Sometimes, You Have to Have a Little Too Much Fun at Work (797 hits)
Category: Humor -> Dumb JobsRating: 1.88 on 17 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by BonesForBucks (View user info) at 2004-04-12 09:28:56 EDT
As many of you know, I have one of the dumbest jobs of all time: gas spectrometer technician. My job is to stand around until an aging, tenured professor or a smart-ass grad student gives me a sample to burn. That's a slow day. A fast day consists of me standing by the gas spectrometer while pretending I have a sample inside already being processed, thus creating a huge queue and making me seem more important on the lowly food chain of technicians. This drives them crazy, especially if they are in a hurry. If I want to go a little longer with my charade, I wait for the machine to finish, then look at the results and throw my arms up in the air. "Carbon? There can't be carbon in this! It was an inorganic life-form!" I then pretend to put another sample of the same material in the machine and "reprocess."
At least once a week I get called out on this. "Hey, you didn't put anything in the machine! It's empty!" I reply, "Grad Student (to me, they have no names), the purpose of this machine is to BURN what is put inside of it. It heats it up a lot, drawing the vapors as they burn off. Therefore, when the machine is done with it's job, the chamber is empty because the sample has been vaporized!" This usually gets a chuckle out of this one bald professor who, despite his 75 years of age, is never without a Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
However, the gas spectrometer is not an oven. I have tried several times to cook small amounts of popcorn at a time in it. You know, just enough for a handful. The chamber is small and can't handle too much popped corn. After a days worth of experimenting, I discovered you had to open the chamber early and suffer a blast of possibly-radioactive heat to retrieve your popcorn. My joy lasted all of 30 seconds. Calvin, the senior lab technician, who has since found other employment elsewhere, walked over, looked at the data log which listed the chemicals, elements, and molecules detected, looked straight at me, and said "Have you been cooking popcorn in the gas spectrometer?"
"Uhm...." I couldn't really say anything, as I still had a mouth full of popcorn.
"Don't worry, you won't be fired or anything. The last guy, whom you replaced, was filling it with baby mice soaked in vodka," replied Calvin.
While saying the next sentence, my eyebrows rose to my forehead, I stuck out my chin, and tilted my head to the left. Mimic this to see my exact expression. I think it looks pretty innocent if you do it right, but horribly insane if done wrong. NOT FOR BEGINNERS! "In that case...yeah?"
"Okay," Calvin said. "Don't do it again."
User Reviews
Submitted by Scott_James (user info) at 2004-04-21 17:39:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Magicaddict (user info) at 2004-04-16 21:15:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Class
Submitted by Herpes (user info) at 2004-04-12 16:30:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny.
Submitted by SausageKing (user info) at 2004-04-12 14:56:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Mice and Vodka? Sounds good...
Submitted by DarthAwesome (user info) at 2004-04-12 12:39:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
ha
Submitted by MrPrickle (user info) at 2004-04-12 11:40:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
the ending puzzled me, but a pleasant read
Submitted by reallybored (user info) at 2004-04-12 11:20:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This post is Shasty McKickass Nasty!
Submitted by iamhewhoisnot (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:37:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
-1 for having a more fun job than me
-1 for rubbing it in my face
+4 for introducing the concept of "baby mice soaked in vodka"
Submitted by Mollification (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:33:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Calvin rocks.
Submitted by slowlyrotting (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:15:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+3 for story
-1 for not thinking of mice and vodka first
Submitted by BleedTheSky (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:11:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:07:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Mice and vodka? Why?
No, don't tell me.
Submitted by Tastycat (user info) at 2004-04-12 10:06:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"Okay," Calvin said. "Don't do it again."
I laughed my ass off. I wish my managers were that relaxed. Hell, I wish I had a job.
Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2004-04-12 09:53:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny.
Submitted by digsy (user info) at 2004-04-12 09:47:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So is Calvin
Submitted by digsy (user info) at 2004-04-12 09:47:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Kalvin is hot
Submitted by mystiamoon (user info) at 2004-04-12 09:34:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good read