• Question: What is the biggest mistake you have ever made at work? How did you get over this?

    Asked by anon-232762 to Varun, Sammie, Rebecca, Anna on 18 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Rebecca Shaw

      Rebecca Shaw answered on 18 Nov 2019:

      Probably the biggest mistake I ever made was putting dry ice down the sink… it looked SO cool and terrifying at the same time. Puffs of water vapour exploded out of the sink and clouded me and my lab mate. It was like some cool movie special effect, but I was definitely in trouble.

      I managed to get most of the bits of dry ice out of the sink before they went down the drain, but I had to own up to the technical manager that I had managed to put some down the drains. Thankfully, there hasn’t been a major issue, but apparently it can ruin the pipes – which can be expensive to fix!

      Apart from this, I make mistakes alllllllll the time. I do silly maths mistakes, add the wrong amount of solution to reactions, infect my cells, mix up samples – it happens! Mistakes are always part of your learning process.

      And atleast now I know to never put dry ice down my sink *

      **unless I am holding a Halloween party.

    • Photo: Varun Ramaswamy

      Varun Ramaswamy answered on 18 Nov 2019:

      Oh this brings back scary memories haha! So I was trying to get my protein out of the cells and I was in quite a hurry, so I hadn’t noted down every step I was supposed to do before I went to the lab…and getting protein is a long, tiring and difficult job. So after the whole day of trying to get my protein out, I finally look at it under the microscope the next day and find that its all been broken and ripped to shreds!!!

      I was so shocked, I really couldn’t believe what In was seeing.. so I obviously decided to think back about the steps I did to find out what mistake I could have made (like what did I add extra or what did I forget to add).. normally I would have the steps written down so I just need to read through them and find the wrong step… But remember I mentioned I DIDN’T write it down this time? So I completely freaked put and didn’t know what to do. I spoke to my boss and she suggested that I repeat the experiment from scratch, but this time I should write down what I did. So I had to go through one more long, tiring day off getting protein out of cells.. but at least this time I wrote things down and my boss was by my side, so she was able to warn me before I made any mistake and everything went well 🙂 🙂 🙂

    • Photo: Samantha Firth

      Samantha Firth answered on 19 Nov 2019:

      Firstly, I am rather clumsy and make mistakes all the time! Here is one of my more entertaining mistakes:
      I was doing science show all about fire and explosions and this involved some experiments with rather dangerous things! I’m talking fireworks juice, gunpowder and fire tornadoes!💥Well, i got to an experiment where i was blowing fire out of a shower head through a garden hose which ends in a 1.5 meter plume of fire – and i realised, as i was blowing into the hose, that i had no safety goggles on – i had forgotten to put them on. I panicked, flinched and pulled my hand back, pulling the fire towards my face, singeing my eyebrows in the process! 😳🔥 It was entirely my own fault and i was fine, just slightly crisped! I made sure i never forgot my goggles after that! 🤓

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