Not too many fuckups this month, more just the usual, routine irritating frustrations. Plus a little "saga" of some bloke acting like an absolute clueless twat. Honestly, this page is more of a photo gallery, than something to read...

Let's start off with something run-of-the-mill. Biohazard bags! These were for the disposing of human or animal tissues, category-2 bacteria (animal pathogens that have been genetically modified, and could potentially infect humans), and other such things. These were chucked in big, bright orange bags and sent for incineration. They were thrown in special. bright yellow bins, and had to have a label put on them for traceability.
Actually, now that I think about it, nobody ever chucked a biohazard bag in the general waste, or recycling, bins. Small mercies...
Of course, as biohazard bags were for dangerous biological waste, and were sent for incineration, at great expense, we didn't have people, say, throwing away harmless polystyrene packaging chips in them, right? That'd be proper thick as shit, doing something like that...

Oh, yeah, this was from the era of "double bagging". When I first got there, they used thick, strong biohazard bags, as befitting, you know, bags to carry biohazard waste. Later there was the grand announcement that they were "saving money" and "going green" (read: saving money at the expense of safety, "green" didn't enter into it) by using much thinner bags, which are made of much less material! Of course, these burst open or tore at the drop of a hat. The solution? Dig up a bunch of shitty, easy-split autoclave bags, from an earlier attempt at "going green" (read: saving money at the expense of safety), which were at least difficult to puncture, and put them inside the biohazard bags! Hopefully the easy-tearing of the autoclave bags wouldn't cause them to tear in a place where something likely to puncture them (like the long plastic pipette tips, which were not supposed to be thrown in the biohazard bins, but which constantly were) would poke out! Of course, putting two bags in a bin each time didn't save money or materials. It also created more work and danger for the low-level employees who had to take care of such things, but that's not work those in the dreaming spires on high have to do, it's not danger they're being put in... so why should they give a shit?

This place also did some limited animal testing, on rats and mice (PETA et al edit footage and lie to you, by the way). The dead bodies were disposed on in special, small biohazard bags, and then left in a freezer for collection later, so they wouldn't rot a fester in the warm rooms.... LOL, had you going there. Actually a whole 100-litre biohazard bag was wasted on one rat (it being frequently whined that they "couldn't see" the roll of small bags, which was right next to the roll of big ones), and this was then thrown in any random bin in the lab to rot and fester, leading to some delightful smells first thing Monday, on a warm weekend.

They didn't even throw them in bins that were almost full, and thus likely to be taken out soon. Nah, they threw the dead animal in a bin that was only half full, where it could be covered with other waste before it started to stink, leading to some lovely "treasure hunts" with vomit-inducing "prizes". Never mind, those fuckers all rolled in at 10:30 to 11:00, long after scum like me had got rid of the offending articles.

Still, the fuckers did something "right" at last. When the biohazard waste was being taken out, it was to be carried with one, gloved hand, and even the outside of the bag treated as contaminated. For this reason, it was "bad form" to, say, throw the biohzard bags in the trolley with cardboard. If the cardboard touched biohazard bags, it had to also be treated as contaminated, and couldn't be recycled. Also, sometimes the biohazard bags were actually dripping with old liquid bacterial growth medium, or unspeakable substances from rotten, dead rats. Delightful.
Of course, these thick vermin constantly forgot this, and put the biohazard bags in the trolley with cardboard anyway. Except this time! This time they actually got it right! They didn't put the bags in the trolley with cardboard! Unfortunately, they still fucked it up. They're medically incapable of not fucking up.

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It appears the tracking stickers haven't been put on the bags either.

Yes, yes, "don't put the biohazard bags in the trolley with cardboard" were the actual words, yes. But surely, other things are implied by those words. Putting the biohazard bags ON A CARPET, LEANING AGAINST THE HANDLES OF FILING CABINET DRAWERS, is not an improvement.

Implied, though. There's the problem. If you don't scream instructions into these cunt's faces, using single-syllable words, every three days, they can't possibly be expected to comprehend. These are the useless fuckers who aren't able to operate a machine when the instructions sheet is stuck on the wall, in front of them, at eye level, after all. And I was expecting them to get something implied? Wishful fucking thinking, eh?

Let's rewind a bit. Long plastic pipette tips. They were used to suck up and move around biohazard liquids, but they couldn't be put in the biohazard bags, because they would easily poke througb the sides of them (if only we had stronger, thicker-sided ones, eh?). How were they disposed of? By being put in metal bins called dixies, these were autoclaved (read: put in a giant pressure cooker), which melted the tips into a big plastic blob, which was then safe to throw away normally. This lab didn't have an autoclave, so the dixies had lids clamped on, and were wheeled over to another building, which did have one. Of course, we tried to make sure the exterior of the dixies wasn't bought into contact with biohazard waste, didn't we? It wasn't too difficult. I mean...

...Nobody was so PIGSHIT FUCKING IGNORANT as to STACK A DIXIE INSIDE A BIOHZARD BIN no were they? The mind fucking boggles.

The autoclave those dixies went to was in a place called the Media Kitchen, which I've mentioned before. It's also where this lab's glassware was cleaned, autoclaved and returned. I actually have a spectacular anecdote about the autoclave up there, but that's for another time.
Part of my daily routine was picking up the previous day's glassware first thing, and taking it to the media kitchen to be cleaned. I'd often meet the office cleaning ladies on the way through, and pass the time of day with them. All the scientists who were arriving would, of course, breeze right on by and not even acknowledge our existence.
How did I get the glassware up there? Well there was a big blue plastic box that fit perfectly in the trolley. Then there was ONE(1) polystyrene box kicking around which fit perfectly in half of the blue box. It's lid could then be wedged in the other half, to seperate big beakers, volumetric flasks and so on, to stop them rattling together and getting broken as they were taken over there.

Polystyrene boxes are common in science labs. Stuff gets delivered in them, packed alongside ice or cool packs, to keep it at temperature. Once the delivery has been unpacked, they're often kept "in common", for people to send stuff out in, or else take samples from lab to lab in. Basically, every science lab has piles of them kicking about... but this perfectly-sized one was all on it's own, it's the only one we had.

So began the saga. I was having my tea break when this bloke went walking past to the freezer room to pack up some samples. Carrying the one good box! There were PLENTY of other boxes around the lab, but of course he's picked the one I need. It had thin sides, and plenty of space inside... and his samples were a handful of tiny 5ml tubes. Surely if he wanted them to stay at temperature, he'd pick a box with thicker sides, of which there were plenty? Surely if he just didn't want it to be big, awkward and ridiculous carrying a total of about 30ml of fluid in a huge box, he'd pick a smaller one, of which there were plenty?

Nah, mate, nah. He just HAD to have the one box that I need. I chased him down there and took it back off him. He was apologising profusely and saying he "didn't want to upset me". I also put a notice on one side of the box saying "do not take, do not throw away".

That was the end of it, right? He realised he'd made a mistake and didn't do it again? Hah, very fuckin' funny, do you do birthday parties?

I walk into the freezer room a few days later, and there's the box! On top of a chest freezer! It already has a cool pack and samples in it! I'd told the fucker once... I just tipped his shit out, little tubes bouncing off the top of the freezer and scattering over the floor, and walked off. I was expecting some shit over that... but what happened? Nothing.

Some of those tubes were still on the floor months later. He'd forgotten he was even planning on sending something out in the first place. He'd put the tubes and cool pack in the box, wandered off to do something else, and it had left his mind completely! PHD-level scientist at one of Britain's top institutes of research and learning, you know. Without the box still sitting there to remind him, the whole thing had just vanished out of his mind entirely. I wonder what the intended recipients of those tubes thought? Probably still waiting...

Anyway, with that second narrow escape, I decided to add a few further reminders, on every single side of the box... and then got photographic proof of every angle, so nobody could go whinging they "didn't see it".

I mean every angle. I really wasn't leaving anything to chance, this time.

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So, the same guy, having had one clear warning and one heavily implied one, and (presumably at least) being capable of reading English, what with working at one of the most highly-intellectual places in the whole of England, didn't take it again, right? Yeah, very fuckin' funny, do you do bar mitzvahs?

So, what happens when I'm having my tea break a few days later? This fucker comes walking past with an ice bucket full of ice and samples. He asks where he can find empty boxes. Stammer
(fuck you, Stammer)
immediately pipes up, with his mouth full, with "mwuh-mwuh-mwuhthh thumm im thuh kuh-kuh-kuh-kurriduhhh". My ears are pricked up, as I eat. I can hear a lid coming off, ice being put in, tubes being pushed into the ice...

I go out there. The box is gone and the door's just shutting behind him. I'm fucking chasing him out there, "You best not be taking that box away".

Yeah, he "didn't see" the warnings, he "didn't know". Yeah, nah, it's one thing to pretend like you didn't know after the box is already gone. The fucking thing is in his fucking hands, clearly-visible warnings not to take it away on every single fucking side. And he's still trying to lie right in my face. I told him the next time I catch him, it's snatched out of his hands and his samples and ice tipped out on the fucking pavement. Of course he "feels bad" and "didn't want to upset me". He says I ought to "hide" the box so nobody takes it.

No, no you thick fucking cunt, this isn't how it works. We're grown fucking adults here, if we see a box with "do not take" written on every side of it, which somebody has already told us not to take once, we DON'T FUCKING TAKE IT. I shouldn't have to be generating more work for myself, "hiding it" on some obscure shelf in a little-used room, just because you're too fucking thick and too fucking idle to not just take the first box that comes to hand.

I hid it anyway.

Glassware in science labs gets cleaned by being placed in special, big industrial dishwashers, then after that, it's dried upside down, then autoclaved. Things without lids get autoclaved with foil over the tops. Then it gets dried again, and finally put away...

You'd think, during at least one of the stages of this multi-step process, somebody would make sure it's, oh I dunno, ACTUALLY FUCKING CLEAN.

In another lab. a run-of-the-mill fuckup, a "full" dixie bought to the autoclave room and just left. No folding over the bag, no putting a lid on. Such simple procedures, told to every new trainee! And yet, time after time...

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OK, this time they did put a lid on, still didn't fold the bag over.

And finally...

This on-it's-last-legs soap pump bottle finally broke. Let's fetch a new one, and also make sure it stays in the also-broken holder...

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There, I fixed it!