Punch drunk

In high school, scientists-in-training learn that the alcohol they drink to become silly is really called ethanol, often abbreviated as EtOH. They stop speaking of alcohol with lust and veneration and start admiring ethanol instead, as if the new word was a passcode to a secret world. A career in science can expose you to a vast supply of the stuff, and all the temptation that implies.

 

Because of its taxation potential when sold for human consumption, laboratory use of ethanol is heavily regulated in most countries. When sold to labs, it is subject to fewer of the taxes that make liquor so expensive. We use it to sterilize surfaces, preserve specimens, dissolve substances, and because it is highly flammable, as a fuel in portable burners. Many restrictions are imposed to prevent it from being consumed by students, technicians or professors. It is sometimes cut with rubbing alcohol (methanol), which as any educated adult knows, can make you go blind. Such toxified ethanol used to be dyed blue to indicate its added danger. But for many scientific uses, ethanol must be as pure as possible and then what do you do? Previously in Canada, control was at the gallon level; now, the jugs are locked up and we account for every millilitre used.

 

Even if ethanol is altered with something more poisonous, talented chemistry students or professors who know some chemistry can easily redistill and purify it, and formulate a drink far stronger than anything possible with mere vodka. Of course, you have to trust the technical acumen of the distiller and the cleanliness of the lab glassware. 

There are many urban myths about drinks made with lab ethanol. To my knowledge, I never consumed any such liquids, perhaps only because I never liked fruit punch. Coworkers, well... a female colleague once tried to pull my pants down at a Christmas party after she had a bit too much. Karaoke sessions become boisterous and incoherent, but what's surprising about that? Most students don't have cars anyway. The biggest danger is getting lost, either by getting on the wrong bus or falling into a snowbank.

 

I've lost a few colleagues to alcoholism. We can't blame spiked lab punch. The phrase 'punch drunk' refers to the disorientation battered boxers experience as they stagger around the ring after losing a fight. Sometimes life and the working world feels like that. Drink numbs the pain; sometimes drink becomes the pain. With its demands for creativity, productivity and the accompanying criticality, sometimes a career in science feels like a battle. We all feel a little punch drunk at times. 

Leaving the lab

The other day, I was going through old correspondence and found a few goodbye cards from labs I left behind. This was bitter sweet. Many of the remarks were the routine "Good luck with your future endeavours" kind of thing. Others were sincere expressions of good will and recollections of happy memories from people I knew as real friends. Some are still friends. Many I thought would be friends for life, but somehow they evaporated.

A truly odd card in the collection is one found in a parking lot decades ago, addressed to a person unknown to me. The picture is Santa Claus placing presents under the tree, with his butt crack showing. Missing inside are the usual affectionate messages; there are just signatures, written for a stranger. I don't know if the recipient deliberately tossed the card away in anger or disinterest because of its impersonal content, or whether it just slipped out of a pocket or briefcase into the snow. I always planned to send it anonymously to my former university roommate, whose sense of humour matched the tone, but he has also faded away.

My guess is that most scientists work in about ten different labs during their careers. We start out as undergrads, become grad students, then postdocs, junior researchers then senior researchers. There is usually some shifting around to different labs within the institution, more space, less space, upgraded facilities or closets with a one way door leading to the pasture. As we move from lab to lab, from situation to situation, we leave people behind. Sometimes it seems quite calculated, as if the work and our ambitions are more important than the relationships. 

Nevertheless, here we go...

Lab 1. Charismatic English professor, deeply introverted yet passionate perpetual post doc, one idealistic male and one feminist female grad student, intense undergrad having an affair with an older professor, and me a complete intruder, stealing time when the lab instruments are available...

Lab 2. One senior scientist and one junior scientist sharing an office, a grandfatherly lab technician doddering about, another sarcastic lab technician sceptical of it all, a delightfully happy technician who one summer has a miscarriage but the next summer a baby, students thrilled to be there, including me, working like a dog for the love of it...

Lab 3. Hierarchical thesis professor demanding respect, insecure lab technician afraid of computers, three grad students, one a gay activist who happens also to be a genius, another an obsessively happy heterosexual and then me, working late into the night and loving it...

Lab 4. A European institute that was much like an Institution, offices along hallways like a hotel, a dictator director ostracized in his office, a business like supervisor, covens of part time technicians, everyone married with adult lives, working nights and weekends out of obsession and a lack of a social life ...

Lab 5. Hypersocial group of beautiful young professionals and students in a pseudo industrial environment, led by a charismatic psychopath in a company run by dullards, a few undergrad students and term technicians desperate to hang onto their jobs, a 9-5 life of 5 day weeks..

Lab 6. A week in a lab in Japan before a conference, working 11-13 hours a day, but 5 or 6 tea breaks each day that arose spontaneously and lasted as long as they lasted, students from Venezuela and Korea and Africa sharing stories, then returning to the solitude of lab benches to continue work, beer and edame and yakitori instead of supper, then back to the lab again...

Lab 7. A growing lab with grants, temporary employees and summer students, a Russian volunteer trying to learn English without much success, a little society growing up around me but excluding me because I am the Boss ...

Lab 8. A mature lab with post docs and grad students and technicians and undergrad students, holding it all afloat with grants and more grants, no time at the bench anymore, my most intense relationship is with the computer...

Lab 9. The pasture door awaits...

I don't remember many of the events celebrating my departure from these labs, when I was presented with these goodbye cards. There are just little blips, incomplete, badly edited videos without sound. There was a party thrown by my house mates when I finished my masters, attended by their friends because I didn't have any of my own. And then, three years later, I said goodbye to the institute in Europe after finishing my PhD, trying to convey my gratitude, speaking the local language for the only time in public. On the goodbye cards, most touching were the fond, heartfelt messages from lab mates who I never realized held me with such affection or esteem. Their signatures and warmth remain on the cards, bringing back the memories of all those labs. In the social world of science, we blunder around bumping into people to their annoyance or delight, just as we do in the real world.