A Day in a Scientist’s Shoes…

When I tell people that I’m a scientist they often ask what I’m researching, to which I reply with the general aims of my PhD project (which I’m not going to bore you with here!). But then they go on to ask ‘So what do you actually do every day?’. This is more difficult to answer; actual tasks can vary so much from day to day and more often than not we use techniques that people may not have heard of to answer questions that may seem to not be relevant to the aim of the project. It can get complicated!

When people imagine what a scientist does everyday they no doubt picture a sparkling white laboratory filled with balding men in white coats mixing coloured, bubbling liquids together, generating lots of smoke and then shouting ‘Eureka!’. Firstly, a laboratory is NOT sparkly clean with so many chemicals lying around, we don’t all have crazy grey hair and it takes years and years of hard work and most importantly failure to get to that eureka moment. This is the thing that I think people find the hardest to understand; everything in science takes soo much longer than you anticipate and the result of one experiment often throws up a hundred more questions than it answers!

I thought I’d do an ‘A day in the life of’ post to try to shed some light on what a typical day in the life of a scientist might look like. In fact I’m going to tell you what I did today, exactly as it happened, unedited. It was a frustrating day and far from glamorous, but then, that’s science! So if you would like to step into my comfy Nike lab trainers (no heels here!), allow me to talk you through a log of my day…

6:15 AM: Alarm goes off. Grunt and hope it goes away. It doesn’t.

6:30 AM: Finally embrace that Wednesday is not just going to disappear. Get up and make tea, mmm tea.

8 AM: Get into uni. Check emails/facebook/bbc news with another cup of tea.

9 AM: Remembered there is a lab meeting, make third cup of tea. Meeting is interesting enough as other lab members explain what they’ve been up to for the past few weeks, however the areas of research are muscle cell cultures and genomic technology; do not really understand ANY of what is being discussed, hope no-one asks for opinion. They don’t, thankfully.

10 AM: Meeting over, time to go into the lab. Lab coat on and into the side lab where this week’s equipment is based; a fermentor for culturing E. coli bacteria in a very small, windowless room. This is day 3 of a 5-day protocol. Continue setting up fermentor which involved a lot of plugs, tubes and wires which must be assembled in the correct way. Have only done this twice before with help so hope that assembly is correct when done alone this time. Not sure, but the only person who can help is on holiday so hope for the best, the motto of academia. Dance a bit to the 80’s music on the radio because nobody is watching.

Which bit goes where??

11 AM: Set up bottles of acid and alkali which keep the pH of the bacteria at 7 so they stay happy and grow. Notice not 1, but 3 holes in the alkali tubes, this isn’t good. These are the most important tubes and this has never happened before. Completely alone so have no choice but to improvise a solution. Feeling like a strong, independent woman who don’t need no help. When fixing tubes in a genius and professional manner, strong alkali squirts everywhere, including in eyes as not wearing safety specs. Panic. Go into main lab to seek help. Get directed to a scary-looking eye wash machine. Hose eyes for 15 minutes whilst worrying about permanent blindness/everyone watching/state of mascara.

12 PM: Both eyes and mascara fine. Lunchtime! Lunch in cafeteria with boyfriend, highlight of day 🙂 discuss eye-washing ordeal and try jazzy new flavours of Walkers crisps. Scientifically deduce that ‘pulled pork’ flavour crisps much better than ‘cheesy beans’. Another 2 cups of tea consumed.

1 PM: Get round to fixing alkali bottles, with safety glasses this time. Looking pretty damn sexy. Swap tubes with acid tubes as a compromise. Accidentally raise pH of liquid in vessel to 9 in the process. Bummer. Get increasingly frustrated syringing 10 ml acid at a time into vessel. Too much pressure in vessel prevents liquid from dropping down the pipe into the vessel. Takes forever but finally bring the pH down to 7 again. In need of yet more tea, but no time! Why does nothing ever run smoothly? Consider becoming a supermodel but realise love of cake too great.

2 PM: Set up control machine attached to vessel and calibrate probes. 20 minute wait required whilst probes stabilise. Perch on tiny kickstool in windowless room in the manner of Gollum from Lord of the Rings. Read blogs on phone and hope no-one enters whilst crouching on stool like a giant.

Getting there!

3PM: Weigh out some miscellaneous white powder in main lab where colleagues also dancing to 80’s radio. Join in. Time to get messy with the bacteria. Prepare E. coli cells and syringe into vessel. Encounter same pressure problems in pipe as previously. Refuse to be beaten by bacteria. Finally succeed but gloves covered in yucky liquid. Wash hands thoroughly before going home.

5 PM: Home! Hair down, pjamas, relax! Prepare to repeat tomorrow and pray to the gods of science for an easier day!

The world of science is not a glamorous one, and although it’s frustrating I know it will be worth it when I see my thesis there all bound and I have done it! Anyone else got any frustrating experiences at work? If you’re a fellow scientist I’d love to hear from you too 🙂