Pet peeves (work-related)

[chemwipe]

People calling your instrument a "machine" and your chromatograms "pictures"...

I've heard some people refer to a chromatogram as a "chromatograph" -

"Hey, can you make a copy of that chromatograph for me?"

haha

Anyone else?

[Schmitty]

Unfortunately, I find just about everthing peeves me off these days.

[Bruce Hamilton]

You can guess my responses to the following...

" Those peaks aren't real, it's pure according to my nmr/MS/IR/Melting point..."

" It will only take 10 minutes to put through your machine..."

" CSI identify stuff very quickly..."

" It costs that much for a simple test! "

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

[Rootfa]

What that in ppm?

[WK]

Is area% equivalent to %w/w?

[gcguy]

I didn't think I had to shake my flasks after I had made them up to the mark.

Yes that was a real one!!

[lmh]

oh, don't get me started. This is just a taster of the seething turmoil waiting to well up at the first opportunity:
(1) people who send tiny tiny samples in enormous containers with badly fitting lids.
(2) people who repeatedly send samples that contain absolutely nothing, but can't be bothered to carry out any sort of control extraction to check that their analyte of interest survives their sample prep procedure.
(3) Subset of (2), people who spend 6 hours arguing that their procedure is fine instead of spending 3 hours checking it's fine.
(4) People who want meetings, especially those who can't read e-mails and therefore want the meeting so someone can tell them what they would already know if they'd bothered to read the e-mail.
(5) People who think I'm a bit of lab equipment, a sort of inefficient autosampler, and are surprised when I express a desire to go home at some point in the evening.
(6) People who give me 50 samples requiring a 30min analysis, and come back 6 hours later wanting to know the answer (anyone know a tactful way to explain that 50 * 30min = 25 hours??)
(7) People with dreadful handwriting (apart from me); people who think that a label on a sample should run to 5 lines of prose; printed labels that drop off tubes; manufacturers of printed labels who claim they don't fall off when they do; QA people who make me buy said labels and printers and then complain that they're falling off the tubes.
(8) Highly skilled analytical chemists who don't understand the difference between a triple quad and an ion trap (and who don't see this as a problem).
(9) Manipulative mass spectrometrists whose sole desire in life is to possess a bigger instrument than anyone else. But who don't really know why they need it.
(10) People who complain too much. Ooops.

[Rootfa]

My company has just sent an email stating a certain manufacturers GC's came first in all tests (5 manufacturers) over a 3 month period, but we can only buy the second best ones because the unit cost is slightly cheaper!

[TimB]

1) People calling instruments "machines."

2) My lab supports a variety of groups within our company, and everyone thinks they are more important than everyone else and wants their samples pushed ahead of everything

3) The amount of time it takes to do a test (someone mentioned it). If I get samples that require HPLC and the HPLC run is 20min, and 30 samples are submitted, they are not going to be ready in a few hours.

4) People that think our lab can do ANYTHING under the sun, and have no concept of method development. Or when we say we can develop a method for compound X, the samples of compound X are there the next day and people of course want the results ahead of everything else.

5) Meetings that waste time.

[chemwipe]

5) Meetings that waste time.

My favorite meetings were the ones that took me away from working up samples so my supervisor could ask me "Why aren't those samples done?"

[Russ]

Most recent: "A GC is a GC is a GC". The one that was purchased is still not operational 2 months after set-up. Fortunately, I have zero responsibility for working on it.

[Consumer Products Guy]

I always let sample submitters choose:

Do you want it done quickly, or do you want the correct answers?

Guess which they choose...

[TimB]

I always let sample submitters choose:

Do you want it done quickly, or do you want the correct answers?

Guess which they choose...

Haha! That is so true!

[Ron]

I would guess a substantial portion pick both.

[NALI]

Paint cans: You can't pour from them without fouling your sample and the lip of the can. Also, they cannont be closed (for certain) without a mallet. Even then, if you just poured out a sample. . .
Who ever though this was a good way to send samples?

The phrases "oh, its just a simple, little test," and "test it again."
Really? Maybe I'll get it right this time.

Solvent baths for cleaning mucked up equipment.

Containers marked with one chemical, but somehow containing another. I was pretty sure reading was a prerequisite for working in a laboratory.