At least you're out of there soon...SOON!
At least he didn't dump it down the sink. That gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Not to mention that it smells like hell. I get a headache working with phenol in the hood! How can you smell phenol and think "that's not toxic, might as well put it in the regular trash"?
I wanted to scream and smack him and yell 'I'M PREGNANT!!!! GET IT AWAY FROM MEEEEEE!'
We have clear tubes under the sink ever since the Chicken Incident. I bet they dissolve in phenol! (Shudder.)
ScienceMama: I wonder that too. I really, really do.
Ummmm... is "use phenol in the hood" not like the first thing taught to any fledgling lab rat? Or am I dating myself with this question?
He took it OUT of the hood and dumped it in the tip box. Yeah. It's not you, it's him. I'm still mad.
should a phone call to Environmental Health and Safety be made??
Yeah, Environmental Health & Safety would have a fit and a half. At least at my institution they were very stringent about rules. It helped that my advisor also cared.
You were (are) totally right to be pissed!!!
A month before I started my DPhil a post-doc in the lab (new baby at home...) nearly killed himself when he knocked over a bottle of phenol and it went all over his legs.
Skin grafts, dialysis - 3 months in Stoke Mandeville.
Needless to say, your story shocks me.
Thing is of course, I always become the Phenol Master in any lab I work in, probably because I know how dangerous it is and I refuse to let anyone else near it until I've scared them. The day they stop me using it is the day I will walk out and never look back.
Um, not all biologists are fucking idiots, clueless about hazardous chemicals, and/or illiterate. I'm going to assume that isn't what you meant, but it can certainly be read that way. Sorry, just a knee-jerk reaction from years of being reminded by people in the more "hardcore" sciences that my field is a joke and that everyone involved in it is a dim-witted sellout.
So, what was his reason for pouring the phenol out in the first place? Yes, the smell alone screams POISON!
Glad to see my lab isn't the only one with chemical waste issues. Still, I cannot believe someone could smell phenol and not know it's hazardous; that just seems beyond stupidity.
Sorry that he was being so clueless...Graduate school was a total safety nightmare.
I have to admit, the following has always baffled me:
http://www.chloraseptic.com
I had the pleasure of working with someone who liked to open containers of dangerous toxins (think we have to get special permission to order them because you can only have a certain amount in the lab and it could kill you!! kind of toxins) in the area of the lab where we eat & drink while there were people eating & drinking there. ARGH!! I screamed & yelled a few times (he did it repeatedly)...if he wanted to kill himself, fine, but don't put other people in the lab in danger for fuck's sake.
Holy crap. I've almost lost it on labmates just for leaving unlabeled bottles in inappropriate places. Your restraint is inspiring.
Ennove: I meant 'idiot biologists' as a subset of biologists. 
Wow. My lab doesn't work with anything too dangerous, but even with the most basic things (like glycerol) I've never had anybody try to throw them out in regular trash or leave them in a box in the hallway?! That sounds ridiculously careless. I do hope somebody has reprimanded him for this ridiculous show of carelessness? Would hate for him to do that again...
ps I def. read it as "idiot biologists" being a subset, not a blanket statement.
We have synthetic chemists who do stupid, stupid things like this. Take for example the numerous bottles of chemicals stored, long-term in the fume hood. A clear violation of environmental health and safety protocols. When it was mentioned to the chemist that this was a problem because it represents a major potential fire hazard, his response was, "Only if there is a fire." No shit. He proceeded to explain that he had to leave them in the hood because they were "very toxic". And then he left the sash ALL THE WAY UP. Not very effective for removing toxic fumes from the room.
ugh. Run as fast as you can, I'd say, but that's not appropriate either...
Perhaps someone should explain he is legally liable for harm caused by his stupidity.
Or if he is too dense, someone should explain it to the powers that be in his lab, department, etc. Lawsuit = less research money.
Commenting by HaloScan
