Tuesday, July 05, 2011

How to Torture a Chemist

Given yesterday was a national Holiday (Independence Day), it was a 3-day weekend for us and the lab in a complete shutdown, leading to my pain.

Friday after work I was enjoying a wonderful Lithuanian beer with my wife when a thought hit me, a creative breakthrough about how to tackle a new project at work. I knew with a little experimentation it would work. The problem? The agony? I had to play with the idea in my mind all 3 days, knowing that if I went into the lab, I'd be there alone, and given what happened last weekend to a chemistry student working in their lab alone, I wasn't going to chance it. No, the mental anguish was mine and mine alone to bear, something only a chemist could understand.


Finally [*], it's off to the lab! The pain is over! I've been set free!

[*] Salt was poured on the wounds by the IT department. They decided that we all needed a new service pack installed for Windows, and that didn't go smoothly. After 3 hours, the install timed out and I was finally granted access to the computer and the past data I needed.

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