More Good News for Chocolate Lovers

[Mott the Hoople]

My dad works for the city of Lynnwood, WA (love that town, btw) as the Asst. Manager at the Wastewater Treatment Plant. He entered the field under Seattle Metro Wastewater Treatment, and then switched over to Lynnwood in 1990. Prior to that he had worked at a testing lab in Seattle called Laux, but he says he couldn't stand the fumes of the industrial chemicals he worked with, so he jumped fields.

He claims that his interest in working as a chemist is that it isolates him from having to "work with people." Which is funny, because he has to interface with city government as well as be a functional supervisor. He has great stories about bizarre things people have done, though, so I can see where his cynicism comes from. He's also bitter that the city appointed a new manager over him (political appointment, basically) when he has been serving as asst. manager for at least a decade.

I think that's a common trait among most science and technical types. I personally don't like being isolated from people but I do feel I do my best work when left alone to focus on my work. I have a wild imagination and you'd be amazed at how many people do NOT like working with imaginative people. When you work in a group of people, your much more likely to hear, "You Can't Do That" or "That Won't Work" or "That's Not The Way We Did This Before". Truth is, those people are almost always wrong and those who think something can be done and have the imagination to do it are almost always right. Communicating your vision and your ideas and your passion is sooooo hard to do because most people just don't want to take the time to listen and/or do things differently.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Ah, gotta love workplace mishaps!

My boss got even with me on that. He made me rebuild the oven I melted down and was like 100 deg outside.

 

[Minister of Truth]

Back at Metro, my dad used to get involved in lots of pranks. He and some guys turned the boss' desk around, drew lines with a sharpie to imitate drawer space, and glued the handles on. He drew the short straw once, where he had to inform a secretary that she had one second-place in a guy poll on best-looking female employees (everyone else tied for first). He led a guy right into an awaiting cream pie at a party (the guy then showed up at his wedding with a pie box in his hands, and my mom went to make sure it was empty - the card was inside). There were many more, but I remember these three best.

 

[Cypress]

LOL! Ask my parents. They refused to buy me a chemistry set on that basis, so I used whatever I could find around the house and barn.

Uh-oh. I’m totally betting there’s some stories of barns being burned down, or farm animals being blown up behind this little factoid.

I always dug chemistry. Especially inorganic chem.. That was cool. The organic chem. and P-chem traumatized me though. Yikes. Fright night! My brainpower could barely hack its way through one class of that kinetics and thermodynamics crap! So, cheers on being a genius Ms. Thorn. I'm not worthy! I’ll try to party with the dark chocolate, and reminisce about almost bombing out of thermodynamics.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Uh-oh. I’m totally betting there’s some stories of barns being burned down, or farm animals being blown up behind this little factoid.

I always dug chemistry. Especially inorganic chem.. That was cool. The organic chem. and P-chem traumatized me though. Yikes. Fright night! My brainpower could barely hack its way through one class of that kinetics and thermodynamics crap! So, cheers on being a genius Ms. Thorn. I'm not worthy! I’ll try to party with the dark chocolate, and reminisce about almost bombing out of thermodynamics.

I hated Freshman Inorganic Chem. Didn't like Chem till I took Organic. Didn't have PChem though. I took Qual & Quant analysis and Biochem. A Lot of my physiology classes were mostly chemistry though. Loved physiology. Twas my favorite basic science class.

I'm glad I got into the Environmental Science/Management. I truely do enjoy the multidisciplinary aspect of the work, though right now my work is administrative minutia. Yuck!

Things are looking good right now. The Green Professions/Fields are some of the fastest growing.

 

[Cypress]

I hated Freshman Inorganic Chem. Didn't like Chem till I took Organic. Didn't have PChem though. I took Qual & Quant analysis and Biochem. A Lot of my physiology classes were mostly chemistry though. Loved physiology. Twas my favorite basic science class.

I'm glad I got into the Environmental Science/Management. I truely do enjoy the multidisciplinary aspect of the work, though right now my work is administrative minutia. Yuck!

Things are looking good right now. The Green Professions/Fields are some of the fastest growing.

Cheers on Physiology....I wish I'd had more biological sciences. If I could leverage more life sciences knowlege plus get a law degree, I'd be unstoppable. A legend in my own mind!

I agree on the interdisciplinarian stuff. It's super cool, and way important to have a broad base of scientific knowledge, or work with an interdisciplinarian team. The whole environmental field, and even the climate science community has to leverage all aspects of science, chemistry, earth science, life sciences, physics, etc. From the public policy perspective and from the scientific perspective, a ton of knowledge has to be leveraged....which is totally cool and makes it a barrel of fun.

 

[Mott the Hoople]

Cheers on Physiology....I wish I'd had more biological sciences. If I could leverage more life sciences knowlege plus get a law degree, I'd be unstoppable. A legend in my own mind!

I agree on the interdisciplinarian stuff. It's super cool, and way important to have a broad base of scientific knowledge, or work with an interdisciplinarian team. The whole environmental field, and even the climate science community has to leverage all aspects of science, chemistry, earth science, life sciences, physics, etc. From the public policy perspective and from the scientific perspective, a ton of knowledge has to be leveraged....which is totally cool and makes it a barrel of fun.

and that's just one narrow example of the environmental field. Climate, Conservation, Waste Management (my area of expertise), Water and waste water treatment, management, and on and on. There's not a kill set that can't be used in the field so the broader your skill set the more value you have in the market.