Some things I have noticed lately

A lot of the resources at TS are sort of unhelpful. I know I'm comparing them too much to my old school, but still:

At the stockroom, I can't go in and find the things I want--I have to ask. The full-time employee working there knows nothing about chemistry and the extent of his training seems to have been in how to look up account numbers. He's cheerfully helpful, but if you ask him for something you'd better be prepared to have him wander around looking for things, offering you 12 variations on what you want until you get it right, and debating what he can and cannot sell you. It also takes ten minutes to get rung up on a simple order... and that's after the fifteen minutes to find what you need. Sigh. I like the guy, and none of this is his fault--it just seems weird that this level of training and expertise is all we can manage. Having an efficient and knowledgable stockroom manager is extremely useful.

I need to get into and out of a lab I don't have a key to. This is the second time this has happened. Both times my advisor and labmates suggested a number of ways I could get access to it--borrowing someone's key, borrowing the master key, etc. I'm planning on doing what I did last time, which was to go to the department secretary and ask to be assigned a key for the room. She never asks questions, and I don't have to ask for access. I'm not sure why nobody else thinks to do this. I guess you could say I'm taking a key someone else might need eventually, but if it's there it's obviously not being used yet, and I feel okay making my life easier. (Now watch all my keys get stolen so I have to pay for them all.)

Lastly, I need to type less. Ow.