Thread by @hellozeik

I was just thinking abt trying to keep hydrated yday & remembering how my last job was in a cleanroom so we couldn’t have food/drinks & many experiments were run solo & couldn’t be paused safely to go out for hrs which meant no food/water/bathroom & now I’m 😡 that this is norm

The only concession to health & safety was having a 12 hr time limit to be in the lab mostly bc when you’re that tired you make mistakes that can be v bad for v $$ & hard to replace equipment. Note that that wasn’t total time worked just in lab limit.

I def understand how difficult it is to write experiment procedures that can be paused bc I wrote procedures myself but the actual issue is staffing. Focusing on running solo shifts for efficiency means ppl can be stuck alone for hrs.

& while official instructions may be to pause experiment if you need to go to the bathroom, in practice you’re still on the hook to finish your test. Bigger issue on evening/night shifts where you’d have to call security to come watch the setup if you had to leave.

OTOH I’m glad I got a chance to work on a hands on testing project for a mission I’ll always cherish working on & OTOH I’m 🤬🤬 that’s it’s so inaccessible for many others & def inaccessible to me now as well. No way I can go many hrs w/o sipping water again.

Anyway I’m having a day w feels abt inaccessible workplaces esp being #DisabledInSTEM

Some day I’m gonna write my big article abt how contractors are esp mistreated in some of these labs. Regular employees have access to certain health & safety protections that contractors don’t.