Work

Yep, instead of taking the summer off, I decided to abuse myself and get a real job. On top of that, I get up at 5:45 every day to be there at 7a. This allows me to do what I need to do before the really high-strung guy I work with comes in at 9, and also for me to leave by 3 to come home and study, work out, and play games (=

I work at an environmental laboratory in Manchester, CT. Now, if you know me (and what I think about individual branches of chemistry) you probably know that I hate analytical chemistry. Why then, you might ask, did I sign up to work at an analytical lab? Well, it was about the only real job that I could find that I was qualified for. Sure I could work at A&P or Stop 'n Shop(CTs big supermarkets), but that really doesn't do anything for the résumé or experience. I was also hoping that I would get to do more chemistry-like things than just weighing or diluting samples. And I do get to do a lot of stuff - I'm kind of the "Oh crap I'm really far behind" helper person.

So far this week, I've been learning one new SOP (standard operating procedure - i.e. experiment) a day. I'm currently trained to help about four different people, so when one person is done with me, I go check with the next. I still get stuck making dilutions of, well the last batch was 65 samples, but at least I don't do any titrations... the other new person does those.