The recycling bins! The distinct, dark-blue ones! You know, the ones with this warning on them:

"No garden waste", eh? Even with a sad smiley, so even the illiterate can get an idea. I do hope nobody's gone and slung half a fucking tree in there.

Never mind.

There was a tray for glassware and plasticware that was not dangerously contaminated, and just needed a run in the big Corning dishwasher (I'm pretty sure every lab in the world has the same one!), then autoclaving for sterilty, and putting away. Of course, when things were autoclaved, they had autoclave tape stuck on them. This had strips that turned black in the autoclave, so you'd know it had been done.

So what in the fuck is this, then? Are these dangerously contaminated, so need autoclaving before washing? If they are, this is obviously the wrong place for them. Or, maybe, they do only need cleaning, but some stupid fucker's decided to "help" by putting the autoclave tape on first... though running fresh autoclave tape in the Corning is just going to turn it into a gooey mess.

I get it, though. Pattern recognition... they see "finished", clean plastic tubes have tape on them, and think "murrhhh need tape to be kleen". Yeah, now they can do pattern recognition. When they see, say, a bin full of green plastic box inserts, with a label saying "green plastic inserts only", then the pattern recognition fails them and they pour a load of stinking fucking ice into it. But when pattern recognition results in FUCKING THE FUCK UP, then they're suddenly capable of it. They can't not fuck up.

Oh, also, the tray for cleaning glassware was only for glassware belonging to that lab. Some glassware came from the "Media Kitchen", and was clearly labelled with the word "Media". Right under the glassware tray were some boxes which clearly said "Media Kitchen returns". Obviously these researchers and PHD candidates at one of Britian's top institutions of research and learning, with demonstrated skills of pattern recognition, could wrap their heads around that sort of conundrum?

Never mind.

Shall we take ourselves up to the Media Kitchen? This, as the name implied, was a lab dedicated solely to making and maintaining a stock of bacterial growth media; either ready-poured agar plates, or bottles of media to be heated up and poured by the user. Then the department needed to cost-cut, and decided that such a useful, labour-saving service could be done away with, the rest of us (gov't name: me) could just "do a little extra" "in among our other jobs". This lasted about 6 months, then they replaced the three full-timers who had been made redundant with one part-timer. At least some slack was picked up. In the five or so more years I was there, they got through three of those part-timers.
One of them was absurdly beautiful, and I ended up making a clumsy twat of myself every time I went up there.

The Media Kitchen was in the main building, which meant it wasn't under my direct supervision, which meant when the tight-ship-running full-timers, or the later part-timers weren't there, THICK CUNTS performed incredible, spectacular fuckups in it. I have LITANIES about this place, many of which I didn't take any photos of. Maybe I'll do a special page about them in the future, with illustrations. But for now, we have this...

Clean-looking (but who knows?) conical flasks, with foil put on top of them preparatory to autoclaving... but no autoclave tape. Are they clean and in need of autoclaving? Are they dirty but somebody's "pattern recognised" and "helped" by putting foil on, because "that's how they come"? Who knows eh? I didn't touch the fuckers, not my circus. Oh. if they are in need of autoclaving, it's not as if whoever left them had hundreds of reminders that they also need autoclave tape adding right behind them, is it?

Never mind.

Bright orange clinical waste bags were meant to be disposed of in special bins. There were special rules relating to handling them, cheif among them being that you had to assume anything that even the exterior of the bag had touched was contaminated in turn. So we certainly didn't want to, say, put clean cardboard, intended for recycling, on top of them, did we?

Never mind.

Plastic centrifuge tubes in the clean glassware tray again. This time with no autoclave tape... as they should be, if they only need washing, not autoclaving first...

Now then, do they only need washing, or are they contaminated, but has whoever put them here decided to simply omit the autoclave tape, because all they understand is that "having the tape on the tubes in the tray" made me angry last time? They have no actual understanding of safety, good lab practice, or contamination control. They're basically at a cargo cult level of understanding. If it "looks right", it must be okay, yeah?
Oh you wait, just you fucking wait for me to get around to October 2014. We got a proper special bloke in then. He did the ultimate cargo cult fuckup. I laughed right in his stupid fucking face.

- -

Obviously-dripping (they all did after about 6 months of use) 15l water container left to leave a nice trail of distilled, hard-to-spot pure water on the slippery vinyl floor, rather than, say, turned around so it drips in the sink RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO IT. Cor, fuck me, turning a plastic container 90 degrees to the left, who the fuck am I, eh? Expecting them to perform such a menial task as that? I must proper have ideas above my station.

-

What's this I spy, cunningly concealed near a chair and danging labcoat, where a careless foot might stay into it?

I do hope it's not a FUCKING SURGICALLY-SHARP NEEDLE left kicking around the floor. In a lab where research with biological tissue, which the law requires to be later incinerated. is conducted, no less. Nah, nah, I must be hallucinating again. Nobody could be that fucking stupid. It's Stammer's "visitor's cups only" sticker all over again.

Well, you know, they're so busy in there, aren't they? Those 3 hour long weekly meetings that prevent me having my tea break aren't going to ramble through themselves. Besides, it's not like a brightly-coloured yellow and orange sharps bin was clearly visible nearby, was it?

Never mind.

Delightful.

A clean, "I can have a relaxing sit-down, gloves off and refill this tip-by-tip" pipette tip box left in the glassware washing tray with disgusting residues of old agar. Again. It's all so tiresome.

Notice the empty one left on the desk, as a "seed" to indicate where they are supposed to go. Where's the pattern recognition now, eh? Nah, to put it on the desk they'd have to walk another step, or lean forwards slightly. We all know such mighty exertion is beyond them.