In which Roy Lab combs its hair and smiles for the camera.
We were ready. Lab coats were hung neatly on the backs of bench chairs. Sinks were crowded with clearly labeled bottles of 10% BLEACH and 70% ETHANOL. Safety goggles were retrieved from dusty cupboards, cleaned off and hung in places suggestive of their frequent use. Everywhere you cast your gaze, fresh biohazard stickers could be seen affixed to incubators, centrifuges, refrigerators and tip buckets, their bright orange color causing them to twinkling like Christmas lights against the drab greys and tans so fashionable for scientific equipment these days.
Earlier in the morning, the pre-inspection inspectors had come to look over the state of Roy Lab, and the morning before that, Craig had done a pre-pre-inspection... In the afternoon, there was an hour long meeting to discuss infractions noted by the pre-inspectors, and to make sure that everyone was aware of the rules of a BL2 laboratory. Rules such as:
Do not conduct experiments in the hallway.
Do not take lab coats or lab equipment home to launder or clean.
Do not keep pets in the laboratory.
Oops. Sorry Pablo. I hope the Connecticut State inspectors aren't reading my blog...
Suffice it to say, the build up to this year's Biosafety Level 2 Laboratory recertification inspection was intense. There's a new pathogen in the lab - Coxiella - that's a little more nasty than our good buddy Legionella. There are more people, many of whom have come from more relaxed institutions and have found it difficult to adjust to Yale's peculiar ways ("No, you really can't drink tea next to my plate o' infectious agents. Why would you want to?) Craig stalked through the lab constantly, looking crazed. His paranoia was semi-rational. Labs can be heavily fined or shut down entirely if the wrong kinds of infractions are found.
He failed to find amusing my "lemonade out or lemons" suggestion that if it all went badly, we could at least have a nice two week vacation while the lab was brought up to code. Looking peeved, he continued to pace, loudly making suggestions such as:
"Uh, maybe you should just hide that for the next day or so."
and
"If they ask, tell them we don't even use that thing anymore, we're gonna dispose of it..." (gesturing at an essential, frequently used but not up to code piece of equipment.)
and ultimately
"Probably best not to do any research on Wednesday morning, we don't want them catching you actually doing something wrong. Come to think of it, don't come in at all. Just stay away from the lab until this whole thing is over."
So I did what he told me and I took the morning off. At 10:30 a.m., when the inspectors were scheduled to arrive, I was sitting at Town Fair Tire having shwanky new tires put on Etta. As the minutes ticked by, I found myself getting anxious, hoping that our little ramshackle lab (but totally safe... REALLY) would pass it's yearly physical.
When I asked the few folks who were in during the morning how it all went, they said dejectedly,
"Yeah. It was nothing. They were here for five minutes. It was totally anticlimactic."
Thus ended the Great State Inspection of 2005.
Earlier in the morning, the pre-inspection inspectors had come to look over the state of Roy Lab, and the morning before that, Craig had done a pre-pre-inspection... In the afternoon, there was an hour long meeting to discuss infractions noted by the pre-inspectors, and to make sure that everyone was aware of the rules of a BL2 laboratory. Rules such as:
Do not conduct experiments in the hallway.
Do not take lab coats or lab equipment home to launder or clean.
Do not keep pets in the laboratory.
Oops. Sorry Pablo. I hope the Connecticut State inspectors aren't reading my blog...
Suffice it to say, the build up to this year's Biosafety Level 2 Laboratory recertification inspection was intense. There's a new pathogen in the lab - Coxiella - that's a little more nasty than our good buddy Legionella. There are more people, many of whom have come from more relaxed institutions and have found it difficult to adjust to Yale's peculiar ways ("No, you really can't drink tea next to my plate o' infectious agents. Why would you want to?) Craig stalked through the lab constantly, looking crazed. His paranoia was semi-rational. Labs can be heavily fined or shut down entirely if the wrong kinds of infractions are found.
He failed to find amusing my "lemonade out or lemons" suggestion that if it all went badly, we could at least have a nice two week vacation while the lab was brought up to code. Looking peeved, he continued to pace, loudly making suggestions such as:
"Uh, maybe you should just hide that for the next day or so."
and
"If they ask, tell them we don't even use that thing anymore, we're gonna dispose of it..." (gesturing at an essential, frequently used but not up to code piece of equipment.)
and ultimately
"Probably best not to do any research on Wednesday morning, we don't want them catching you actually doing something wrong. Come to think of it, don't come in at all. Just stay away from the lab until this whole thing is over."
So I did what he told me and I took the morning off. At 10:30 a.m., when the inspectors were scheduled to arrive, I was sitting at Town Fair Tire having shwanky new tires put on Etta. As the minutes ticked by, I found myself getting anxious, hoping that our little ramshackle lab (but totally safe... REALLY) would pass it's yearly physical.
When I asked the few folks who were in during the morning how it all went, they said dejectedly,
"Yeah. It was nothing. They were here for five minutes. It was totally anticlimactic."
Thus ended the Great State Inspection of 2005.
posted by Eva Marie at 9:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home