A Shitty Week

Before I started working in a lab, I was convinced that the researchers never really made mistakes. I mean, they are working with dangerous stuff, so it is important to be on the ball, right?

Yeah, uh, no.

Some of us like to get together to talk about our most ridiculous fuck-ups. One of my colleagues here in the lab obtained an antibody from another lab, took their word for it that there was actually antibody in the tube, and proceeded to lose six months trying to get it to work in biological assays. Another friend of mine was trying to mutate a gene, and spent three months trying to get it to work only to discover that she had prepared her primers backward. I've also sneezed while pouring super-highly concentrated hydrochloric acid, only to have it run down my arm and burn the fuck out of me. My arm was pink and sore for days.

Ah, science.

Though it usually ends up being a relatively funny anecdote, I still hate fucking up. This week, for example, was absolutely full of these horrid little disasters. I ruined one biological assay by not preparing enough sample to treat some cells. That was dumb. Then, in another biological treatment with really expensive, precious antibodies that I've been waiting for weeks to get, I just happened to add the wrong amount of protein to the samples. They are now useless. Useless! I have to do it all over again. I've lost another week. I would have actually done myself a favor by staying home and not even bothering to show up.

I keep getting visions of that fish at the end of Faith No More's Epic video.

It would be different if my project was going somewhere, but right now it's not. I know my boss is getting anxious, too. She's not digging my project at all. No one is, really - including me. This sucks. I suck.

Seriously.