Chromatography Forum

Have you ever spent Christmas Eve and Day working in a chromat lab? and knowing pretty much that New Year's Eve will be nearly the same?

just wondering...

I worked yesterday, and if my wife hadn't told me that I couldn't go in today, I would go back in. I can, however, check on my instruments from home, and will do so throughout the day. I like to think of work as a hobby that interests me, and not as 'work', per se.

Yes, I enjoy working too, but the problem is that something keeps hitting my head: Hey, everybody is at home, with their family, hanging out, eating turkey and all that party that christmas is. So, why are you working? Oh, go home, you can do it next Monday.

It is hard when no one understands exactly what you do or why you need to do what you're doing. Very few people work in a production environment where proactivity means money. Most people work in a place where they punch the clock, shuffle papers, and then go home. Most of us here think about our work a lot, and know that it doesn't end when we clock out. I'd just try to do the minimum you have to today, then get home to the family. Then maybe pretend you're going to an after-Christmas sale tomorrow when you head back to the lab?

Have you ever spent Christmas Eve and Day working in a chromat lab? and knowing pretty much that New Year's Eve will be nearly the same?

Sure, and I liked it - amazingly productive with very few interruptions. In one job, my employer ensured that chemical tankers were always in port over Christmas so the sailors could have a shore break. That meant a minimal number of lab staff worked flat-out day and night to unload and release products.

Down here it's summertime and also our major holiday period, so most employers try to use the Christmas-New Year period as maintenance break and close down facilities. If you're actually working with hazardous materials ( eg solvents, chemicals ), most employers will opt for an organised facility close down, rather than work through the holidays, just for staff safety reasons.

Please keep having fun,

Bruce Hamilton

I can, however, check on my instruments from home, and will do so throughout the day.

Curious as to what your set up is and how you do this, i.e. OS, software, hardware, etc.

I asked the IT guy here about doing this he said there were incompatibility issues with Win 95, blah blah blah.

I've come in the morning before with a dialog box which stops the run (messages ranging from "failed to pick up vial" or "dirty plunger") and clicking "OK" or "Retry" is all it takes to continue with no further problems.

Frustrating when you realize that the error happened about 15 minutes after you left for the day! D'oh!

John

Just a note of caution. Here, many employers now regard establishing unauthorised access points to any corporate computers as serious misconduct, ie instant dismissal. Companies require all external interfaces to be approved by the IT department, even if the computers are not on the corporate network.

Know your employer's policies before setting up remote access, especially if it's through the corporate network. It pays to be very nice to your IT people, as they will probably have set up secure remote access for network monitoring and control.

If your computer is running an older version of Windows, and is standalone, there are a range of remote access programmes using modems and phone lines. You can use them to monitor chromatograph-controlling computers. If you want a virtual desktop control, you probably will need Internet connectivity - with appropriate security.

If you are running the instruments under cGxP, or similar regulatory environments, it's very likely you are going to have to purchase special software licences if you want instrument control.

We use VNC Viewer Free Edition, which is password-protected and logs in to a computer in our laboratory director's office, and then we use Remote Desktop to access instrument computers. It's slow, but effective. Our IT guys set it up for those of us that like to monitor instruments from home without driving 40 minutes roundtrip to check on a critical analysis. The oldest OS we're running is Windows 2000, I believe (at least on my instrument computers).

Bruce is absolutely correct, though - an unauthorized access point to the network is a huge threat to network security and data security.

I used to work Christmas day quite often.
A shift lab and 15hrs double time....oh yeh.

One year our HP3357 CDS fell over at about 10am 25/12.
Yep we had a 4hr responce service contract.
So that was the local HP engineer on his way, when I say local
around 170miles, Glasgow - Edinburgh – Teesside

There was a period where I had dial in access, but again no more.

However there is still the telephone.
(The lads will only call if it’s important)

I thought I'd be working today, December the 31th. But thanks the gods, I am home, having ice-cream, wating today's big party.

John (Chemwipe), there is a special circuit in your system that detects when you have really gone home (a quick trip to the washroom won't trigger it), waits 5 minutes, and then creates an error message. I've noticed that our particularly creative and well-thought-out lc-ms software can usually manage an error that ensures no data are collected, but also that the pumps continue to run, in order to maximise solvent consumption. It went through a phase of heating the sample tray too, so as to minimise the chance of any sample being fit to inject later.

Once in a while, the circuit (if particularly sophisticated) detects that you absolutely must complete all your samples, and a single error will force you to repeat the entire sequence. If so, it may occasionally (for the sake of variety) wait until just before the most important peak in the last sample, and throw the error just as the peak begins to head upwards...

This circuit is closely related to the circuit in photocopiers that detects whether the document you are copying is valuable and unique (your birth certificate etc.), and if so, folds it into teeny-weeny fanfolds, shreds a corner, and squishes it somewhere hot inside its insides. If you're really lucky, it might even sprinkle it with toner.

Working holidays and 20 plus hour shifts got me where I am today. Happy Valley Asylum.

John (Chemwipe), there is a special circuit in your system that detects when you have really gone home (a quick trip to the washroom won't trigger it), waits 5 minutes, and then creates an error message. I've noticed that our particularly creative and well-thought-out lc-ms software can usually manage an error that ensures no data are collected, but also that the pumps continue to run, in order to maximise solvent consumption. It went through a phase of heating the sample tray too, so as to minimise the chance of any sample being fit to inject later.

Once in a while, the circuit (if particularly sophisticated) detects that you absolutely must complete all your samples, and a single error will force you to repeat the entire sequence. If so, it may occasionally (for the sake of variety) wait until just before the most important peak in the last sample, and throw the error just as the peak begins to head upwards...

This circuit is closely related to the circuit in photocopiers that detects whether the document you are copying is valuable and unique (your birth certificate etc.), and if so, folds it into teeny-weeny fanfolds, shreds a corner, and squishes it somewhere hot inside its insides. If you're really lucky, it might even sprinkle it with toner.

Haha good one. I've found that people who don't run instruments don't realize or understand the frustration that these random errors cause.

The most annoying comment I've received when trying to explain that this happened is "Oh, so you didn't do it right?"

John