The Lab Coordinators Credo -
If you do it - document it.
If you document it - do it.
If it moves - train it.
If it doesn't move, calibrate it.
If it isn't written down - it never happened....

 Every Lab Assistant is a potential basket ball hero.
The last of the spare sieve mesh will be useless, as someone will have cut a hole roughly the size
of a fly-screen window out of it.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
No good deed will go unpunished.
If it works, tear it apart and find out why!
Bunsen burners are not coffee machines.
That is what the hot plates are for.
Anyone caught making illicit alcohol using the Still
will be forced to share it with the others.
Any small object when dropped will
hide under a larger object.
Harrisburg's 4^th law of the lab:
Experience is directly proportionate
to the amount of equipment ruined.
Research is what we are doing when we don't
know what we are doing.
Black holes suck.
If we don't have the solution,
we admire the problem.
Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.
Any significant amount of advancement in science is indistinguishable from magic.
Logic is the system where by we may go
wrong with confidence.
It is now proven beyond doubt that
smoking causes statistics.
Any significantly advanced science is
indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
The last person that quit, or was fired,
will be blamed for everything that goes wrong.
First get your facts, then you can distort
them as much as you please.
Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
The authority of a person is inversely proportionate
to the number of pens/beepers/mobile phones
that person is carrying.

Phrase

Translation

It has long been known by us all...

I didn't look up the original reference.

A definite trend is evident in the data...

These data results are practically meaningless.

Of great theoretical and or practical importance.

Important to me.
I have this theory...

While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions...

An unsuccessful experiment, but I still hope to get it published one day.

Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study.

The results of the others didn't make any sense whatsoever.

Typical results are shown...

The best results are shown.

These results will be shown in a subsequent report...

I might get around to this sometime if I'm pushed.

It is believed that...

I think that...

It is generally believed by all that...

A couple of other people think so too.

Correct within an order of magnitude...

 
Wrong.

It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field...

This is a lousy paper, but so are all the others on this miserable, obscure topic.

Undoubtably...

Unproven - start doubting!

Thanks are due to Joe for assistance with the experiment and to Ed for his valuable discussions...

Joe did the actual grunt work and Ed explained to me what all the graphs, trends and stuff meant.

A careful time consuming, in-depth analysis of all the obtainable data...

Three pages of notes were obliterated when I knocked over a glass of beer.

It is clear that much additional work will be required before a complete understanding of the phenomenon occurs...

 .

 I don't understand it.

The Art Of Letting a Chemist down Gently -
"We have read your lab manuscript with boundless delight. We feel that if we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard.
And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sightedness and timidity."
(Well, they do play with explosive chemicals...not that they are vindictive or anything...nice chemist - put down the dichromate sulphate...)

Invent a test involving your companies stock and any household product i.e. lemon juice. Write your experiment up in scientific terms and fax it to your overseas colleagues with the note - "Have you seen what happens when you add our product and lemon juice?" Be sure to make certain nothing whatsoever happens when the two combine.

Conduct tests! This test was done to find out what would happen to a bone left in phosphoric acid. A friend of mine was writing a story about a crime involving dissolved victims and I offered to help out.

Warp plastic items in the drying ovens during slow times. Add interest by pulling the melted bits and producing plastic string and sticking them back in odd spots to create plastic sculptures. Heat pens over Bunsen burners and twist to make 'fantasy pens'! Mount the best pieces on the safety pin-up board.

Play spin the lab assistant in the office chairs, have chair races in the corridors. Find out just how many sieve marbles will fit in the Erlenmeyer flask after all.

Play Martha Stewart does ChemLabs.Inc - Re-arrange the chemical store room by colour, tie ribbons round the stems of the pipettes, place flowers in the Buckner funnel and single blooms in racks of test tubes. See how long it takes the chemist to notice....

Invent new and curious ways to fold filter papers. Make party hats, scary masks, origami animals, paper flowers and aeroplanes. See how long it takes the chemist to notice....

Play the hens night/tupperwear game, 'dress up as a bride' using spare lab items ie dust mask brassiere, rubber gloves bouquet, fire blanket veil etc. See how long it takes the chemist to notice....

Top 36 Lab Tech Terms and Expressions
(What they say versus what they mean.)

1. A number of different approaches are being tried.
(We are still guessing at this point.)

2. Close project coordination.
(We sat down and had coffee together.)

3. An extensive report is being prepared on a fresh approach.
(We just hired three kids from TAFE.)

4. Major technological breakthrough!
(It works so/so; but wow it looks hi-tech!)

5. Customer satisfaction is believed assured.
(We are so far behind schedule, that the customer will take anything. Anything at all!)

6. Preliminary operational tests were inconclusive.
(The darn experiment blew up when we added the product.)

7. Test results were extremely gratifying!
(Unbelievable, it actually worked!)

8. The entire concept will have to be abandoned.
(The only guy who understood the thing quit.)

9. It is in process.
(We are so under staffed the coffee lady is doing it in her spare time.)

10. We will look into it.
(More specifically, we will be looking into where we put the damned samples. Can't find them anywhere!)

11. Please note and initial.
(Let's spread the responsibility for this. Best doctors writing everyone!)

25. Give us the benefit of your thinking.
(We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we have already done or with what we are going to do.)

13. Give us your interpretation.
(We can't wait to hear your bull.)

14. Please clarify this.
(Give us the facts, so we can add our own bull to it.)

15. All new.
(Parts are not interchangeable with previous design.)

16. Rugged.
(Don't plan to lift it without major equipment.)

17. Robust!
(Rugged, but more so)

18. Light weight.
(Slightly lighter than rugged.)

19. Years of development.
(An assay finally read what it was supposed to.)

20. Energy saving.
(Achieved when the power switch is off.)

21. Foolproof Operation.
(No provision for adjustments.)

22. Low maintenance.
(Nearly impossible to fix)

23. No maintenance.
(Impossible to fix.)

24. Modifications are under way to correct
certain minor difficulties.
(We threw the whole thing out and are
starting from scratch.)

25. The process will be finalised in the
next reporting period.
(We haven't started this job yet,
but we've got to say something.)

26. Developed after years of intensive research.
(The process was discovered by accident.)

27. Basic procedure and tech use has finally been agreed
upon to check our assays.
(We've locked the chemist in the cupboard.)

28. Fax me the data.
(I'm too lazy to write it down.)

29. We are following the standard!
(That's the way we have always done it!)

30. I didn't get your e-mail.
(I haven't checked my e-mail for days.)

31. Weighed on our calibrated machines.
(Weighed on a dirty balance with the door open, a nice sea breeze blowing through, and an archaic calibration sticker proudly stating the next calibration is to be performed June sixth, 1968.)

32. It's late.
(It's lost.)

33. The sample was impure.
(The sample was dropped.)

34. The sample was contaminated.
(The sample was dropped on purpose.)

35. That would be a Terminological Inexactitude.
(It's a lie)

36. Of course, we can do that.
(I am a chemist and have no idea if we can do that. But what the heck, it'll give the lab tech's something to take their minds off the other 500 projects I've given them to do this month, along with their daily routine stuff.)

 In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world
- C Lamb.
 Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former
- Albert Einstein.
 The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources
- Albert Einstein.
 Necessity is the mother of invention
- Plato.
 Give me a lever long enough and a prop (pivot) strong enough and I can single handedly move the world
- Archimedes.
 Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what you want & let them surprise you with the results
- George Patterson.
 Try to relax and enjoy the crisis
- D Adams.
 We are alive in the universe
because it is not symmetrical
- Simon Hawkins.
 Any significant advances in
science are indistinguishable from magic
- Arther C Clarke.
 Copy from one its plagiarism.
Copy from two, its research
- W Mizner.
 What we imagine is order is
merely the prevailing form of chaos
- K Thornley. 
 Reality is whatever refuses to go away
when I stop believing in it
- Philip K. Dick.
 Once you can accept the universe as being something expanding into an infinite nothing which is something, wearing stripes with plaid is easy
- Albert Einstein.

 Do not glue any piece of equipment shut that may one day (soon) need to be opened.
 Never, on a hot day, wearing 6kg of safety gear that took nine minutes to get into, assume that the distilled water bottle actually has 'water' in it and squirt yourself a mouthful for a quick drink.
 Always label Acetone bottles well. Especially if stored next to distilled water bottles.
 If you ever see a chemist running fast, don't ask questions, start running too!