By startingover - 18/07/2009 19:46 - United States

Today, I was at work in a lab. I spent all day growing a large bacterial culture. I went to retrieve it, only to find that someone had turned the incubation shaker up too high, and my flask had flown off and shattered. Not only did I lose all my work, but now the whole room is a biohazard. FML
I agree, your life sucks 45 338
You deserved it 3 596
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Top comments

cpc1233 0

and thus resident evil 6 begins.

42 1
darkwar4ever 0

Oh wow, that really sucks. FYL. :/ This happened to my dad once, but it was for something else, and not with bacteria.

28 1

Comments

Laci_Laine 0

Fyl, that sucks :(

1 0
Imawhalerider 0

What a lab noob, i hate it when underclassmen mess up all of my lab work. slap a bitsch?

3 1
thecrazed7 0

YDI for working.

1 9
9az00 0

Thank you for posting this as something similar happened to me yesterday (and i was going to post); except i work with brain cancer. someone had the bright idea to give me cultured cells in a petri dish...but what they didnt realize is that petri dishes leak when you move them-even slightly. there was cancerous media everywhere.

2 0
bexox 0

What kind of petri dishes are you working with, may I ask? The agar shouldn't leak.

1 0
Vitamin_C 0

9az00 I'm going to be an ass and take offence to your terminology. Tissue culture is not done on petri dishes, it is done in tissue culture plates. I know you know this, but it annoys me when people say it wrong. And spilling media + cells doesn't matter much since the cells are going to die anyway outside the dish. OP: For your flask to have launched and shattered all over the room, the flask would have had to not be secured in the coily things and the incubator door would have had to be open - which means that the incubator would NOT be rotating. Unless you have a seriously shady 1970's incubator that shakes with the door open, I'm pretty sure your flask was chucked on purpose. Kill the ****** who sabotaged your work, though I don't think the speed did it.

2 0
toongirl 4

You can get shaking platforms which sit inside bigger, room sized incubators. These don't have lids and therefore the incubator could now be covered in bacteria.

1 0
9az00 0

that was the problem. we use media (DMEM) not agar. they should have given the cells to me in a flask.

1 0
darkmis1 17

that sux-you need to find out who did that and register a complaint and make them re-do your whole project-you shouldnt have to clean up somebody elses mess.

1 0
11bellacasey 0

ouch.  this 1 lol

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9az00 0

no vitamin c, my terminology is correct. they gave me the cells in a PETRI DISH. if they would have given them to me in a tissue culture plate (welled plate) or a flask (which I prefer) the incident would not have occured....why do you think I was so pissed but kudos on the rest of your post. lol 1970s shaker. I agree, op someone was out to sabatoge your experiment. you should find out who they are and yeast their incubator...then stab them in the eye with a pipet.

2 1
evilscientistme 0

If you spent any appreciable time in a life science lab doing this kind of work, you would (1) learn how to handle dishes of any kind properly and (2) learn the difference between a "petri dish" and a "tissue culture" anything, (3) realize that a "plate" can also apply to the thing shaped just like a petri dish, and (4) wear gloves. Petri dishes are not coated with anything special on the bottom. If you asked someone for a petri dish and tried to grow your adherent cells in it, they'd float right off (and probably die). TIssue culture flasks/plates/dishes are treated on the inside surface to ensure that your cells stick to the bottom and stay there. Hence, they're more expensive and used SPECIFICALLY for tissue culture. If you try to grow your cells in plain ol' petri dishes, your supervisor will not be happy with you. If you try to pour agar plates in the pricey TC plates, your supervisor will not be pleased either.

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Vitamin_C 0

thanks evilscientistme!!!.. proper science prevails!

0 1
Cazzybum 11

You idiots. He wasn't saying he asked fir them in a petri dish, he said he was GIVEN them when they should have been in something else, hence he was pissed. Learn to read. OT, FYL OP :(

2 0
0___0 9

WTF I didn't know people on FML were this smart.

3 1
evilscientistme 0

FML rocks. we read them out loud to each other at lab.

1 0
Microbiologist 0

I read them to people at work too :-) there seems to be one for every tea break situation.

1 0
dumbguy 0

can't you just redo it tomorrow? you said you spent "all day" stop whining

0 5
sacredpoppy 0

I love it when user names fit the user so well.

4 0
dolphingirl 0

bacterial cultures don't take that long to grow, but they are usually used for only part of a lengthier protocol, like a transfection. If that were the case, losing one day can have a domino effect. Science isn't the kind of job where you do what you can/want in a day and pick it back up the next. Don't be mean and tell them to stop whining. There's nothing worse than having your entire experiment ****** up because of something stupid, especially when it's not you're fault.

2 0