[Non-Pony] A Rough Week: Working With Chemicals that are Not Your Friends. · 9:00pm Jul 18th, 2017
I have a bit of a confession, my good ladies and gentlemen: I have done little to nothing on this site for the past two weeks. I've been behind with my stories, my groups; pretty much everything. Now, there is a good reason for this: my work.
As some of you already know, I'm a working scientist, specifically, a synthetic organic chemist. My job, essentially, is twofold: synthesis specific compounds for customers, and invent, develop and prove viable synthetic routes to those compounds.
Normally, this is a non issue. These last two weeks, however, have been less than fun. It is a fact of my job that I must use some fairly nasty stuff. This has been a bit beyond the norm: I've a have found myself using copious amounts of copper cyanide. Enough of it to kill all two hundred people in the building I work in four times over in the event that I were to fuck up.
"Fucking up," in this case, would mean flooding the building with hydrogen cyanide. Which would have been disturbing easy to do.
Even so, the appropriate safety protocols were put in place and that work, whilst very stressful (and tedious: I've been in the odd position of being bored silly by an experiment that was maliciously trying to kill me), is now done.
This of course begs the question: if this is the sort of thing I'm actually prepared to do, where is the line drawn. What sort of hideously evil things would cause me to say: "bugger that for a game of soldiers?"
Well, this video sums things up quite nicely:
This video seems to have taken considerable inspiration from this blog. I highly recommend reading through some entries; the author has a fabulously dry humour. This latest entry, in particular, highlights that there is no insanity that someone, somewhere, won't do in pursuit of a Ph.D. A sample of the madness:
I might consider that myself if I had to repeat this paper – I don’t want any CL-20 [High, nitrogen explosive] (pretty sure about that), I don’t want to handle any 98% hydrogen peroxide (very sure about that indeed), and once I’ve crystallized the two together, which is the sort of thing most people would consider a very unfortunate accident, I most definitely do not want to take the powder X-ray diffraction spectrum of the stuff by “finely grinding and packing the material” into a sample holder. Who the hell got to be the first person to try that [whatever luckless post-grad got this project, undoubtedly], and what were they wearing while they did it?
I’d be dressed up like the first person to set foot on Venus, I can tell you (“That’s one. . .small. . .step for a foolhardy moron. . .”) and while I picked up the mortar and pestle (assuming my suit allowed me that much mobility) and muttered a brief prayer to Cthulhu (edit: spelled his name wrong; I’m toast now), I’d be thinking that if I’d only planned my career with more attention that I could be wrestling a hungry carnivorous six-foot lizard instead. Mom always wanted me to go into reptile-wrangling, should have listened while I had the chance. . .
Anyway, that's been my week. I hope you enjoyed yourself, my good ladies and gentlemen.
Very exciting indeed. Glad to hear you've not gone so mad or foolhardy as to murder everyone you know.
Given your potential for destruction, I think you should start thinking of supervillain names, in case you ever turn evil and require a moniker.
I suggest "Doctor Toxic."
4605629
That's not a bad plan...
4605630
Also remember that as the one who came up with your supervillain name, I am to be spared in any future rampages.
4605631
I shall be sure to do so. Once I have completed my ultimate evil creation, you, at least, shall be spared
Nasty stuff, but at least it's not likely to methylate your DNA, so there's that upside at least.
4605641
Well remembered
4605642
Although, on the other hand, that means there's less chance for a chemical reaction to turn you into a superpowered supervillain, so... tradeoffs I guess.
4605643
Alas, that is a sacrifice that I am prepared to make.
4605629 I mean, all great supervillains are played by British Gentlemen anyway, right? (I picture the blog's author looking and sounding like a young Malcolm McDowell).