Something about clearing out one’s lab bench is terribly cathartic. One has to pour out bottles and bottles of complicated solutions, ones with trillions of ingredients that took an hour to measure out and three to dissolve (on a good day). It’s a little like baking every day for a year and holding on to all the delicious cookie results, only to dump them all in the trash. Trying to pawn off one’s solutions on lab mates is useless. “Trust no one” is the motto in most labs – never use a reagent you didn’t make or check in some painfully meticulous way.
It’s sad and wasteful, but also cleansing and refreshing. You have to clean, put away, file and label, so that some poor shmuck grad student can one day go through the reagents, trying to make sense of the legacy you left, either in plasmids, cells, or viruses. Clearing out helped me see the marks, both big and small, that I left on my many assorted labs, and made me feel comfortable with moving on.
I cleaned out my bench for the third time in the last year, packed up my car, and drove down to DC just two short weeks ago. It’s pretty here, if you like men in suits and buildings that look like monuments (and monuments that look like buildings). I have almost settled in to my apartment on Capitol Hill, about 6 blocks away from the building itself. I stare at it every day on my drive home from work and from the roof of my building. I can’t get enough of it. I find it magnetic, somehow, and beautiful.
On the drive home.
Importantly, I love my new job. I never thought I would hear myself say it, but here I am. I love the job. It’s really interesting, challenging, and fun. The work is making my mind flex and bend in ways it has never been asked to before, and I am loving it. I am excited to write about it, as I feel I am now seeing a part of science and applications of science that are rarely discussed and explained, and that’s a shame. More soon!
Yay for Anna!!! Can’t wait to read more :)
W00t! I know that bittersweet, half-nostalgic feeling about going through your lab reagents before moving on.
Many compliments for doing it – most of the time, people leave and the ones left are stuck with their unsorted freezer boxes, random papers, sometimes photographs, and assorted bottles, to sort through in the same way, but less efficiently. So, from your future laboratory heritors, thank you.
So happy to see you posting again and looking very much forward to lots in the future (I hope). In addition to putting a smile on my face in seeing an update, you also have just reminded me to order my own reagents after an ELISA disaster yesterday when I broke the ‘trust no one’ clause in an attempt to speed up my afternoon. Those of us still in the lab must be here to learn these lessons over and over again :). All the best with the new job – can’t wait to hear more!!
Men look like monuments and buildings in suits? :-)
Steffi – Yay! Thanks. I already have the next few posts outlined in my head.
Heather – I make a point of cleaning out my stuff every time. I hate having to throw out other people’s stuff when I first take over a bench. It’s a little like going through someone’s dirty laundry. And on that note – in one of my labs, an unsorted drawer yielded some abandoned boudoir photos of a past tech. Yeeesh. What was that stuff doing in lab in the first place??
Melissa – Helloooo! Lab mates are not to be trusted – sad, but true. So sorry to hear of the ELISA catastrophe. Hope that the next run will be a successful one.
Viktor – Good point. I should fix that.
\o/
Great to hear you are having a good start in DC. Do you plan to rename your blog?
Glad to hear your are revelling in the change of scene, Anna. Look forward to hearing more about it.
Oh, nice view! But did you take that picture while driving?
Umm, I may have taken that picture while driving. Maybe. In my defense, I wasn’t exactly going 60 mph. The speed limit here is about 7.
Martin – I have thought about renaming the blog, but it seems sad to leave my roots/origins. Besides, I think leaving lab is one potential part of lab life, no? Am stretching here. Though to be fair, I don’t know how much blogs are identified by blog names on NN as opposed to author names. Quite the reverse from most other blogging platforms! So maybe changing the name wouldn’t be such a big deal? As you can tell, I am still debating with myself.
Looking forward to reading more about your new job and new town. I am glad you like it Anna!
Photography while driving? Tut tut.
[hides Flickr account quickly to avoid self-incrimination]
Glad to hear it’s going well, Anna! Although, having looked at your new gig’s website, and seeing:
Red-team analysis drawn from the security sector
and
Systems engineering and net assessment tools of technologists
I’m thinking:
a) I have no idea what any of that means, and
b) if I read any more, some of those building-shaped men in dark suits will come knocking on my door wondering why I’ve been snooping around.
So I will wish you well and hide under my bed for a while. And I agree about those
sillycrazystylish buildings – last time I flew out of DC, I got a fab view of the Capitol from the window. It just looks totally unreal, perched there on its hill.I took this photo while driving once:
My sister was next to me, yelling “Don’t do that! It’s dangerous!!” but I’m not sure what she thought would have happened? There was no other traffic! I even managed to stay on my side of the yellow line.
Oh furrfu. Anyone who can’t handle a mobile phone while driving shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
Heh. That’s wasn’t a cell phone. I took the picture with a really crap camera. This involved me searching my cavernous handbag for the camera, while driving, a stick shift, in lady-like shoes. Maybe I won’t do that again.
Eva – that picture is gorgeous! Well worth the risk, I think!
Richard (Wintle) – Government-speak will make your insides liquefy. It’s horrible. I am slowly starting to learn it. All the stuff from the Gryphon website basically means that they do biodefense contracts for the government. I am planning on writing more about it, but a red-team exercise involves a contractor trying to break or hack something, to see how a bad, bad person could possibly do it. It’s actually super cool and I hope I get to red-team something soon!
Well done, Anna. I’m really pleased for you.
Anna! I’m new but I was reading your profile and you sound so cool. I would love to take more risks and pursue things that aren’t on the traditional path…:) What are you doing in DC? It looks beautiful!!
My personal lab motto was a hand me down:
Trust No One.
Believe Nothing.
Be Bitter.
The last one is optional.
also:
Society is to Blame.
Congratulations on the new job: I’m looking forward to reading more. The website is great, but I’m still not sure what you do on a day-to-day basis now.
i just start reading your blog, and congratulation on the new job ! i had quite a good time going through your older posts!