I am an only child. So is my father and his mother, and so on and so forth. I have a small family, to put it mildly. Only children have a reputation for being spoiled. All that attention and love concentrated on one can make for an overindulged child. I always thought that I escaped that trap. I don’t expect the world to lie down before me, I don’t (often) throw a tantrum when I don’t get what I want. I thought that I didn’t have those obnoxious only child traits. I was wrong. I have been spoiled through and through, by my thesis lab.

I am only now starting to realize how good I had it in my old lab. It turns out that all those things that were done for me by the support staff I now have to do for myself in the new one! Awful. Top off the water baths, make media, pour agar plates, make buffers, restock tissue culture supplies, just to start. All that I can deal with, grudgingly. What gets me is that everyone takes a turn autoclaving and disposing of tissue culture waste. I am not ok with this. I have never used an autoclave. In fact, I am terrified of autoclaves. The ones I have seen (from afar) look like WWII submarines just waiting to explode. I hate being in the same room with autoclaves and had sincerely hoped to graduate with my PhD without ever running an autoclave. I was so close. So close!

Just look at all those plates! I have to make them all by myself from now on. Ick.

I’ll own it, I am a brat. I am used to having many things done for me. If I were to continue in science, in hands on research, this would likely work against me. There are few labs in this world as, ahem, well-endowed as the labs at Harvard (a large number of labs, in any case). Running an autoclave, pouring plates, and making media are part of a required skill set in the majority of labs and I suppose should be learned as part of a PhD program. I am going to learn how to do these things, but I am not happy about it.