Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

LydiaJ

Glad you're OK PN. Reminds me of a time years ago when I was a graduate student. I was doing tours of the lab, and had just brought a group visitors into our lab. I stood in front of my equipment, talking about it, and then opened the sliding perspex door. Because I was still facing the visitors, I did it backhand, and promptly gouged a chunk out of the back of one of my fingers on the edge of the other door that it was sliding behind. It was a hot day and the lab was quite airless, and what with the heat and the pain I suddenly felt quite faint. I managed to finish off the last few sentences of what I had to say and remind my visitors of the way back to where they had to meet next, and got them out of the door before dropping to the floor voluntarily as that was clearly going to be the only way to avoid going down involuntarily. Seconds later one of the technicians came in - I was mortified thinking that because he was "a bit of a lad" he would think I was being very girly and feeble, but he was lovely about it. He told me it was the sort of thing that might happen to anyone, and that he was the designated first aider and would look after me until I felt better. He put me on a chair with my head between my knees and fetched me a drink of chilled water.

That research group was two academics, two technicians, and me, the grad student. The other 4 were all over six foot and male, and I'm neither of those. I felt I had to be as strong and tough as the guys to prove I was a real scientist. It was nonsense really. The only two occasions when I had to admit I needed special treatment they didn't regard it as any reflection on my scientific ability. The first of those was when I finally got sufficiently fed up with the ends of my disposable glove fingers getting caught in the screw threads of the sample containers and asked for my own separate box of latex gloves in a size that would actually fit me, and the second was when they finished building my apparatus and I realised that I was going to be handling glassware that was not only fragile and extremely expensive but would create a delay of weeks in my research to replace it if I broke it, and so even to save my pride it wasn't worth the risk of handling it every day at the very limit of what I could reach, and I was really going to have to have a stool to stand on.

GDB2222

Lydia, I think gloves come in only two sizes: too big and too small. The latter are better, provided you can get them on somehow.

"... they didn't regard it as any reflection on my scientific ability" [that you needed smaller gloves and something to stand on]. I should think not! Our minds play tricks on us, but it's not always easy to notice at the time.

LydiaJ

GDB2222 wrote: »

Lydia, I think gloves come in only two sizes: too big and too small. The latter are better, provided you can get them on somehow.

They managed to get me latex ones that fitted nicely, so that was OK for every day. However, once every few weeks I had to clean off the plates the samples went into the apparatus on, and that had to be done using aqua regia (really really really strong and concentrated acid) and so needed great big thick rubber elbow-length gauntlets. I said I needed smaller ones of those too, which they said would be fine, and to put in an order for them, but then neither I nor the bloke who ran the lab store could find any manufacturer that made them in any size other than large. That was in 1990 or about then. I wonder if rubber gauntlet manufacturers have got less sexist over the last 27 years?

GDB2222 wrote: »

"... they didn't regard it as any reflection on my scientific ability" [that you needed smaller gloves and something to stand on]. I should think not! Our minds play tricks on us, but it's not always easy to notice at the time.

When you are young and the only female in an overwhelmingly male environment (not just our group, but the building as a whole) you feel you have something to prove, even though you don't, really. Actually, I find scientists to be not only non-sexist but about the least prejudiced profession possible. Most of them only care about whether the science you are doing is any good. Everything else about you is an irrelevance. This also makes them very accepting of each other's eccentricities, which is just as well in some cases!

ivyleaf

michaels wrote: »

I am guessing a hide and side oven door tilts down then sides in under so you can get close to the oven. I prefer elecric grills - take longer but you don't burn everything.

Yes, that's it. Neff make them; I don't know if anyone else makes a similar one. Keep thinking that at our age (early sixties) we should perhaps be thinking of buying appliances that will be easier to use as we get older

Mind you, what with "built-in obsolescence", whatever we buy now will most likely last only a few years anyway, so we could think about that next time

Pyxis

ivyleaf wrote: »

Yes, that's it. Neff make them; I don't know if anyone else makes a similar one. Keep thinking that at our age (early sixties) we should perhaps be thinking of buying appliances that will be easier to use as we get older

Mind you, what with "built-in obsolescence", whatever we buy now will most likely last only a few years anyway, so we could think about that next time

If I ever refit my kitchen, I'll have as much as possible at (my) eye level, so as to save on the bending. Trouble is, my kitchen is very small, and there's hardly any work surface as there is, so I don't know if that will be practical.

I'll definitely have a (my) eye level grill, though!

chris_m

michaels wrote: »

I prefer electric grills - take longer but you don't burn everything.

Personally, I prefer gas for hob and grill - far more controllable, I find. If I want to turn things up or down I don't have to do so in advance of the new setting I want to allow for an element heating up or (worse) cooling down.
Electric's OK for an oven, although my present cooker is all gas.

As to burning everything, I find that only happens if you leave it in/on/under the oven/hob/grill for too long - no matter what the fuel used might be. I've very successfully burnt stuff on a wood or coal fire as well as gas or electric cookers

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

Personally, I prefer gas for hob and grill - far more controllable, I find. If I want to turn things up or down I don't have to do so in advance of the new setting I want to allow for an element heating up or (worse) cooling down.
Electric's OK for an oven, although my present cooker is all gas.

As to burning everything, I find that only happens if you leave it in/on/under the oven/hob/grill for too long - no matter what the fuel used might be. I've very successfully burnt stuff on a wood or coal fire as well as gas or electric cookers

Yes, I prefer gas for hob and grill too.
I've got an electric oven, but another time I'll go back to gas.
You can't put stuff on the floor of the oven, as there's a heating element in it. Wretched nuisance, if you have a lot of stuff to cook.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

You can't put stuff on the floor of the oven, as there's a heating element in it. Wretched nuisance, if you have a lot of stuff to cook.

That's only some of them .... but you don't know which ones

You can keep an eye out at a car boot/similar for a random oven shelf that's small enough to just sit on the bottom. Or, if there's a grill pan, use that one.

ukmaggie45

Thanks Pyxis and Ivyleaf for asking after me.

I'm more or less OK other than still trying to work out how much of the CosmoCol to use to not end up having to stay near loo till about lunchtime. :eek:

Went to see the Colono-rectal consultant again to explain that I'm only now beginning to get over the colonography I had done last November or whenever it was, so am refusing the sigmoidoscopy. He's discharged me. If get worse or changed symptoms will go back to GP. But I don't want the rest of this year to be wrecked any more than it's currently being by waiting for the Tribunal. OH managed to find out that will prob be around mid May.

We'd hoped to get off to the caravan, but we both have dentist next Friday. And I have another Friday after, followed by hygienist the Friday after that. So prob won't be going any time soon.

Missed the party at DD2's for DD1's son's belated birthday party as we didn't have transport (OH went on bus and train). We lend car to DD1 if she's only here for a few days - I'm not happy with our car anyway as it isn't very comfortable for me. Not worth trying to change before Tribunal though for various reasons.

Still not made it out into back garden yet, but have been sitting in porch and overseeing OH planting a load of dahlias, sweet pea seeds (root planters, not direct sown, and they're in porch), and generally weeding a bit in front garden. He's done the spuds in lottie and back garden too. Onions went in at lottie in autumn. We still have around 200 summer flowering bulbs to plant! :eek: We'll get there if the sun comes out again - bit grey and grismal after rain yesterday. Saturday was lovely but I didn't feel well enough to get out.

Hugs to you all, I've missed reading a few days, but think I'm caught up now.

Pyxis

Glad you're ok Maggie!
And getting some sun on your bones!


Pastures........
If he's parked over 2' of your land then you are entitled to ask him to move his car.

If you mean that he's not on your property but so close as to make it difficult for you to park, then you could still explain and ask him to park it a bit further away.
I know it's a nuisance to have to bang on doors, but it shouldn't stop you going in and out of your space. If you explain quietly what the problem is, it would save you festering.

If you can't find who it is, leave a polite note on the windscreen, explaining the problem, just in case they ever think of doing it again.


I once arrived home from a long journey to find someone parked across the access to my drive, so I couldn't get my car onto my property.
I banged on a few doors but no-one knew who it was.

Finally I called at my immediate neighbour's to see if she had seen who had left it there, and I was gobsmacked when she said it was her visitor's!

I hadn't thought to ask her first as I'd assumed she wouldn't have let anyone park there, as we knew each other quite well.

To make matters worse, the dippy visitor had met me before! Her reasoning was that 'she hadn't realised!'.
Derr! Hadn't realised what?

Because I'd spent about 10 minutes knocking on doors, was tired from the drive, and dying for a cup of tea, I was by now livid, and it was all I could do not to explode.

This neighbour had had other guests in the past who had done the self-same thing, so you'd have thought she'd have taken care to ensure that her inconsiderate friends didn't do it to me again.