Who has my Vortexer?

When my coworker, the one who is currently on medical leave for a kidney transplant (and who is characteristically chomping at the bit to come back to work) started her position a year ago, she and I were part of a group that was supposed to move into a refurbished lab across the hall. I have found that it's better if one tries not to wait for these kinds of things. Sure enough, instead of the lab being ready in June-ish of 07, it was ready in June of 08.

Since the coworker is gone, I've been unpacking boxes, and trying to figure out who gets what, as there are two other sub-groups of people with their own stuff in the lab. This has proved to be a bit of a challenge, as the person who actually ordered the stuff is on vacation, and other people seem to be busy with other things at the moment.

I've found most everything I need to work, and indeed there are duplicates of a couple of things (centrifuges, water baths) so I've chosen one to work with and figured we can sort it out later. This way of working, however, is frustrating and it took me about twice as long to set up a PCR today than it usually does. Finish setting up that piece of equipment, go to the stockroom and get supplies, go to old lab and borrow some buffer, go back to stockroom because I need something else, you get the picture. We're supposed to de-glove and de-labcoat whenever we leave the lab, so that adds time (although I snuck across the hall a couple of times like a gloved and coated fugitive).

But I can't find my vortexer. There's one in there, but it's been claimed by another sub-group and I don't know what kind got ordered, so who knows. Oh, what is a vortexer? It shakes sample tubes so that the contents get mixed. I use one several times a day if I'm in the lab; they're just really handy when you're working with small quantities of stuff that need to be well mixed when you take your even smaller bit out. I admit I'm a little annoyed that I can't just be done with the set up and get back to work. Oh well, I can do most of what I need to do.

Happy 4th to all.

Image from here.