Lab Jokes – You know your instrument is a piece of junk when…

Lab Jokes – You know your instrument is a piece of junk when…

You Know your instrument is a piece of junk when…

1. You know the service guy on a first-name basis and have even considered inviting him over for beers sometime.

2. You know the serial number of your instrument by heart from reciting it to tech support so many times.

3. You have actually physically assaulted the instrument while no one was looking.

4. Everyone knows you physically assault the instrument but they never tell anyone about it.

5. You’ve been in your supervisors office more than once threatening to quit – (“It’s either Me or that piece of S#@T!!!”)

6. Other lab techs gather and egg you on, as you physically assault the helpless instrument.

7. After troubleshooting the instrument for hours, you’ve had to go to a storeroom or office and close the door to calm down for awhile.

8. It becomes routine for you to spend the first thirty minutes of the next shifts time explaining and apologizing for unresolved problems with the instrument.

9. You’ve come close to tears when explaining the instruments quirks to new employees or students.

10. While training new employees their eyes glaze over as you try to make impossibly complex troubleshooting techniques as straightforward as possible.

11. Your supervisor will not let you take vacation until you’ve trained a new hire enough that they feel ‘comfortable with it’.

12. The more the new hire learns about the instrument the quieter and more distant he/she gets.

13. You frequently notice the new hire browsing online job sites and working on his/her resume’.

14. You go to a training event for the instrument and the question-answer session at the end of class ends up being more like a town-hall meeting.

15. You inexplicably lash out at a friend from another lab when they mention that their instrument is ‘pretty easy to maintain.’

16. You’ve had a nightmare where the instrument gave you an error code you’ve never seen before.
Unknown Error

17. Overhearing the name of the instrument triggers a facial tic.

See the comments below for more!

2 thoughts on “Lab Jokes – You know your instrument is a piece of junk when…

  1. I feel the need to add..

    Your service rep can’t make it back to their car before you are calling them back in.

    Your service rep keeps way more parts in your lab than is authorized by the manufacturer.

    You are constantly being pursued to work for the manufacturer of your instrument since you can troubleshoot better than their hotline.

    You fantasize about shoving your instrument out a 4th story window so it’s REALLY gone this time.

    Your monthly maintenance list is twice as long as the manufacturer recommended maintenance.

    Your service rep calls YOU for help.

  2. Or:

    You have a new rep every time service comes.

    The manual has little sticky notes with advice stuck all over it.

    People call in sick the days they have to work that bench.

    You have considered replacing it with something from eBay.

    You have secretly formulated a plan to make it disappear one day.

    People become increasingly superstitious the closer they get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *