Does anyone else ever get told to do a new lab method where no one has any experience with it, and no one knows how to operate the machine? I just got handed the 70 page manual and got told to 'work out how to use it'.

This is not an effective use of my time! I think this should be the job of a technician or lab manager, not a PhD student with only 6 months of funding left!

Hi TreeofLife,

I completely emphathise with you here! I can't even count the amount of time I must have wasted trying to get bits of equipment to work and searching for equipment that I need but isn't available in the lab, only for my supervisor to then change his mind and say to move onto another assay. What with that and having to optimise two new techniques in the last few months of funding, I am well and truly fed up of my lab! Hope you've had some better luck with this machine - how's it going now?

Tulip

It's not too bad now actually, I managed to convince a post doc in the lab to help me use it and he spent about 2 hours showing me the ins and outs of everything, which was way over the top but better than the alternative of no help at all!

He also offered to help me run my samples on it, which was really nice of him and we are going to do this next week.

I think some people just don't remember what it's like to work in a lab and that it is much more productive to get someone who knows what they are doing to help another person than let everyone figure it out on their own.