There’s this one piece of machinery that I use for virtually everything. We make it, and my job is to use this thing for everything, to prove that it can be used for everything. This week has been hard. There was a power outage during a storm, in which all of these machines were being used, and they all crashed. Of the 3 that we use on a regular basis, 2 are out of commission for different reasons related to the power. So we have one. This particular one, decided that it was just not going to do what it wanted for so long, that it ruined my experiment the other day.

I set up a different experiment yesterday. It was long, and hard, and it basically doesn’t want to work for me for no explainable reason (well, that’s not true, one of our multichannel pipets has a self forming gradient which is seriously making me lose it). So after all this set up, I signed up to use this machine today. This is essentially how it goes:

G: Good morning, machine, I hope you had a restful night. You are going to work for me today, right? (I caress the top of the machine with my hand).

I know that you’ve been working really hard this week, and that you are picking up the slack for the others. But I really, really need you to work today, ok?

(I’m logging onto the computer now.) So here’s the deal, if you don’t spit out my experiment today, and give me useful data, I’ll go use the other machines on a more regular basis, cause I know that I’ve been abusing you. (Now I’m rubbing front of machine).

So, please, can you do a really good job focusing and exposing today?

What is it that you need? Do you need calibrated? Do you want your panel back on? Do you want a nickname?

Then I started my experiment. I know that I’m crazy for talking to the lab equipment, but I spend a lot of time with this particular machine.