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They can fix darn near everything: Check out Gaussling's further comments:
I could arc, gas, and spot weld by the time I was 12. A farmer with a welder is an awsome thing to behold.Everyone knows that in graduate school, stuff breaks and there's no money to call in a repair technician. Who's the guy who's going to take apart the instrument, figure out what's wrong, fix it and put it back together? Oh yeah, it's the kid who's been working on their Dad's tractor since he was 13.
They work really frickin' hard: Hopefully, you're in an environment where mind-numbing drudgery is not a big part of your life as a chemist and a laboratory researcher. However, life is hard and columns are long. It's incredibly challenging to attempt to outwork someone who grew up on a farm. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's pretty tough.
Just like Gaussling says, growing up or living in a rural environment doesn't make you a saint. But in a lab, there's always seems to be a Farm Kid and chances are, they're getting something done.
It's true! My best friend/labmate from grad school grew up on a farm, and he was a genius with any sort of manual labor or lab work. In his words he "couldn't integrate [his] way out of a paper bag," but we were sure glad to have him around to fix things.
ReplyDeleteNeat. Ditto for the Car Kid. My synthetic chemist colleague grew up a car mechanic's son and he is pretty much our go-to guy for practical advice (and even free demonstrations!) regarding computer, lab equipment and car repairs, not to mention plumbing, wiring and lighting jobs around the house.
ReplyDeleteI would suggest there is an analogous capability for many people from less developed countries who have had to get by with much less modern tools. In terms of labs Western countries are so spoiled compared to many places in the world and relative to not too distant past. I wonder if part of the explanation for "decline of innovation" is how progress provided ready access to items that made work easier therefore people do not face as many challenges that would aid mental development in approaching problems. The Plato proclamation is true that "necessity is the mother of invention" and not sure as much neediness in places these days.
ReplyDeleteOf course I would have had to fight if someone would have tried to take away LCMS when I still was working in process development lab.
CMCguy
Fix what? The NMR, IR, XRD, glove box, or any other complicated equipment? You can't fix a misaligned laser with a welding torch.
ReplyDelete@Anon413: Complicated/speciality equipment, espcially in core facilities, are most likely covered by service contracts or facilities managers. However, my mechanically-inclined labmates (both from rural and urban upbringings) were invaluable for fixing heavy-items such as the vacuum pumps, obsolete HPLCs, cryobath, and misaligned flammable cabinet doors. Especially for Edwards pumps, knocking that stupid internal washer-gasket thingy was a REAL pain.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, in my experience there are people who are handy/mechanically inclined, and there are those who are not. Farm, no farm, does not really make a difference.
ReplyDeleteIn an academic lab, it's great to have someone around who can fix equipment that would otherwise languish in disrepair. In an industrial lab, that skill likely is and definitely should be unneccessary.
ReplyDeleteResearches should focus on research. Do you really want a researcher spending potentially significant numbers of hours of his/her time fixing equipment (probably much less efficiently than a well-trained and informed technician) or running experiments? Where I work, we have a very small group of people around who maintain all types of equipment and instruments. They do a much better job than any "handy" scientist could ever do.
While being handy or mechanically inclined is not a requirement for research, it sure can speed things up, rather than waiting for someone else to repair broken equipment. That can be quite important for getting quality work done!
ReplyDelete