To me I think the fact that she has made it clear she is annoyed with the kids having their balls go into her yard and got to the point of keeping them for however long to reinforce this that the parents' of these children should use it as an opportunity to teach their children about respecting their elders/neighbors, hell they should have already taught them. Is she being harsh, perhaps, but at the same time I would be very frustrated myself if someone was being disrespectful of me and my property (something I had to deal with in the lab yesterday) and if it was a kid that their parents did not teach them manners. According to the youtube video I found the "kid" is a teenager who got a job and bought it with his own money. I'm sorry but if a kid is old enough to have a job they should be old enough to know better than to mess with their elderly neighbor and perhaps old enough to go to the nearest park to play if their yard is too small.

Perhaps it is the way I was raised, I was expected to be polite and respectful of my elders. When we went somewhere I was expected to follow the rules of that place, even if it was something that was otherwise considered fine behavior for home. I plan to raise my potential offspring in the same way. If I knew my neighbor was bothered by something I or my kids did then I would try to talk it out with them to come up with a solution/compromise. Is it Edna's place to try and teach a little respect to the urchins next door, not really, but at the same time what are her other options if the parents don't do their job? Perhaps it is a silly issue to make such a big fuss over but at the same time it does bring up valid points, and really what means something to one person may mean something else to another.

Perhaps I am relating to Edna and reading too much into the issue given my issues with one of my coworkers (Prof Wannabe for those keeping track). But that is for another post.


FYI: I am working a lot right now and it is significantly limiting my blog writing and reading. I have set myself on a schedule that does not involve days off, it is not as bad as it sounds, some days I have very little to do so it is practically a day off, but there is always something that needs doing that totally gets in the way of blogging. Plus I didn't want to post and have my contest get burried (check it out, post below this, contest deadline has been extended to the 31st). Hopefully I can catch up at some point, miss you guys!

Contamination Fairy Drawing Contest [Updated]

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a lab far far away there worked a microbiologist. For several years this microbiologist did her job, learned how to work with her cultures and developed methods that would allow her to test the objectives of her projects. She had her share of problems along the way, perhaps more than her share some might argue, but that was in the past and she was ready to put it all behind her as much as possible and move forward. About this time she was asked to help get another grad student trained in the art of working with her cultures. This concept made the microbiologist a bit nervous, the last time she had been in charge of training someone had been in her days of being a deli slave and it had not always gone well. As a deli slave whenever they hired someone it tended to be someone older that her and they did not always take kindly to a "stupid kid" trying to teach them how to do something. She quickly found out that V was not like that, working with V was great!

For awhile everything was happy and productive in the lab far far away, the only problems the microbiologist and V had were minor and they got through each of them without any trouble. They worked so well together, the microbiologist did not feel as isolated being the only one not working with pathogens and under a different professor in the lab anymore. And then one day the microbiologist looked at her plates and noticed that there were different looking colonies on her plates and when she looked at them under the microscope they were not the same, she had contamination! She decided that perhaps she had been using the same stock tube to get her cultures from too long and switched. That seemed to fix the problem at first until V showed the microbiologist her new plates, they were beyond contaminated, the Bifidobacteria had been totally overrun and there was nothing but contamination visible. They went back and forth a few times, sometimes V's plates were contaminated and the microbiologist's were fine, sometimes the reverse has been true, sometimes they have both had contamination...

About a month of testing and the source did not reveal itself and the microbiologist and her boss decided they should try moving forward again. And so they did, V made a new batch of yogurt and the microbiologist did her final preliminary run before getting going on her project at long last. The microbiologist waited anxiously for V's plates to come out of the incubator so she could look at them to see if she spotted any problems, and they looked fine. Then she took her own out, and they were quite obviously contaminated, she was crushed! The joy of getting back on track was derailed much like a toy train in the presence of a toddler. Being one that does not like to show such emotions in front of others the microbiologist took a few deep breaths and did what she does in such situations, she tried to make it funny, laughing is way better than crying! And thus the Contamination Fairy was conceived.

The Contamination Fairy is an evil fairy that likes to mess with the poor microbiologist's head. It randomly attacks the microbiologist and V's cultures leaving no trace of how it came in so the microbiologist is helpless to stop it from getting in that way again. It has been said that in order to beat your enemy you have to know your enemy, and this is where you come in dear readers. I am asking you and or your kid(s) to draw me pictures of what you/your kid(s) think the contamination fairy looks like. To give some incentive I am offering the winner their pick of one of the GIANTmicrobes. Here are the rules:

1. Each person can submit one picture, it can be anything from being drawn on paper using crayons/pencils/marker, it can be drawn with a computer program like adobe or pc paint, it can be a picture of a play doh/clay sculpture, as long as it is in good taste it can be entered. If you have several kids who can be conned into playing then each can make their own and be entered. To make it easier please make one comment per individual on this post, I will publish your comment after I receive the picture so you will know that I got it.
2. Electronic submissions are best, you can upload them on a hosting site and drop me a link in the comments, use this contest as blog fodder and link me to your post about it, or e-mail them to microblogologist@yahoo.com. I will allow certain people to mail me entries (no anonymous requests, I have to have some sort of proof that you are not a serial killer ;)), e-mail me and we'll discuss it.
   
3. Since I am allowing the idea of snail mail I will arbitrarily have the contest end on October 31, 2008 to give time for it to get here, I must receive all entries before 5pm central (3pm west coast, 6pm east) on the 31st. Winner will likely be announced that evening or on the 1st of November depending on how busy I am.
   
4. I have an international reader or two I think, not sure of the logistics of sending you the prize but I am more than willing to try to figure it out if you want to participate and have your art chosen.
5. This is just a silly contest and the prize is a silly stuffed toy that costs about $8. Don't take it too seriously and get mad if you don't win or something. Trying to sue me would be pointless, I owe the bank more than I am worth. (This should be unnecessary but you never know...)
   
6. Keep it clean, I will disqualify any entry I wouldn't be willing to show my niece (who is 5) and like the idea of decorating my lab bench with them.
   
7. Since I am only going to allow for one winner and have this open to everyone I plan to use a random number generator or something like that to pick the winner. I HATE picking favorites of pretty much anything and one cannot really compare a drawing done by an adult or older child with a younger one. This is why I ask for one comment per entry.
   
8. GIANTmicrobes inc is not aware of this contest, they are not liable for anything having to do with it (please don't sue me GIANTmicrobes, I love you guys!)
9. A few lines explaining why you/the kid made it the way they did would likely amuse me greatly (and would be a hilarious blog post that would totally write itself) but you don't need to, I would like to know the age of the kiddies so I can do the "That is sooooo cute!" thing.
10. Most importantly be creative and have fun!

**Edited to extend the contest deadline since I have not gotten a single entry =(. Niecey and Cheryl both made me pictures (I am not counting them in the "contest"), they are awesome and are currently hung with pride on my lab bench. Perhaps they will help spark someone's imagination:
Oh and special thanks to Deb, she wrote a totally sweet post about me and pimped this contest, it made my day! She is one of my favorite bloggers, which makes her the equivalent of a celebrity in my world, not only does she write hilarious posts but you get a bonus mini-post if you read the labels she puts on her posts. I totally try to copy her with mine but definitely do not have her talent for it! Oh and her linky love caused a huge jump in my google analytics stats, I have named the spike in the graph Deb's Peak. Thank you so much Deb!

Around the Petri Dish: A Tale of Lab Drama

Have I got a lab drama story for you. The other day I was working in the lab with V and S2. V was plating her yogurt samples, S2 was doing dishes and I was plating what will hopefully be the last preliminary study before I get going on my broth study. We were all working in the same general area, V was totally taking over my bench, bench hog*! And as is not an uncommon occurrence we started chit chatting as we worked. The subject you ask, our favoritest coworkers ever, the visiting prof and PW, mostly VP. VP is leaving at the end of the month, we are talking about having a party, after his plane takes off safely. We were discussing different annoying aspects of working with him. I had already heard how he tends to stroke V's arm as she plates, and he gave her a lecture about how women menstruate (oh thank God, I was wonder what that monthly bleeding thing was, thought I was going to die!) and somehow this is proof that we are fragile and V should be taking care of her husband and popping out offspring, which is hard for her to do right now since her hubby is across the pond and for the past year they've been working on the paperwork to have his limey butt imported. How come we can import everything else into this country hot off the Chinese presses but it takes a year to get a brit approved. I mean come on, he says things like "Bollocks" and quite possibly "Wanker", ooo he might say "Bloody hell"! Or he might say, "Bloody hell you wanker, you stroking my dearest wife V's arm while she is trying to plate is bollocks!" *digressing alert* (seriously if there was a digressing alert I could so use it, though it wouldn't shut up ever and I would have to kill it)

Well he has also decided to pet S2, she was so thrilled to be in with the in crowd. I am so thrilled that I give off "don't touch me" vibes strong enough for even him to pick up on them and only get the occasional awkward arm pat, one pat and it is done, no stroking/petting. I think he is trying to initiate a hand shake with me but I ignore the signal since I am not sure and I don't want to do the hand shake thing. I don't want to touch him (I don't want to touch most people, his creepy vibes put him high up on the list of people I don't want to touch), my right wrist is messed up and I am very protective of it (I let my doc shake it) but know that offering him the left would not just be odd in US culture but as I recall his culture it is a serious offensive gesture (as is telling women they should be home taking care of the family is in ours...) and last it is a fricking path lab!

We discussed his various annoying traits. Laughed that PW had to babysit him. Exchanged theories about how he tries to get us to do his work but playing dumb and/or pretending he doesn't know English enough to understand you trying to explain what he needs to do until you get frustrated and just do it for him. I saw his CV the other night and there is absolutely no way he shouldn't know exactly what he is doing, not like our lab uses anything high tech, that is the other two path labs on our floor, we are old school. My method of dealing with this, act as if I have no idea what he is trying to say. You wanna pretend you don't know English? Fine neither do I! What? How do you what? Huh?

Normally I am overly helpful in lab, especially to new people, but I saw through his games and do no like being taken advantage of. I have never accepted his offers of help and will never help him do his lab work. I don't trust him to be able to work with my bug, the two people in the lab capable of it (well besides Dr. M) are V and myself, it would not take very long to "train" any of the other lab workers (the main thing is making sure it is soaked completely into the plates) but it is MY job and I will do it. I won't help anyone else (besides V if she is in a bind) since I don't want to work with the pathogens and with my wrist I have to be careful not to overdo it with just my stuff.

We made some jokes about how he and PW would make a great reality TV show, like one they watch on MTV that I never heard of... I brought up how if he pet me like he did them I would "accidentally" hit him or something, preferably in such a way to break the blood:testes barrier.** We definitely amused ourselves at his expense and somewhat loudly. What we didn't realize was that he had managed to get back into the lab without our seeing it, he had been in and out and we apparently saw the most recent out but missed the in, oops! We feel guilty and amused at the same time. We were blowing off steam/stress he causes but at the same time it was not a nice/professional thing to do. We don't really know if he could hear/understand what we were saying. M was hanging out in the lab office sitting next to him but he wasn't listening for our dialog and therefore had no idea if it was understandable from across the entire lab... I doubt he did since while he knows English better than he lets on much of the time he doesn't understand it all that well. And really, we could have gotten him kicked out of the lab for sexual harrassment if we so desired, I think being the butt of our jokes is the least he could do ;).



-----Copy LiteralDan Section-----
*V knows about the blog, I wanted some feedback about this aspect of the blog and she was kind enough to give it to me. I share my bench with her and moved my stuff over to S's bench since we both happen to be in and plating at the same time, this may be the first time it has happened since we started working "together" (separate projects but we share almost everything like lab partners). It was totally no big deal for me to move but she felt guilty, calling her a bench hog is totally teasing her if she reads this post (Hi V!).
**There are certain areas that blood does not directly pass into, the brain is one as are the testes. Breaking the blood:testes barrier can sterilize a man. Course it is too late, he has already reproduced and has a daughter in the mix, never know if he will have more though. While I tend to be at least somewhat to each their own I find it sad that girls in other cultures are raised to believe they are inferior and don't have any options other than getting married and making babies, which is a great and valid thing to do but women should have the option to do something else if it is not their thing.