I just found out that my advisor Jeff finally fired our hopeless postdoc Supriya. For someone with a PhD (at least we assume she has one) she's about as incompetent as they come. She has no understanding whatsoever of basic genetics or plant biology, but in her defense, Jeff hired her originally to be our "Biochemistry Expert" so that was somewhat forgivable. However, one would expect a trained biochemist to understand the concept making a working solution from a 10x concentrate. In fact, you'd probably expect that of anyone who passed remedial high school chemistry. Her knowledge of more advanced biochemical techniques (though nothing so complicated that UCSD doesn't teach it to all bio majors) is equally unimpressive. Beyond her floundering in lab, she's just a drag to have around. When Supriya first joined the lab we all tried to engage her in friendly chit-chat (mostly because she had a tendency to stand nearby and stare). We soon found out that her skills as a conversationalist have much in common with those of an old, chewed-up tennis ball. Despite these flaws, despite even the fact that she is perpetually tying up the common computers as she slowly taps out personal emails with one finger of her right hand (how long must it have taken her to type out her thesis using a single digit?), she probably wouldn't have been too great a source of irritation. No, what pushed it over the edge was the smacking. Supriya's desk is immediately behind mine and Heidi's, and she always eats lunch at her desk. I can appreciate a desire to get the most out of any dining experience, but Supriya eats with such gusto that anyone within ten feet is fully aware of every bite. Despite her relatively small mouth, she packs it with several bites worth at a time, which apparently makes it impossible to fully reclose it. The result is something like a horse with peanutbutter on the roof of it's mouth, she gapes with each mastication and creates an almost unreal and fully repulsive assortment of squelchy smacking noises. Worst of all, she's a grazer. I used to love the smell of coriander, now I pretty much despise it. For months we've been wishing that she would quit or that Jeff would fire her. Now he has, and I can't help feeling like a bit of a shit. It's true, we don't have the money or the space for someone so unskilled, but my reasons for wanting her gone were entirely personal and so I when I heard the news I was piqued more with guilt than relief or happiness.
Alright, alright, this is a blog, enough pseudo-seriousness, on to something silly.
One of the PBIO large centrifuges is broken. This is neither a rare nor especially inconvenient event, but today it did lead to a noteworthy occurrence. The bench that Heidi and I use is proximal to the autoclave/centrifuge room. Earlier today, while we were at the bench, someone's cell phone rang. At first I thought it was just the samba-style ring that comes standard on so many cell phone models, but Heidi astutely noticed that the tune was, in fact, the theme to "Sex and the City." Besides Heidi and myself, only two people stood near enough for their rings to clearly reach us. One was our undergraduate assistant Dustin, a soft-spoken yet imposing former college linebacker; the other was the centrifuge repair man, whose gray hair and straight-laced attire of old man glasses and a collared shirt tucked into black dickies did not suggest an avid Sarah Jessica Parker fan. In fact, the only remarkable feature of the repair man was his bushy, salt-and-pepper moustache with carefully waxed and twirled tips. Admittedly pretty remarkable, but I digress. We stared expectantly at Dustin waiting for him to answer the phone, or at least explain the strange ring. "Don't look at me, I've got 'It's Raining Men'." Finally, after several rings, the repair man pulled his phone out and answered. He soon replaced it in his pocket and went back to work. Over the next ten or so minutes, he received several more calls, yet refused to answer, providing the Long Lab with an impromptu salsa dance party. We all agreed that it was a nice reprieve from Ramlah's phone's obnoxiously loud and frequent bursts of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out."
To conclude, a few photos from yesterday's leaky gel adventure.
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