Fingers And The Purell Incident.
I met with my supervisor, J, today to go over some more paperwork. Mainly safety protocols and such. When you work in a medical lab, there is LOTS of safety because of all the biohazards and chemicals and nasty things.
J: "You know what to do in the event you puncture or cut your finger while working with a specimen?"
ME: "Oh yeah. Go down to the next knuckle down and cut the finger off at that point."
J: *pausing* "Uhhh" *cocking her head and giving a curious slight grin*
ME: "Kidding. I'm kidding. I call that hotline posted by the labcoats and hightail it to the nearest facility to get that HIV shot-thingie."
Kinda freaky that if you get exposed to something such as HIV, you can get treated with a shot series, as long as it is within the first 3 hours of exposure, to prevent it. Still, getting HIV in the lab is a tad hard. It doesn't live outside the body for very long. However, the Hep C virus can live on a countertop for 5 days. Just so ya know. So aim your fear at the bigger threat, boys and girls. ;)
I then filled out a form for direct deposit. J informed me that that form needed to go to Human Resources, so I offered to take it down myself since my friend, Amy (who was the HR rep at the company I just left), was in HR. We had seen each other a couple times and chatted. Amy is super cool. She happens to be a lesbian, but one of the happy ones that doesn't glare at me for my penis. She doesn't even know I'm gay, and she's nice to me. She has an off-color sense of humor as well, and we are constantly making inappropriate jokes.
I walked down to HR. I walked in to the main office and walked past the supervisor's office. Next to her office are two cubicles. One of which belongs to Amy. I walked past Amy's neighbor and stepped in to Amy's cubicle, but she wasn't there. I saw a plate of food and a slice of cake, so I figured she must be coming back soon. I sat down in her chair and started filling in the last few blanks on my form. To best describe what happened next, I will write as if giving stage direction.
*seeing Purell hand sanitizer on the desk*
*thinking I should use it since my lunch had onions and that smell is always hard to remove*
*reaching over the plate of food and piece of cake*
*casually pushing down on the Purell nozzle*
*hand sanitizer splatters all over, the nozzle obviously having been slightly obstructed and causing the spraying effect*
*jumping back silently and mouthing 'FUCK'*
*seeing a drop of Purell on the icing of the cake and plate*
*scanning frantically to see where all of the clear substance landed*
*peering over the side of the cubicle to see if the neighbor had any idea what was going on*
*all clear*
*in an exaggerated and delicate manner, dabbing Purell off the cake and plate*
*looking at the baked beans and wondering if they were shimmering that much prior to my sanitized explosion*
*another silent 'FUCK'*
*dabbing everything that may have been hit*
*seeing that some had landed on a few forms and papers*
*dabbing*
*ink smearing*
*a pathetic silent 'NO no no no!'*
*looking over the cubicle again*
*picking up the forms and blowing on them to try and dry the obvious wet marks*
*phone rings and I turn and crack my knee on the desk drawer*
*a muffled 'UMPH' escapes my lips*
*organize everything back to the way it was, hurriedly grab my direct deposit form and quickly leave the area*
Looking back at the incident, I felt like I was in a movie. It was freaking hilarious to look back on. I went down later and gave Amy my form. She seemed perfectly healthy and fine.
The moral to the story is...
Leave other people's desks alone.
J: "You know what to do in the event you puncture or cut your finger while working with a specimen?"
ME: "Oh yeah. Go down to the next knuckle down and cut the finger off at that point."
J: *pausing* "Uhhh" *cocking her head and giving a curious slight grin*
ME: "Kidding. I'm kidding. I call that hotline posted by the labcoats and hightail it to the nearest facility to get that HIV shot-thingie."
Kinda freaky that if you get exposed to something such as HIV, you can get treated with a shot series, as long as it is within the first 3 hours of exposure, to prevent it. Still, getting HIV in the lab is a tad hard. It doesn't live outside the body for very long. However, the Hep C virus can live on a countertop for 5 days. Just so ya know. So aim your fear at the bigger threat, boys and girls. ;)
I then filled out a form for direct deposit. J informed me that that form needed to go to Human Resources, so I offered to take it down myself since my friend, Amy (who was the HR rep at the company I just left), was in HR. We had seen each other a couple times and chatted. Amy is super cool. She happens to be a lesbian, but one of the happy ones that doesn't glare at me for my penis. She doesn't even know I'm gay, and she's nice to me. She has an off-color sense of humor as well, and we are constantly making inappropriate jokes.
I walked down to HR. I walked in to the main office and walked past the supervisor's office. Next to her office are two cubicles. One of which belongs to Amy. I walked past Amy's neighbor and stepped in to Amy's cubicle, but she wasn't there. I saw a plate of food and a slice of cake, so I figured she must be coming back soon. I sat down in her chair and started filling in the last few blanks on my form. To best describe what happened next, I will write as if giving stage direction.
*seeing Purell hand sanitizer on the desk*
*thinking I should use it since my lunch had onions and that smell is always hard to remove*
*reaching over the plate of food and piece of cake*
*casually pushing down on the Purell nozzle*
*hand sanitizer splatters all over, the nozzle obviously having been slightly obstructed and causing the spraying effect*
*jumping back silently and mouthing 'FUCK'*
*seeing a drop of Purell on the icing of the cake and plate*
*scanning frantically to see where all of the clear substance landed*
*peering over the side of the cubicle to see if the neighbor had any idea what was going on*
*all clear*
*in an exaggerated and delicate manner, dabbing Purell off the cake and plate*
*looking at the baked beans and wondering if they were shimmering that much prior to my sanitized explosion*
*another silent 'FUCK'*
*dabbing everything that may have been hit*
*seeing that some had landed on a few forms and papers*
*dabbing*
*ink smearing*
*a pathetic silent 'NO no no no!'*
*looking over the cubicle again*
*picking up the forms and blowing on them to try and dry the obvious wet marks*
*phone rings and I turn and crack my knee on the desk drawer*
*a muffled 'UMPH' escapes my lips*
*organize everything back to the way it was, hurriedly grab my direct deposit form and quickly leave the area*
Looking back at the incident, I felt like I was in a movie. It was freaking hilarious to look back on. I went down later and gave Amy my form. She seemed perfectly healthy and fine.
The moral to the story is...
Leave other people's desks alone.