Another daily accounting of why perhaps it's really best not to even consider doing ANY science in France, unless you have a totally capable bi-lingual secretary with the patience of Mother Theresa.
I need a price for 2 items from Roche. We can't just plug in our customer # on the Internet to obtain the price for our institution, because our funding source, Inserm, is afraid that we would leap to internet ordering which is strictly forbidden. They can't keep track of how much money we spend on what by using their infuriating "Product Categorization" system. This system by the way, requires a special ordering form and an addendum of an "Inserm category number" to each product that is ordered. I have to look up what this friggin number is every time I place an order. So I decide to speak in English when I call to get the prices. Why waste my brainpower speaking French, it's an international company, right? It should be no problem.
"Bonjour, Hello. I need to get the price for 2 items, please".
The operator transfers me without so much as a "Merci". The next person asks me where I am from, and transfers me to the Paris representative. I think I get transferred again at this point and the next person who answers has absolutely no clue why I am looking for prices, she's in the marketing department. My thoughts are that they kept transferring 'cuz they didn't want to speak English. I hang up.
I call back. "Bonjour, j'ai besoin de les prix pour deux produits, SVP." She asks for the product. "DIG washing and blocking set", I say, in English. I am NOT saying "wash-eeng ee bloc-ayh" with a French accent, I sound stupid. She says in French that she doesn't understand. I ask her if I can give her the product number (in french this time). "Oui". Ok, we have an accord.
I recite the number American-style, one number at a time, rather than saying the french four twenties plus nineteen (which equals 99 by the way) because I make my own head hurt for a 12-digit number like that. She zings off the price at a lighting pace, and the gals behind me are yakking in French and I can't understand a bloody thing. I ask her to please repeat it slowly for me, which she does, but rather than saying 179 Euros and 79 cents, she says "comma" in french and I don't know that word so I am yet again confused and have to ask her to repeat it for me one more time. Incredible.
And I should add that she couldn't find the second thing because the website had an old catalog # listed, so this was yet another 5 minutes while I searched around the website with her still on the line. There was no way I was going to call back and go through the whole painful process yet again. Evidently that would have been just too much for her to figure out the new # for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today I am in the animal room doing my thing- trying to get out of the tiny, windowless, smelly room as quickly as humanly possible and I hear a huge bang, what sounds like a cannon being shot off inside of the fucking building. Good god! Either we're being bombed or one of the construction workers has just lit a cigarette and ignited some flammable material in the lab and everyone is engulfed in flame. Sweet Jesus have mercy!
I peek out the window in the adjoining room and see that it's become foggy outside. Wait! That's smoke, and the streets are filled with.... firefighters? Zillions of them. All in uniform, and quite pissed-off I might add, with some of them carrying flares, all of them shouting completely unintelligible angry-firfefighterman-french things. I make my way upstairs and the building is now reverberating with the explosions like we're being shelled. How the fuck am I supposed to dissect organs from this 4 day old mouse with this nonsense? As everyone in the lab is acting like it's a fucking circus coming down the street, replete with pink elephants and ponies on tricycles, I decide to take a peek out the window even though I am beginning to spew smoke from my ears and shouting things like, "How is anyone supposed to work with all of this god-damned noise?". I see that across the street the fire hydrant is gushing water all over the street and the pavement in front of the hospital is like a scene out of "Blackhawk down"- a roiling mass of very imposing-looking dudes who are now increasingly turning towards the hospital to shout towards the building at people gawking out the windows, I suppose. BOOM! I never did see what the hell they were using to make all of that noise, but how is that a part of PeACeFulL demonstration, pray tell?
I rub my temples, wishing desperately for at least the tenth time in 2 weeks that there were enough room in the tiny dorm-sized fridge for a six pack, or better yet a flask of 140-proof whiskey to hide itself. I decide to update my website while all of this is going on, as it's clear I won't be able to actually work. I would have gone to the library or another lab, but the only functional area is on the side of the building facing the brouhaha. A few minutes elapse and out of my peripheral vision I notice a strange face peering at me from the other side of the cubicle/shelf above my desk. What the hell? I get up and see a fireman in full regalia (ok minus the hat) hanging out the window. What is he doing? Taking pictures with his digital camera. Yep. A circus all right. Then the lab is flooded by at least a dozen fireman proceeding towards the widows to get a birds-eye view of the scene of mayhem below and appreciate their handiwork fully. By this point I am out of my chair and possessively tromping round the lab, they outnumber us scientists in the lab, and some of them are really quite large men. I am pretty certain that I have a mix of surprise, shock, incredulity, and a good portion of amusement written on my face at this point, and my jaw is gaping open quite noticeably. I am now saying things (in English of course, I default back to the mother tongue in emotional moments) like "Does anyone find this to be NORMAL behavior?", to no one in particular, but secretly hoping that some fireman will get the hint and get the hell out of MY lab!
After about 90 seconds of us staring at them and them hanging out the windows and shouting and waving like Charles Lindbergh were passing in the street below and this was merely a ticker-tape parade; they began to file out. I am more amused than shocked now, because, I mean, come ON- I get to write about this in my blog-man! I am mocked by a fireman who mimics my face as he smilingly parades out of the lab, and I realize that none of my friends in the States will believe what it's like to do science in France because the lab doesn't yet have a digital camera for me to document these moments; the moments of our lives.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Top ten things I learned in Croatia
Top 10 list
1. If you travel among the small islands of Croatia, you will quite possibly be be required to place your trust in a, let us say, non-traditional taxi service, whose sole proprietor is a dude named Ivan. I counted on random dude Ivan to give me a lift to Zadar (45 mins away) at 6 am. You should have seen me sweat when he didn't show up till 6:08 am.
2. When you sign up for a sailing course in Croatia and they say that instruction is given in English, beware. One lesson coming from living abroad is that people are most comfortable speaking in their mother tounge, and will often do so in a large group, regardless of whether you can understand them or not. So cheer up! It's not a lonely time. Just pretend you are in a James Bond movie. Pretend they are the Russian villans and you are the super-hot sidekick to James Bond.
3. Never trust the ferry boat schedule posted on the internet. Or the one in your 2-year-old and seriously outdated Croatian guide book. (See lesson in previous posting on traveling to Morocco). All in all, never trust ferries if you really have to be somewhere on time. Perhaps I'll finally learn this one lesson myself.
4. That "modern highway" that replaced the coastal ferry service in Croatia isn't exactly the Ohio turnpike. In fact, if there has been a big enough rock slide, you may be required to get out of the bus and push. And don't think you'll get to sleep on this 6 hour ride from Istria to the Southern regions near Zadar. Yeah, by the way, if you get vertigo, don't sit on the side of the bus with The View. You might see the ghosts of Vacations Past flit before your eyes.
5. Take the plane next time. 32 hours return travel time from Island Murter in Croatia to Paris, starting with Dude Called Ivan's taxi, ferry boat, walk to train station, train to Milan without a single place to sit, even in the aisle- I had to share a space with my bags for 4 hours thanks very much, then train from Milan overnight to Paris- where there was a problem with my ticket that the very nice ticket agent in the special office for first class failed to notice that my ticket was stamped for TOMORROW night. Dude, I've been on vacation for 2 weeks, I've got no friggin clue what the date is today!
1. If you travel among the small islands of Croatia, you will quite possibly be be required to place your trust in a, let us say, non-traditional taxi service, whose sole proprietor is a dude named Ivan. I counted on random dude Ivan to give me a lift to Zadar (45 mins away) at 6 am. You should have seen me sweat when he didn't show up till 6:08 am.
2. When you sign up for a sailing course in Croatia and they say that instruction is given in English, beware. One lesson coming from living abroad is that people are most comfortable speaking in their mother tounge, and will often do so in a large group, regardless of whether you can understand them or not. So cheer up! It's not a lonely time. Just pretend you are in a James Bond movie. Pretend they are the Russian villans and you are the super-hot sidekick to James Bond.
3. Never trust the ferry boat schedule posted on the internet. Or the one in your 2-year-old and seriously outdated Croatian guide book. (See lesson in previous posting on traveling to Morocco). All in all, never trust ferries if you really have to be somewhere on time. Perhaps I'll finally learn this one lesson myself.
4. That "modern highway" that replaced the coastal ferry service in Croatia isn't exactly the Ohio turnpike. In fact, if there has been a big enough rock slide, you may be required to get out of the bus and push. And don't think you'll get to sleep on this 6 hour ride from Istria to the Southern regions near Zadar. Yeah, by the way, if you get vertigo, don't sit on the side of the bus with The View. You might see the ghosts of Vacations Past flit before your eyes.
5. Take the plane next time. 32 hours return travel time from Island Murter in Croatia to Paris, starting with Dude Called Ivan's taxi, ferry boat, walk to train station, train to Milan without a single place to sit, even in the aisle- I had to share a space with my bags for 4 hours thanks very much, then train from Milan overnight to Paris- where there was a problem with my ticket that the very nice ticket agent in the special office for first class failed to notice that my ticket was stamped for TOMORROW night. Dude, I've been on vacation for 2 weeks, I've got no friggin clue what the date is today!
Ghetto Science
Reasons you know you are doing ghetto science (better not count, it's downright depressing)
(Background: I am happily doing science in New York, making about as much $ as the guy that sells me my bagel with cream cheese in the morning, and the boss decides to move the lab to Paris, France. Well, at least I speak some French, so that will help. The following is a description of some of the perils of doing science in a land that's not exactly known for its effeciency.)
1. We's so poor, we can't even afford no weigh boats. We use paper that's only been printed one side.
2. It takes 6 months to gear up to do in situs.
First: locate glass coplin jars. The Trick- they are in our boxes from the NY move where the guys basically wrote "plastic ware" or "glassware" on the boxes, which comprises about 95% of the shit in the boxes. Not especially descriptive if you desperately need to find something.
Step 2: order all of the chemicals and translate the USA catalog #s to something that is actually sold in France. I thought I had everything, then read through the protocol and gathered everything up. Wrong.
Turns out that SIGMA FRANCE had something on backorder for 2 months and they were NEVER going to call me. Sweet. So I give them a ring (and make them speak English- how cruel).
They need me to fill out a form to promise that I'm not using said chemical product to produce illicit drugs. They said they faxed it to me 2 months previously.
"Really? I never got that fax. Were you going to call and ask me to send it?"
Sigma- "No, we don't do that".
That's customer service right there friends.
Oh, and I have to call 3 times over the course of one afternoon and the next morning in order to inpspire someone enough to take the effort to fax the damn form to me. BTW it's all in French. I fill it out in English. Ha- take that!
Hmm, perhaps I should do some research on the internet to find out what the heck this chemical can be used for, I could use some supplimental income.
I call on Monday to find out the progress of fax reception and if the product has indeed been shipped. The switchboard operator informs me that they are having a meeting and can not answer my question. "I'm sorry, EVERYONE is in a meeting?". "Yes, can you please call back at 2pm?". Good god, what a way to run a railroad!
3. The dingo ate your baby. (yes, this IS a Seinfeld ref.)
My mice are so unhappy living in an animal house where drills and jackhammers continually disturb their sleep and odd smelling-vapors permeate their room on a continual basis, that they keep eating their pups. Joy. How can a girl collect tissues if she ain't got no mice?
4. How can a girl do mouse experiments if her mice won't mate? (see above)
5. I've been waiting for 3 months for hanging folders. I keep asking our secretary to order them, but she doesn't like doing "administrative stuff". I give up. I'll just keep piling shit up on my bench until some caustic chemical spills on it and I have to throw out the whole mess. That would simplify organization, for sure.
6. The bartender across the street is starting to understand my English accent when I speak french. I am wearing my own butt-print into one of the stools due to my frequent visits and have memorized the happy-hour prices of all of the pints they serve.
7. I have been considering self-medicating before coming to work to be able to have patience to fill out forms for shipping mice to France from the USA. It took a full work week, me being transferred a dozen times within our funding agency to find a warm body that would pick up the phone in August, and recieving phone calls on my personal cell while on vaca in Italy of all places (which cost to the tune of two Euros plus per minute) to get 2 shipments of the cleanest mice possible delivered to our hospital in Paris.
Let's hope they are happy over there in the new building!
8. Everyone uses the building as if it's their own personal ashtray. They smoke in the hallways, in the offices... don't mind the fact that they are painting the building and using hazardous chemicals all over the place, we do science here on occasion, you know. So though I am a doctor who doesn't smoke, I am likely to get lung cancer anyhow. Nice.
9. We have to steal needles from the hospital using someone's mom who is a nurse in Spain. It's too complicated to purchase them using French sources, we must order them by the gross, I think. Instead, I went to the local pharmacy to special order some. Why needles with surgical thread are available from the corner drug store- I don't know. I would feel much safer having a French medical professional sew me up, frankly, but hey- perhaps that's not the rationale here?
10. The hood doesn't work in the lab. We've been here for 4 months now. Wonder how much longer it will take. A trip upstairs to a room with a functional hood requires a cart-full of shit: pen, eppie tubes, pipetteman, tips, samples, and keys to unlock the door. Not to mention that you must dodge from 0 to 5 workman who may or may not have ladders or other crap blocking the way to the door. (Depends on if they feel like working today or not; it's a roll of the dice).
11. The ice machine is closed with a giant wooden clip, think of the world's biggest clothespin. No joke.
12. I've already mentioned there's no air conditioning right? Yeah, so when you wanna open the window, you've gotta use this lead block that weighs like 20 pounds to keeep a stiff breeze from rendering me unconcious when the window smacks me in the side of the head. So one night, I decide it's probably fine if i just leave the window open a crack, I mean, it was 37 degrees INSIDE the lab earlier that week. During the night the lead weight falls off of the window sill and the pointy part severs my computer cord in two. You know, the one that has the transformer in it? Thanks please pay 90 euros because the folks that remodeled your work space couldn't get the windows right. I clearly don't get paid enough.
13. One more reason I don't get paid enough. Ever heard of a mouse facility in the States where you've gotta change your own cages when THE animal caretaker leaves on vacation? Me neither.
14. We have entered month #5 of occupation of the all new state-of-the-art Lab Space, which still has a non-functional hood and ventilation system. But we still often work under the hood when working with some noxious chemicals, I think it's more of an ingrained habit rather than serving any functional purpose. During one of these rather amusing episodes of someone working with something smelly in the "hood" which does not actually suck smelly air out of the lab, one of our rather soft-spoken labmates said, "The hood may not work, but at least you can switch the light on and pretend that it works".
(Background: I am happily doing science in New York, making about as much $ as the guy that sells me my bagel with cream cheese in the morning, and the boss decides to move the lab to Paris, France. Well, at least I speak some French, so that will help. The following is a description of some of the perils of doing science in a land that's not exactly known for its effeciency.)
1. We's so poor, we can't even afford no weigh boats. We use paper that's only been printed one side.
2. It takes 6 months to gear up to do in situs.
First: locate glass coplin jars. The Trick- they are in our boxes from the NY move where the guys basically wrote "plastic ware" or "glassware" on the boxes, which comprises about 95% of the shit in the boxes. Not especially descriptive if you desperately need to find something.
Step 2: order all of the chemicals and translate the USA catalog #s to something that is actually sold in France. I thought I had everything, then read through the protocol and gathered everything up. Wrong.
Turns out that SIGMA FRANCE had something on backorder for 2 months and they were NEVER going to call me. Sweet. So I give them a ring (and make them speak English- how cruel).
They need me to fill out a form to promise that I'm not using said chemical product to produce illicit drugs. They said they faxed it to me 2 months previously.
"Really? I never got that fax. Were you going to call and ask me to send it?"
Sigma- "No, we don't do that".
That's customer service right there friends.
Oh, and I have to call 3 times over the course of one afternoon and the next morning in order to inpspire someone enough to take the effort to fax the damn form to me. BTW it's all in French. I fill it out in English. Ha- take that!
Hmm, perhaps I should do some research on the internet to find out what the heck this chemical can be used for, I could use some supplimental income.
I call on Monday to find out the progress of fax reception and if the product has indeed been shipped. The switchboard operator informs me that they are having a meeting and can not answer my question. "I'm sorry, EVERYONE is in a meeting?". "Yes, can you please call back at 2pm?". Good god, what a way to run a railroad!
3. The dingo ate your baby. (yes, this IS a Seinfeld ref.)
My mice are so unhappy living in an animal house where drills and jackhammers continually disturb their sleep and odd smelling-vapors permeate their room on a continual basis, that they keep eating their pups. Joy. How can a girl collect tissues if she ain't got no mice?
4. How can a girl do mouse experiments if her mice won't mate? (see above)
5. I've been waiting for 3 months for hanging folders. I keep asking our secretary to order them, but she doesn't like doing "administrative stuff". I give up. I'll just keep piling shit up on my bench until some caustic chemical spills on it and I have to throw out the whole mess. That would simplify organization, for sure.
6. The bartender across the street is starting to understand my English accent when I speak french. I am wearing my own butt-print into one of the stools due to my frequent visits and have memorized the happy-hour prices of all of the pints they serve.
7. I have been considering self-medicating before coming to work to be able to have patience to fill out forms for shipping mice to France from the USA. It took a full work week, me being transferred a dozen times within our funding agency to find a warm body that would pick up the phone in August, and recieving phone calls on my personal cell while on vaca in Italy of all places (which cost to the tune of two Euros plus per minute) to get 2 shipments of the cleanest mice possible delivered to our hospital in Paris.
Let's hope they are happy over there in the new building!
8. Everyone uses the building as if it's their own personal ashtray. They smoke in the hallways, in the offices... don't mind the fact that they are painting the building and using hazardous chemicals all over the place, we do science here on occasion, you know. So though I am a doctor who doesn't smoke, I am likely to get lung cancer anyhow. Nice.
9. We have to steal needles from the hospital using someone's mom who is a nurse in Spain. It's too complicated to purchase them using French sources, we must order them by the gross, I think. Instead, I went to the local pharmacy to special order some. Why needles with surgical thread are available from the corner drug store- I don't know. I would feel much safer having a French medical professional sew me up, frankly, but hey- perhaps that's not the rationale here?
10. The hood doesn't work in the lab. We've been here for 4 months now. Wonder how much longer it will take. A trip upstairs to a room with a functional hood requires a cart-full of shit: pen, eppie tubes, pipetteman, tips, samples, and keys to unlock the door. Not to mention that you must dodge from 0 to 5 workman who may or may not have ladders or other crap blocking the way to the door. (Depends on if they feel like working today or not; it's a roll of the dice).
11. The ice machine is closed with a giant wooden clip, think of the world's biggest clothespin. No joke.
12. I've already mentioned there's no air conditioning right? Yeah, so when you wanna open the window, you've gotta use this lead block that weighs like 20 pounds to keeep a stiff breeze from rendering me unconcious when the window smacks me in the side of the head. So one night, I decide it's probably fine if i just leave the window open a crack, I mean, it was 37 degrees INSIDE the lab earlier that week. During the night the lead weight falls off of the window sill and the pointy part severs my computer cord in two. You know, the one that has the transformer in it? Thanks please pay 90 euros because the folks that remodeled your work space couldn't get the windows right. I clearly don't get paid enough.
13. One more reason I don't get paid enough. Ever heard of a mouse facility in the States where you've gotta change your own cages when THE animal caretaker leaves on vacation? Me neither.
14. We have entered month #5 of occupation of the all new state-of-the-art Lab Space, which still has a non-functional hood and ventilation system. But we still often work under the hood when working with some noxious chemicals, I think it's more of an ingrained habit rather than serving any functional purpose. During one of these rather amusing episodes of someone working with something smelly in the "hood" which does not actually suck smelly air out of the lab, one of our rather soft-spoken labmates said, "The hood may not work, but at least you can switch the light on and pretend that it works".
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