So this week has been a relative sea of calm for me as I've been working on my presentation for my oral defense for my qualifying exam on Friday.  That was until yesterday.  Since we had a deluge of posts yesterday I was saving this one up for Wednesday and was too lazy to get around to writing it up until now.  Thank goodness I have two hands, that way I use them to choke two people at the same time.  In the left hand would be my boss (he has a skinnier neck and its my weaker hand) and in the right would be our other graduate student (thicker neck to match the skull of mountain goat therefore necessitating the strong hand).

Lets begin with my boss, you have been nothing short of a pain in the neck to me during this exam process.  You have piled work high on me, not really given me the required dispensation to work on my exam and also had me training technicians while going through this hellacious process.  Its nice that you are now taking interest in my work, but fucking with centrifuge while I'm using it is not cool.  I just want to remind you that there are two very precious samples spinning at 90,000 fucking rpm and you playing with the rotor settings (that can be applied) while the rotor is spinning because you like to tinker as you say.  You want me to stop my spin in the middle of the run (1 hour) so you can find the rev counter digital display in the menu?  WTF man.  Also there is no way I'm going to use the scheduling software on the unit to schedule my time on the machine.  Why would I fire up the centrifuge, wait two minutes for it to warm up and scroll through some byzantine array of menus to get to the schedule to book my time when I can just write it on the clipboard next to the machine.  Dear sir, I grow weary of ranting at you, go forth, I dispatch you to turn my ire elsewhere.

Dear other graduate student, let me begin by saying, YOU MOTHERFUCKER.  I am a busy man, really I'm too busy to help you, but fortunately for you I am also a kind man.  So I agreed to show you a technique, which after three other people hand holding you, you still cannot get.  I tell you that if you want to do this with me show up at 9:00 am.  Did you think I meant 9:00 am in another time zone?  When I say 9, I mean 9.  I'm really pressed for time but to be courteous I duke you an extra half hour waiting around before getting started.  Sadly at 9:30, you are nowhere to be found and I begin anyway.  You don't even deign to show up into the lab until after lunch time and ask me when are we going to do that technique.  At this point I can feel my blood pressure rising to atmospheric levels.  I tell you that we were supposed to start at 9 and I did it without you.  You whine that wanted to see it and then redirect conversation to me giving you old tests.  I mutter to you that I will get them to you when I have a chance.  You, my dimwitted labmate, press your luck by asking if I could go get them now.  At this point I have to tell you to walk away as I have to walk away before I suffer some kind of anger-induced stroke or beat you with the binder in my hand.  Worse yet I might shank you and I spent a night in a county jail (a whole nother blog post) so I know how to make one out of a toothbrush.

My saving grace is the technician that I am teaching.  He is a senior tech who has a great skill set as it is but wanted to learn some new techniques and I've had the pleasure of teaching this guy and he is absolutely fantastic to work with.  So to you senior tech, you are the only reason my left hand is on the remote fast forwarding through commercial while I watch Mad Men and the my right hand is curled around a glass of Lagavulin on the rocks that a reader (who wishes to remain anonymous) sent me.

I'm so inspired by Mad Men that I want to rename my LabSpaces Fantasy Football team to Lane's Daddy's Cane.  Watch the episode recap below, explanation at 1:30 into it.