We All Have That One Coworker

 

 

A little TOO eager to be working in molecular testing tonight, Jim? You're not Barry Marshall dude, you don't need to infect yourself with C diff to prove it causes colitis. I wonder if Barry Marshall mouth pipetted his H. pylori broth? The more I look into the history of mouth pipetting, I honestly wouldn't be surprised. 

There's many an anecdote online from seasoned laboratorians and how prevalent mouth pipetting used to be. Accidental infections were something that definitely happened. You got Chlamydia at work? Hey it's the 60s! You could smoke and eat in the lab too, which isn't as surprising. Imagine having to clean smoke and tar off of the microscope lenses. Would you have to clean the instrument filters more often? Or I guess things were more manual back then, so less filters in the first place. I'm sure there was a Peggy or a Evelyn that could smoke and mouth pipette at the same time. 

Oh darn, dropped some ashes in the nutrient broth. Oh well, the carbon could be good for the bacteria. right? Just as good as this cigarette is for my longevity! Mark, can you take the ashtray off the slide stainer for a second? I need to replace this flammable methanol. Oh, Tina you're firing up the flame photometer. Can I get a light before you start running?