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Here's a fun story. I left academia right after my Ph.D and moved to London, where I started freelancing as a software developer. Naturally, I joined a cowork

Here's a fun story. I left academia right after my Ph.D and moved to London, where I started freelancing as a software developer. Naturally, I joined a coworking space, since I was new in town and wanted to meet people. This coworking space had a weekly social event where new members were introduced over drinks, and I was promptly asked to go on stage and introduce myself and say a few words about my professional background. I hopped on stage and started talking about my Ph.D in cognitive neuroscience. I told them that I was studying how the attentional system is involved in conscious perception. To make it a bit more tangible, I asked everybody to close their eyes, and said "I've now been talking to you for a few minutes. With your eyes closed, I want you to tell me what color pants I'm wearing." If you're British, you're likely roaring with laughter at this point. For the Americans: pants means underwear in the Queen's English. We all had a jolly good laugh.

azalemeth 4y ago
When a graduate student, I once shoved a sample into a -80 ºC freezer with a template on the front showing what everything was, written in pencil as an index (everything was stored in a metal rack in a particular position and they all looked identical from the top – it was a bit of a pain to find your sample if you didn't know where to look as you'd have to lift them all out and rummage). Someone had removed something and not removed its name from the index on the door, and I'd placed my sample in its place, let's say into spot H6. I went around the corner and popped my head into the nearest office – a female (and conventionally attractive) American post-doc I didn't know terribly well was sitting there typing and I just said, "Hey, <name> do you have a rubber I could borrow in a hurry for just a moment? I'll bring it back in less than two minutes, promise!". She changed colour, burst out laughing, and handed me "an eraser"...
- omginternets 4y ago
  Oh man, that's a very unfortunate choice of words :'D

azalemeth 4y ago

When a graduate student, I once shoved a sample into a -80 ºC freezer with a template on the front showing what everything was, written in pencil as an index (everything was stored in a metal rack in a particular position and they all looked identical from the top – it was a bit of a pain to find your sample if you didn't know where to look as you'd have to lift them all out and rummage). Someone had removed something and not removed its name from the index on the door, and I'd placed my sample in its place, let's say into spot H6. I went around the corner and popped my head into the nearest office – a female (and conventionally attractive) American post-doc I didn't know terribly well was sitting there typing and I just said, "Hey, <name> do you have a rubber I could borrow in a hurry for just a moment? I'll bring it back in less than two minutes, promise!". She changed colour, burst out laughing, and handed me "an eraser"...

omginternets 4y ago
Oh man, that's a very unfortunate choice of words :'D