By startingover - 18/07/2009 19:46 - United States

Today, I was at work in a lab. I spent all day growing a large bacterial culture. I went to retrieve it, only to find that someone had turned the incubation shaker up too high, and my flask had flown off and shattered. Not only did I lose all my work, but now the whole room is a biohazard. FML
I agree, your life sucks 45 346
You deserved it 3 600
When Christmas Ends Badly…
Rather than debating politics with Uncle Roger for the umpteenth time, share the best Christmas FMLs to finally have a good family meal! More…
Previous FML Next FML

Same thing different taste

Next

Top comments

cpc1233 0

and thus resident evil 6 begins.

42 1
darkwar4ever 0

Oh wow, that really sucks. FYL. :/ This happened to my dad once, but it was for something else, and not with bacteria.

28 1

Comments

fyourlife33 0

haha cause our labs are so damn boring we dont have anything else to do

3 0
fmlcomment 2

What were you working with that made the room a biohazard? If you were just growing up bacteria for cloning it shouldn't be infectious or really a problem at all...it smells like crap and it has to be cleaned, but it won't make anything a biohazard. Unless they had virus or something as well? But yeah, you lost today's work...that's the beauty of bacteria vs other live models. The whole population grows in a day.

0 1
tert 0

I'm pretty sure E. coli counts as a biohazard regardless of what it's being used for. At least...we had to put an orange hazard sign on our door when we started using them for cloning. Maybe the rules vary, I don't know. I'd say FYL more because holy god that must smell horrible.

1 0
evilscientistme 0

E coli's only BSL-1. and spend more time around them, there are many other fouler-smelling things out there in the world ...

1 0
Associate 0

So? But it pays well and is fairly immune to most layoffs and recessions. Since you can't seem to write properly, I suspect you'll have a difficult time earning a meaningful wage.

3 0
Associate 0

I think we also need to consider that an additive might have made it a biohazard. Some shakers change speed when they warm up. Once the motor is at operating temp it can spin faster. So it may not have been anyone else's fault, but simply unfamiliar with the equipment. I've had a few crappy shaker/incubators that had to be adjusted to or three times if they were started cold and brought up to some set speed and temp.

0 0
Leaveittosteven 0

At least you have a couple trillion new friends

0 0
sofiesmurf 0

haha you totally work in the life science square!

0 0
Ladyzeppelin_fml 0

I have a Bsc in Microbiology so this was lank funny to me. The process of growing bacterial cultures is a pretty tedious job most times and contamination can occur so easily I freaked out in the laboratory more than once. Usually from my own stupid mistakes though lol. The craziest of all has to be the my 2nd yr chem pracs where on one occasion I forgot to use the Fume hood and almost passed out from the ammonia I was using. Then there was one afternoon a mate of mine didnt dry out his flask properly and was heating some sodium in it, i thinkit was sodium (well it was one of the alkali metals which are highly reactive with water) and the thermometer that was well plugged into the flask suddenly bulleted across the room and shattered on the opposite wall. Everyone hit the floor not knowing what had happened. Crazy times for crazy scientists. But i sympathise. Find the mofo who increased the speed on your incubator and why dont you introduce some nice contam into his work.. perhaps a staphyloccocus of sorts. That'd be fun:) But good luck with the culture. Oh and really guys. Scientists are actually alot more fun than you think... PEACE, LOVE, ROCK AND ROLL

0 0
rustyrox 0

I'm in ochem and I got annoyed when someone threw out my samples needed to collect the melting points... I can only imagine! I'm sorry :(

0 0