My Job
Annoyingly detailed transcript of an hour of my day ahead! Nothing important here; you won't miss anything of my life if you skip this post.
As you all know, my job is bliss.
There are delightful parts of my work: playing with fish, feeding all the hungry little mouths, watching embryos develop, helping them hatch into little fish, watching them grow up, helping them if they're hurt, and all in all having something to care for.
There are hard parts of my work: PVC plumbing, designing recirculating systems, selecting the right equipment and making square pegs fit into round holes with proper adapters.
There are sad parts of my work: our fish grow old quickly and die. Seldomly, we must sacrifice a fish, though it's always for very good reasons. When it does come time to sac a fish, it is up to me to decide which of our fish fit the criteria we need, select one, and quietly and painlessly end its life.
And there are the dangerous, even scary, parts of my work....
Today, I was all dressed up in my mad scientist regalia: nitrile gloves, hair pulled tightly out of my face and tied in a bun, shoes tied and double-checked, lab coat, glasses.... All to play with that one chemical that I respect above all others: 12N HCl. This highly concentrated hydrochloric acid does in fact frighten me. 12N ("twelve normal", AKA "twelve molar") is the highest stable concentration of hydrochloric acid; it's also called "fuming" hydrochloric acid, as it is so strong that it reacts immediately with the water in the air as soon as it is in contact with the air.
When I need to make a dilution (I use 2N HCl mostly), I usually just grab the little tube on my lab bench and go to the hood, make my dilution, and poof, I'm done. But today I needed a LOT of 2N HCl. 125mL of it. And I had already run out of 12N HCl on my bench. So I dressed up in my mad scientist best and went for the 5L glass jug of 12N HCl. Then over to the hood, with an assortment of needed graduated cylindars and beakers. My buffer solution was already in an Erlenmeyer flask stirring on the magnetic stirrer under the fume hood next to where I make the dilutions. So I poured an amount of HCl from the jar into a small beaker, and with a graduated cylindar measured and poured an amount into a large beaker that already contained a measured amount of water. I'll take a moment to thank my high school chemistry teacher who inspired in me a passion for organic chemistry and a curiosity for quantum mechanics, in addition to embedding in my brain the now-precious and loved phrase, "Do whatcha otter, put the acid in the water". Thank you, Mrs. G. I am forever in your debt. I never thought I'd use that phrase before I had this job, but I am ever so glad to have learned it. So. The leftover HCl in the small beaker went into a tube for my bench. Won't need to refill for a while, now. Then I measured with another graduated cylindar and poured my 125mL of 2N HCl into my buffer solution and watched the fizzing.
Then it dawned on me.
I was standing there, at a full chemical fume hood, in a real laboratory, dressed in a lab coat and gloves, making stuff fizz in an Erlenmeyer flask on a magnetic stirrer.
Yeah. It really is pretty fuckin' awesome. And hot. I'll go with it. Purple-haired mad scientist chick is hot. You win.
As you all know, my job is bliss.
There are delightful parts of my work: playing with fish, feeding all the hungry little mouths, watching embryos develop, helping them hatch into little fish, watching them grow up, helping them if they're hurt, and all in all having something to care for.
There are hard parts of my work: PVC plumbing, designing recirculating systems, selecting the right equipment and making square pegs fit into round holes with proper adapters.
There are sad parts of my work: our fish grow old quickly and die. Seldomly, we must sacrifice a fish, though it's always for very good reasons. When it does come time to sac a fish, it is up to me to decide which of our fish fit the criteria we need, select one, and quietly and painlessly end its life.
And there are the dangerous, even scary, parts of my work....
Today, I was all dressed up in my mad scientist regalia: nitrile gloves, hair pulled tightly out of my face and tied in a bun, shoes tied and double-checked, lab coat, glasses.... All to play with that one chemical that I respect above all others: 12N HCl. This highly concentrated hydrochloric acid does in fact frighten me. 12N ("twelve normal", AKA "twelve molar") is the highest stable concentration of hydrochloric acid; it's also called "fuming" hydrochloric acid, as it is so strong that it reacts immediately with the water in the air as soon as it is in contact with the air.
When I need to make a dilution (I use 2N HCl mostly), I usually just grab the little tube on my lab bench and go to the hood, make my dilution, and poof, I'm done. But today I needed a LOT of 2N HCl. 125mL of it. And I had already run out of 12N HCl on my bench. So I dressed up in my mad scientist best and went for the 5L glass jug of 12N HCl. Then over to the hood, with an assortment of needed graduated cylindars and beakers. My buffer solution was already in an Erlenmeyer flask stirring on the magnetic stirrer under the fume hood next to where I make the dilutions. So I poured an amount of HCl from the jar into a small beaker, and with a graduated cylindar measured and poured an amount into a large beaker that already contained a measured amount of water. I'll take a moment to thank my high school chemistry teacher who inspired in me a passion for organic chemistry and a curiosity for quantum mechanics, in addition to embedding in my brain the now-precious and loved phrase, "Do whatcha otter, put the acid in the water". Thank you, Mrs. G. I am forever in your debt. I never thought I'd use that phrase before I had this job, but I am ever so glad to have learned it. So. The leftover HCl in the small beaker went into a tube for my bench. Won't need to refill for a while, now. Then I measured with another graduated cylindar and poured my 125mL of 2N HCl into my buffer solution and watched the fizzing.
Then it dawned on me.
I was standing there, at a full chemical fume hood, in a real laboratory, dressed in a lab coat and gloves, making stuff fizz in an Erlenmeyer flask on a magnetic stirrer.
Yeah. It really is pretty fuckin' awesome. And hot. I'll go with it. Purple-haired mad scientist chick is hot. You win.