Yesterday GradStudent came in with the good news that he just received a grant that will pay his stipend and tuition. Hurray! Our Advisor responded with many congratulations, and handshakes, and then a thoughtful, “And good thing you got it because Dr. Jekyll just broke the ______[insert $15K piece of equipment here].”
Actually it was slightly broken before I ever laid hands on it, but now it’s much more broken, largely due to my efforts to fix it.
It was all in good cheer, though, insofar as a joke like that can be. I am lucky in that another Advisor (call him AdvisorB) had tried to help me fix the equipment. His repair methods were aggressive, and the initial result was no improvement. I then proceeded to try realigning a piece he had taken out and put back in, with the result that an interior lamp started shutting off. So, slightly more broken. I proceeded to solve that problem by removing and reseating the piece that AdvisorB had acted on, which certainly fixed the lamp on/off issue.
However, now the entire piece of equipment malfunctions, in the sort of way that may require it to be sent back to the company.
The company in question is in Germany. Insert Advisor, holding his head in his hands and muttering about time and money, here.
Fortunately, I spent yesterday trying a replacement piece of equipment, which ended up working fabulously. So much so that Advisor high-fived me and proceeded to wax enthusiastic about the new equipment. Which, incidentally, cost no more than $500.
Phew.
But the added bonus is that I am now pretty darn expert about the original piece of equipment, due to my repeated efforts to rearrange its innards according to my needs. This knowledge will come in handy….should the equipment ever recover to the point where it is usable once more.
15 years ago
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