bye bye blue laser
I am sitting at my desk at work waiting for BD bioscience to call me back. Yes it is saturday. I am making up time for the sick day I took on monday. I don't like wasting a week worth of work you see. Yet it seems that is what is happening.
I work with a flow cytometer, this one. I could have bought a house, a couple of new cars for the price of this thing. It is an awesome instrument, I mean it has lasers for crying out loud. More seriously, it is a fantastic piece of technology. I am the only user in the lab, not even my boss wants to use it. I am that special. I am The flower. Yes kinda like The walrus.
Last night, it didn't work. It would not see the sample and well "seeing" the sample is it's main job. I did all the troubleshooting I could, it was intaking the sample just fine, just no detection. I restarted the software, reset the connection between the computer and the flow, checked all the tubing. Nothing. My boss was there, he actually walked away so I could deal with it. So I turned it off and called tech support. By the time, I turned it back on, it mysteriously worked. I felt like a moron but the tech guy told me that it had happened to him and it does happen, just very, very rarely.
This morning, I stopped by the lab on my way to run some errands. The flow needs to warm up for 30 min before you can use it. I come back to set up and same thing, it is just not seeing the beads I use for quality control. Only this time, I tested the lasers one by one and of course the one that seems to be causing trouble is the one I need to use today. *drum roll* it's the blue laser. I had a whole day worth of run planned. I know I could just restart the damn thing and see if it fixes itself. But I see no point in that. I need Bob. Bob is the field engineer. He is a grumpy old guy with a huge moustache. I really like Bob. He lets me see inside the instrument, he even waits for me so I can see inside the instrument. I want Bob.
So now I sit, waiting for someone to call me back so I can set up a service call. I have other things I need to get done today but I am definitely closing shop early. it is a big problem, and I am amazingly calm. i am actually on top of things. I figured out what was not working all on my own, and taking steps to get it fixed. Now to email that to my boss. with nice soothing words.
I am giving these guys another 10 minutes to call me back then I go get the rest of my work done so I can leave. pffff
Peace
I work with a flow cytometer, this one. I could have bought a house, a couple of new cars for the price of this thing. It is an awesome instrument, I mean it has lasers for crying out loud. More seriously, it is a fantastic piece of technology. I am the only user in the lab, not even my boss wants to use it. I am that special. I am The flower. Yes kinda like The walrus.
Last night, it didn't work. It would not see the sample and well "seeing" the sample is it's main job. I did all the troubleshooting I could, it was intaking the sample just fine, just no detection. I restarted the software, reset the connection between the computer and the flow, checked all the tubing. Nothing. My boss was there, he actually walked away so I could deal with it. So I turned it off and called tech support. By the time, I turned it back on, it mysteriously worked. I felt like a moron but the tech guy told me that it had happened to him and it does happen, just very, very rarely.
This morning, I stopped by the lab on my way to run some errands. The flow needs to warm up for 30 min before you can use it. I come back to set up and same thing, it is just not seeing the beads I use for quality control. Only this time, I tested the lasers one by one and of course the one that seems to be causing trouble is the one I need to use today. *drum roll* it's the blue laser. I had a whole day worth of run planned. I know I could just restart the damn thing and see if it fixes itself. But I see no point in that. I need Bob. Bob is the field engineer. He is a grumpy old guy with a huge moustache. I really like Bob. He lets me see inside the instrument, he even waits for me so I can see inside the instrument. I want Bob.
So now I sit, waiting for someone to call me back so I can set up a service call. I have other things I need to get done today but I am definitely closing shop early. it is a big problem, and I am amazingly calm. i am actually on top of things. I figured out what was not working all on my own, and taking steps to get it fixed. Now to email that to my boss. with nice soothing words.
I am giving these guys another 10 minutes to call me back then I go get the rest of my work done so I can leave. pffff
Peace