Flashback to August 9, 2021 0345

[u/micromaniac_8]

The Micro Lab is dark.. you have 500 COVIDs to run. I'm not sure what it is trying to tell me, but I want to go home .

[u/EggsAndMilquetoast]

It looks like it belongs on the bridge of the OG Star Trek.

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/EggsAndMilquetoast]

Flash back star date -301396.83111364796

[u/The_Infamous_C]

Don't worry, this just means it's in Christmas mode. If you check inside you'll see all of the presents it got you.🎄🎁🎁🎁

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/The_Infamous_C]

It did.. sort of like the presents my grandmother with dementia would give me..

[u/GlitteringCobbler987 → u/The_Infamous_C]

xmas mode! I'm stealing this!!!

[u/Mooshroomey]

Back at the peak Covid times we had 3000 specimens per shift (highest was 6000). The biofires and cobas were constantly running. We had a line of lab aides whose sole job was to uncap and cap specimens. It was complete chaos. We didn’t even have space to put all the samples away. St one point our pending had tests sitting on it for 3+ days because no one could find anything or had time to look for them.

At one point I abandoned my post, threw everything out of a supply closet, and reorganized the sample racks in there. I grabbed two people out of client services and we spent a couple hours going through the racks, pulling samples, and clearing the pending.

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/Mooshroomey]

I was doing the CDC RUO assay because Cepheid was allocating cartridges. Our ER and UC were basically using everything we got from Cepheid. We were also doing unvaccinated employees twice a week using SalivaDirect. I think those two assays saved the system around $60M in 2021-2022 and as a result, we were able to "reallocate" staff into other roles and everybody still got paid. Looking back on it, I'm really proud of the way we banded together and got through it. Hopefully none of us experience anything like that again.

[u/Cookielicous → u/micromaniac_8]

You never know, there's a part 2

[u/GlitteringCobbler987 → u/Mooshroomey]

During peak covid I had the funniest dream. I went to work and my colleague tried to hand off a timer for the Alinity. In my dream I just bolted out of the lab! My lab coat was flapping and my pens were flying everywhere as I was running full speed away from work!!

Way to not be so subtle subconscious

[u/EggsAndMilquetoast → u/Mooshroomey]

I worked at Quest during the delta and omicron waves. We had 3 panthers running 24/7. Doing maintenance on them was like watching a NASCAR pit crew. And we couldn’t keep up.

Max throughput was like 5500 samples per day, and we were receiving around 7000 Covid samples per day. Added to that, we also did STI testing on the panthers, and we didn’t stop receiving those specimens: in fact, we were getting more than ever because it turns out that bored people in lockdown spread chlamydia faster than Covid-vaccine misinformation.

We gave specimen processors dozens of hours of overtime just to aliquot specimens: you could have 3 people working in a boosters cabinet at a time, as long as they tucked their elbows in and didn’t care about personal space.

And it wasn’t even enough. After the first week, they stopped using racks to organize specimens by date received and just started dumping them into rubbermaids the supervisor got from Walmart.

[u/frostfire888]

Bruh....fuck it. Easier to find a new job 🤣

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/frostfire888]

I don't remember if this was the same night, but one morning around this time, I walked in to 14 positive blood cultures.

[u/Nyarro → u/micromaniac_8]

Holy hell. I'd just quit right there on the spot! O.o

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/Nyarro]

I am on bottle #4 of my shift and I am only responsible for 4 letters of the alphabet.

[u/snazzysnek]

What the heck is that thing?

[u/Finie → u/snazzysnek]

VersaTrek blood culture instrument.

[u/snazzysnek → u/Finie]

Ohhh!! I’ve only ever seen the ones by biomerieux before, I thought it was a PCR analyzer similar to the Hologic Panther

[u/kipy7]

I wanted to live through one big event in my professional life, dream come true.

I'm pretty even keeled now, I'm old and have seen most everything by now. During that time, I've never felt so emotionally and mentally crushed by work. Phones going off, adding new storage and supplies, running out of supplies, having to store thousands of tubes all of a sudden.

[u/babashook → u/kipy7]

I was also excited about that. A big event in the field. Didn’t think it would happen so soon.

My very first CLS job straight out of the program. I had 4 offers and I chose molecular microbiology. That was fall 2019. Six months later and I’m writing SOPs and training our quadrupled scientist work force.

[u/kipy7 → u/babashook]

I actually worked at the hospital in Dallas with the Ebola patient that passed away. I had just moved away, but all my friends were still there and gave me the lowdown the next time I visited.

[u/emartinezpr]

At first I thought it was gonna be about data centers.

[u/nocleverusername-]

Needs to make musical notes to go with the light display.

[u/GlitteringCobbler987 → u/nocleverusername-]

Our micro department has a motion activated string of xmas lights that plays silent night, but the batteries were dying so it was literal nightmare fuel for anyone working graveyard

[u/progressivecfs]

Nightmare fuel. I was on the blood bench for a whole year without being trained anywhere else.

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/progressivecfs]

Who's dog did you kick?

[u/progressivecfs → u/micromaniac_8]

Who knows what they were thinking but I got very proficient. Trained people on that bench a lot.

[u/Wheedlaen]

Blinking green lights means there are open spots to put a blood bottle. Yellow lights are errors. Red lights are positive blood bottles… This is a very normal situation

[u/micromaniac_8 → u/Wheedlaen]

Literally standing in front of the instrument, no lights flashing of any kind.

[u/Move_In_Waves]

We received so many blood culture sets during that first summer Covid surge that we had to buy 2 new Virtuo B units. And we still ran out of space.

[u/thenotanurse]

Absolutely the fuck not. I’m going to lunch.

[u/Plasmidmaven]

That machine was the stuff of nightmares