Nurse, ten blade please...
I work in a lab. I have a white coat, I wear latex gloves and I do fairly fiddly stuff that involves forceps, scalpels and attaching very thin bits of tubing to other bits of tubing.

I'm also a bit boss eyed, and so I tend to work under a high powered magnifying mirror with a light attached so I can see what I'm doing.

I like to pretend that I'm actually doing brain surgery and when I'm on my own, have been known to talk to an imaginary scrub nurse as if I were really excising a tumor...

Ironically, I spend a good proprortion of my working week in the neurosurgery department with real brain people. Whenever I go over, I try to take a white styroform box with warning labels stuck to it and walk through the most populous areas of the hospital lobby, looking frantic, in the hope that people will think I'm part of some transplant team.

I cannot describe how much pleasure I get from this. Or what a sad, sad bitch this makes me. Though the latter is probably self evident...
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 21:22, 5 replies)

I have always wanted to...
...get one of those styrofoam boxes from the lab, fill it with ice, mock up a few "WARNING: HUMAN ORGAN FOR TRANSPLANT - KEEP ON ICE" stickers and slap them on it, and then buy a pig's heart from the butcher and put it inside. I would then put on my labcoat and gloves, go to the hospital and find a crowded lift. While riding in the lift, I'd whistle a jaunty tune to make sure everyone's attention was focused on my box and I.

When the lift reached my (arbitrary) floor, I would get out, only to trip spectacularly and send the ice and heart all over the floor, then scramble frantically around on my hands and knees gathering it all up and saying "Don't tell anybody! It'll still be good!"
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Fri 14 Mar 2008, 1:46, closed)

@Rakky
I'll bet you've suffered that ubiquitous scientist's injury of having a sharp glass tube jammed into the end of your thumb when trying to fit a glass tube into a rubber tube. It won't quite go in, so you push a little harder, then it snaps, sending the broken end right into the end of your thumb.

Did this myself (again) last year, and it looked like my thumb had been cored like an apple. It took a few weeks for a stray piece of glass to work its way out too.

But no way is that a guilty pleasure. And I'm just rambling. Oh, and the reply above made me laugh. A lot. :-)
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 14 Mar 2008, 8:32, closed)

I worked in a lab in a hospital
I used to hang around the operating theatres in my lab coat with my dry ice filled polystyrene box (from Sigma natch) waiting for samples. I too hoped people though I was tres important ;)
(sittingduck Attention seeking, bullshitting fuck-knuckle, Fri 14 Mar 2008, 12:57, closed)

oball
That is a FANTASTIC idea. God, I really want to try that now. Though here in the states, I'd probably get sued for that. Or something.

K2K6, my problem is needle sticks. We use a variety of wide bore needles to connect our syringe pumps to our tubing and I'm forever slipping and stabbing myself with them. Good job I've just had a hepB jab...

And, the other day, I had to put on the full bunny suit protective gear for a day in the clean room... I pretended I was on the International Space Station and entertained myself by doing a comedy "zero gravity" walk.

I'm such a tit.
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 14 Mar 2008, 13:07, closed)

Pasteur pipette in the thumb?
Been there, done that.

Also:

Applied tongs that have been sitting in LN2 to my wrist to "see how cold they are".

Stabbed myself in the finger with a syringe full of ethidium bromide.

Spilled a phenol/chloroform/bacterial lysate mixture onto my crotch.

Got a nosebleed from using concentrated HCl outside of a fume hood.

I suffer for my science, dammit.
(oball needs Satan more than he needs me, Fri 14 Mar 2008, 14:23, closed)