Quote:
Originally Posted by omk3
Now, why on earth would you be repeatedly asked something like that?
And what colour is it anyway?  |
Well, it's a practical exercise where the students have to find out what substance we gave them. And rule number one is:
- When you test if your substance has the element X always make the parallel experiment with the element X.
Now, the conversation I had about 200 times today (unfortunately I'm not exaggerating) was something like this one:
They: Sorry, do you have a second? I just ... and then ... after which I ... and added ... (30-60 seconds vocal bombardment.) Somehow they think, that if they use the words "this" and "that" instead of the actual names of the reagents I'm still able to follow their thoughts recreating their experiment in my head, ‘cause it's a well known fact, that supervisors have all the ******* experiments in the ******* 800-page book memorized.
Me: OK... did you make the Reference?
They: No, you don’t really need it, right? I mean, the Book says, that it should be "Berliner Blau" color - so is it?
Me: Is it what? (Sounding naive but anticipating what's comin’)
They: Ist das blau? (Typically the color varies between purple and green)
Me (being much more polite than I was with poohbear-nc): I don't know why don't you try doing the reference, and if it looks much different, then do the blind check too. (Same experiment, where you try to identify X, but this time without X, so you see how the negative sample looks like)
They (looking like I stole their Ice-cream): But I hate doing Refs and Blinds; they're soo lame.
Me: (If I say anything at this point, the picture I posted above would be nothing compared to it, so I just try to smile politely. But I guess it was more like this, 'cause they went away pretty fast.
The (God, thank You!!!) End.
Now, I said I had this conversation about
200 times today. We have
50 students. You do the math.
P.S.: By student I mean someone, who graduated 13th class and is now attending an university.