cold

Yesterday was Bastille Day, celebrating the most famous of all French revolutions. Traditionally, flags are being raised, military parades take place, and fireworks light the skies shortly before midnight. The day is a holiday, and nobody works. This year, 14 July was a Friday, and thus the weekend was long. It wasn't long enough for all, though. My employer argued with the most original French logic that I must take Thursday off also. If Bastille Day had been on Thursday, the Friday would have been off as well. Why not the other way around? I only worked half a day.

When I went to lab this afternoon, the cold room was not working. Instead of cooling my experiments to a refreshing four degrees, they were toasted at almost 20. This was second time in as many weeks, and I was predictably furious. I called the number at the door, ready to vent my anger. The sleepy voice at the other end (French don't work on Saturdays) told me that this number was only valid on work days and I should call security instead. They have to authorize any intervention. He gave me the number, I called, and couldn't believe my ears. I was advised to call the cold room maintenance number, the number I had called at first. When I pointed this out, the security guy said that he couldn't really do anything because no alarm had been triggered. Well, if the alarm had gone off I wouldn't be sitting here calling useless numbers and getting increasingly more frustrated. I tried to convey these ideas to the guy at the other end, but he had already dozed off.

There I was, with a cold room that wasn't cold anymore but full of ongoing experiments in an institute that sees itself at the forefront of international research but doesn't even have the most basic support that makes this research possible. Nothing will be fixed until well into next week.

How am I supposed to do my work? Oh, I forgot, I'm strongly discouraged from going to work on weekends. And if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have found out about the cold room failure and wouldn't be pissed off now. Expect for my experiments (minor detail), everything would be fine. I raise my glass to the French - a fitting thing to do on this Bastille weekend.