Today I was just wondering again how other labs treat people that keep on messing up instruments like centrifuge rotors, scales, clean benches for cell cultures and so on.
How does your boss punish these individuals? Should they be banned from a science lab? You never know what kind of gentechnically modified organism or hazardous chemical might be contained within the spills.
Hi Joanne,
we have a time table, but if certain people don't write down their usage, what can you do!
Our lab has a 'three strikes' rule. Two levels of warning, then banning from use of the equipment or entire lab for the individual for a set amount of time if they are not using it as trained. Does your lab have someone in charge of training and such? If people are spilling dangerous things without cleaning them up, contaminating other peoples samples and not using equipment properly it is most likely a training issue. Someone needs to be appointed to sign off training and manage the lab, or this will continue to happen and a lot of expensive research time will be wasted if experiments and valuable equipment are continually broken or contaminated.
DO not let them use it if they are nnot using it properly anyone whoever might be. and you can make sure that someone experienced is present every time during the use by other people.And appoint someone if possible only for the instrumental purpose (Lab technician).
Take the time to observe what he is doing. Make note of his actions and retrain the individual in the proprer use of the equipment emphasiszing those areas noted as improper actions. Make sure he is well instructed in the"Prudent Practices in the Laboratory" or in the use of the equipment. Take the time to test the individual to be sure that he or she has fully grasped the instruction. If improvement is rendered then retrain on those deficiencies that are still lacking. Provede three sets of such instruction. If nothing changes then take the next remedial steps as necessary.
We just had this issue a few days ago, someone putting the wrong cover on the centrifuge rotor. The cover flayed out. Problem its another person M.Sc. student. Still not sure what to do about it.
This is a really difficult problem which I have seen being dealt with in a number of ways. One could take a light hearted approach and have a list of fines which could be buying cakes for the lab meeting, so the individual realises they have not done what they should, but they can save a bit of face. This helps lab unity and everyone has a laugh about it. In my PhD lab we had a book for lab mistakes and at the end of the year the points were added up and the person who made the most mistakes received a trophy at the Christmas party! Everybody messes up, or forgets something, or was not even aware that they had done wrong. If it is dealt with like this then a culture of openess is fostered.
Persistant and recidivist offenders who cause dangerous incidents can only be dealt with by suspension of access to the lab.
I had thought about the following punishments:
1st time: Wear Playboy-Rabbit ears for 1 day
2nd time: Wear labcoat inverse for 1 week
3rd time: What do you think? Any suggestions?
;-)
Dear Kai, 3rd time wear "Lab Coat of Shame"......I leave the specifics of what this actually consists of to you. I fully suspect that the "LCoS" will depend on the prevailing culture of any lab choosing to employ it. Similarly, an alarm clock incentive was once devised that worked like this....You set up a timed donation on your computer to your least favourite political party that would activate 5 minutes after your alarm clock went off, so if you did not get up and inactivate it you would loose money to people that you hate! I am sure that this could be adapted for lab use!!!!!
I do not intend to discourage anybody but the "messing up" workspace or equipment will never stop. I learned that much from working with many students and different researchers for a long period of time.
I do like the " Playboy-Rabbit ears" suggestion however ;-).... .
Since a few years our department wears a CCKL accreditation and we passed many "Lean" assesements. This resulted in a very clean, organised and thight structured working environment with equipment logs and strict working conditions. I must say it helped a lot regarding clean workspace and handling of equipment.
Just take the individual out back and beat the crap out of him! Just kidding.
Johanna, Joe and Andrew have the correct right ideas.
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