(no subject)
I have a pretty cool job. Sure, I'm doing the bitchwork for a bunch of grad students' research projects, but it can be pretty fun at times, if only because I get an incredible kick out of being an asshole.
At the monkey lab, my only real tasks are pretty monotonous, but it's all the other crap that happens along the way that keeps me, and sometimes only me, sane and laughing.
Monotony:
Every time we go into the back room where the monkeys are, we need to gear up like astronaut-surgeons. Gauze gown, hair gets stuck in tie. Plastic booties over shoes, feel like elf. Surgical mask, can't breathe. Rubber gloves, may as well not have fingers. Face shield, an invitation to forehead acne. Depending on the day of the week and who I'm working with, this is either silent and awkward or time to catch up on weekend shenanigans.
Then comes setting up for whichever study, which requires a lot of locking and unlocking cage panels, getting scratched or having astronaut-gear ripped/removed by the more douchy monkeys, and moaning and groaning and blood and sweat and tears trying to isolate the specific monkey needed at any given time.
And as for the studies themselves, for one, all I really do is stand behind a touch-screen monitor and feed Kix through a plastic tube when the monkeys press correctly. For another, I do all the data recording and talking into the camera in my best monotone (e.g., "Trial one: Yellow Beehive activates" ... "Trial two: Green Cell Phone does not activate" ... and my personal favorite, "Test trial: Serious Squid and Big Black Turd, where Serious Squid activates and Big Black Turd does not activate"). Just let it go. And then for the last study, I pretend to hide Froot Loops in a bin of woodchips and watch for 10 minutes as the monkeys flip out trying to find them.
Then data sheets and Excel spreadsheets and binomial probabilities and coding videos and all that fun stuff.
Fun:
The monkeys loooove junk food. The back kitchen is stocked with Fluff, sugary cereals, Fruit Roll-ups, Pocky, grape Kool Aid, etc. They also know how and are extremely eager to trade, usually with metal tokens. What does this mean for me? Watching hilarity ensue when I hold out junk food to trade and they have no tokens. They look around frantically for anything that I might possibly like and that might fit through their little hand holes, including food pellets, a handful of wood shavings, huge sticks, their own tails, and poop.
They like to play catch through the little hand holes, so at any given time, there'll be food flying all over the room and grimy (seriously) little hands reaching out to grab it.
The alpha male is super horny all the time. It's funny. Today he mounted his youngest son.
One of the project heads is super ADD and constantly yelling the weirdest shit at the monkeys when they won't cooperate during trials, while the cameras are rolling (i.e., when we're supposed to be "professional"). It's really only funny because it's so absurd and no one is amused, with such gems spewed as "GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!!".
On a related note, I work with a cornucopia of ridiculous characters. I went into it expecting to be spending 3 months with a bunch of socially awkward, nerdy types, and everyone's nerdy to *some* degree, but mostly in a good way. We've got everyone from the total(ly dreamy) frat-boy football star, to scenester twins with one of those creepy relationships only twins seem to have, the flamboyant, the constantly hung-over, the greasy, the smug, the super-nerds, the know-it-alls, the know-nothings, and some I'm absolutely in love with as people.
The Infant lab (HIGHLIGHTS: Mind-numbing menial tasks, including long stretches of time spent sorting colored Cheerios) and the 20-minute walks through New Haven I have to take multiple times a day between the two labs (HIGHLIGHTS: Catcalls and hobo run-ins) are another story. But really, as tiring and tedious as it all gets sometimes, amusing things do happen.
Random Non-Work-Related Tidbits:
*Becoming a coffee person
*Writing music
*Making decorations for my dorm room
*Still missing school terribly
*Still dying to be out on my own
At the monkey lab, my only real tasks are pretty monotonous, but it's all the other crap that happens along the way that keeps me, and sometimes only me, sane and laughing.
Monotony:
Every time we go into the back room where the monkeys are, we need to gear up like astronaut-surgeons. Gauze gown, hair gets stuck in tie. Plastic booties over shoes, feel like elf. Surgical mask, can't breathe. Rubber gloves, may as well not have fingers. Face shield, an invitation to forehead acne. Depending on the day of the week and who I'm working with, this is either silent and awkward or time to catch up on weekend shenanigans.
Then comes setting up for whichever study, which requires a lot of locking and unlocking cage panels, getting scratched or having astronaut-gear ripped/removed by the more douchy monkeys, and moaning and groaning and blood and sweat and tears trying to isolate the specific monkey needed at any given time.
And as for the studies themselves, for one, all I really do is stand behind a touch-screen monitor and feed Kix through a plastic tube when the monkeys press correctly. For another, I do all the data recording and talking into the camera in my best monotone (e.g., "Trial one: Yellow Beehive activates" ... "Trial two: Green Cell Phone does not activate" ... and my personal favorite, "Test trial: Serious Squid and Big Black Turd, where Serious Squid activates and Big Black Turd does not activate"). Just let it go. And then for the last study, I pretend to hide Froot Loops in a bin of woodchips and watch for 10 minutes as the monkeys flip out trying to find them.
Then data sheets and Excel spreadsheets and binomial probabilities and coding videos and all that fun stuff.
Fun:
The monkeys loooove junk food. The back kitchen is stocked with Fluff, sugary cereals, Fruit Roll-ups, Pocky, grape Kool Aid, etc. They also know how and are extremely eager to trade, usually with metal tokens. What does this mean for me? Watching hilarity ensue when I hold out junk food to trade and they have no tokens. They look around frantically for anything that I might possibly like and that might fit through their little hand holes, including food pellets, a handful of wood shavings, huge sticks, their own tails, and poop.
They like to play catch through the little hand holes, so at any given time, there'll be food flying all over the room and grimy (seriously) little hands reaching out to grab it.
The alpha male is super horny all the time. It's funny. Today he mounted his youngest son.
One of the project heads is super ADD and constantly yelling the weirdest shit at the monkeys when they won't cooperate during trials, while the cameras are rolling (i.e., when we're supposed to be "professional"). It's really only funny because it's so absurd and no one is amused, with such gems spewed as "GET TO THE CHOPPA!!!!".
On a related note, I work with a cornucopia of ridiculous characters. I went into it expecting to be spending 3 months with a bunch of socially awkward, nerdy types, and everyone's nerdy to *some* degree, but mostly in a good way. We've got everyone from the total(ly dreamy) frat-boy football star, to scenester twins with one of those creepy relationships only twins seem to have, the flamboyant, the constantly hung-over, the greasy, the smug, the super-nerds, the know-it-alls, the know-nothings, and some I'm absolutely in love with as people.
The Infant lab (HIGHLIGHTS: Mind-numbing menial tasks, including long stretches of time spent sorting colored Cheerios) and the 20-minute walks through New Haven I have to take multiple times a day between the two labs (HIGHLIGHTS: Catcalls and hobo run-ins) are another story. But really, as tiring and tedious as it all gets sometimes, amusing things do happen.
Random Non-Work-Related Tidbits:
*Becoming a coffee person
*Writing music
*Making decorations for my dorm room
*Still missing school terribly
*Still dying to be out on my own