I got this cute little magnet for the ladies and couldn't help but buy one for myself so here it is on my fridge.
Most days we laugh about it, however on those bad days when the world's against you and you have to drag your feet kicking and stomping to make it into work, the smell of death in the lab is the last thing you need.
Our room's strong ventilation/circulation system brings us smells from all parts of the lab building. We get delicious lunch smells for hours every day, and all of the not so delicious meals waft into our room also, the burnt popcorn, the seafood, the stinky frozen dinners.
We get a wide array of samples to test also, so day to day we never know what to expect. These samples have included insects, fish parts, frog parts, chicken legs, honey with honey comb, human waste water, oils, and every foul industrial sludge smell known to man. Often times it smells like sulfur or an industrial tar like aroma.
Sometimes the room smells just because of the chemicals we have to use. Our room specifically works with a lot of ether, methylene chloride, methanol, and hexane, along with a host of acids and neat materials.
The absolute worst smell is when the raw meat samples come in. Being a longtime vegetarian I don't prefer the look of meat, let alone the smell of rotting meat, and even the staunch hunters in the building turn around and head for the other end of the lab when the meat arrives.
I found this fun periodic table of smells to check out too!
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