Fast track?
Julie C. She'd been appointed on a 'fast track' program for uber PhDs at Zeneca, the same one I failed to get on after my 'ambiguous' psychometric test results (q.v.)

She was nightmare - the usual shit, bossy, opinionated, obstreperous.

Nominally my boss for a few months, it was painfully clear she'd slipped through the (sanity?) net.

She had a PhD in Chemistry, which means she's had more than her fair share of exposure to the more esoteric "10 to the power of" terms micro, nano, terra, femto etc

Rather worrying then, when she asked her boss "how many grams in a kilogram again?"

He was hell bent on trying to get rid of her after that, he put her on a dangerous practical project using hydrofluoric acid gas (etches glass, turns bones to jelly sometime after exposure, very nasty indeed).

An experiment went wrong one day, and a small amount escaped which she was convinced she'd inhaled.

I was in the office later when the phone rang, and he was asked what had happened, and how much he thought she'd inhaled.

"Not e-fucking-nough" was his reply.
(Countryslicker, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:09, 5 replies)

Click for 'obstreperous'...

A word I will now use more in conversation.

(after looking up what it means because I'm a bit of a thickie).

Every day's a school day for Pooflake
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:33, closed)

HF..
Great stuff! Very good for spending a day at casualty reading a paper while the latest person to possibly have a hole in their gloves sits there looking worried with their hand in bucket of water (gel applied at factory)waiting for a consultant to come and glance over it!
Triage nurses generally haven't heard of HF I found.
(cmouse is pondering about life in other jobs, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 15:52, closed)

The medical profession is unlikely to of heard of it
as HF corrodes the nerves faster than they can send signals to the brain to tell you your body is melting.

Coroners perhaps may know it better.

BTW in large enough amounts HF can make asbestos burst into flames.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Mon 28 Jan 2008, 16:40, closed)

I worked with someone
who didn't think having a bottle of HF in the fume hood (which we were sharing - I wasn't using the HF myself) was a problem and couldn't see why I was a tad distressed about me nor any of the new students working with me were safety trained.

Just because it's a clear liquid, doesn't mean it's water... Twunt.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Tue 29 Jan 2008, 0:07, closed)

Never heard the extremely small quantities of micro and smaller
be described as 'esoteric'.

Anyway, may favourite is atto, cos it's really really really small.

Reading University phyics department has an attosecond laser. I wish they'd let me play with it.
(Stu Moo winner of five nobble piece prizes, Tue 29 Jan 2008, 3:06, closed)