MacGyver Moments

Have I mentioned recently that I love my job? I do. I think I'd probably come to work even if I didn't get paid just because I love being in the lab so much (I won't turn down the money though...)

Well, things were breaking last night and I realized we pull a lot of MacGyver type moments in the lab. People don't realize how often things break in the lab and when technical service, engineering, and Dexter aren't racing to the lab in the middle of the night (because we apparently don't need a functional laboratory at night in a 24 hour facility...), we have to do what we can. Here are scenarios from this last year for your enjoyment.

-There was a pipette sampling jam in the Vitros analyzer last night. It would jam, I'd have to undo the jam, reinitialize the analyzer, and then I could hit run again and get a single sample loaded. Then it would jam again. This meant it took about... 5 minutes to run what would take 10 seconds. So I used a pipette bulb and wedged it into the front of the pipette loader so that it would still sense the pipettes waiting to be loaded and then I loaded them manually in the back of the analyzer. Cut things down to about a minute a sample. Not up to par still but considering the 20+ samples I HAD to run on that analyzer.... I felt pretty good.



-Earlier this winter the heating system broke and the was cold air from outside blasting into Microbiology. Apparently, the Bactecs didn't like this because the alarms started going off. Well, I didn't like this so I used cardboard and taped up the vents. My coworker also came up with the idea of using space heaters to try to warm the analyzers back up so the alarms would stop going off.

-There was a power outage a few months ago. The analyzers went crazy and needed to be rebooted but that was nothing compared to the cytology alarm. The cytology alarm went CRAZY! Imagine a fire alarm a few feet away going on and on for a few hours. Well, it would have if we hadn't been creative. Chase and i pulled out a pink micro tub and a bunch of towels and taped it over the alarm. Later we learned we were supposed to call histology.... Well, next time theres a power outage at work we'll be prepared.