This week, I was officially promoted to "box inventory manager," a very important and crucial role in laboratory management. The lab is currently preparing for renovations, so we are moving and throwing away a lot of supplies, so we are going through many different types of boxes. I'm in charge of keeping track of their availability and acquiring more types of boxes for certain purposes. I'm currently facing some box-related issues with my colleagues, so I plan on bringing this up in Monday's morning meeting to touch base with our needs.
In the lab, I've finally been let loose a little bit and trusted to perform tests on my own with the same expectations as other lab members. For example, this Friday, I was independently tasked with running full analysis on three oil samples that came in from railcars. This included RI, XRF, UVM, viscosity, GC, and nitrogen testing (explained in previous posts). This was a very cool experience to really be a true contributor and not a student anymore.
Another important experience I am getting is the overall concept of working "full-time" 40-hour weeks. It's an entirely different lifestyle to what I'm used to. I'm learning how to appreciate off-days a lot more, but also how to treat a job like somewhat of a lifestyle. That being said, I enjoy the work I'm doing so far and the fact that I don't dread going to work every day speaks volumes to the importance of pursuing something you're passionate about, considering that it quite literally takes up more of your week than it doesn't.
Anyways, this is Gamf. His name is technically Dino (company logo), but we renamed him. He is super cool and sits at the intern desk with us.
