I Made A Big Mess In The Lab

Anonymous Cheeky Imp #564 · General

So there I was, a grad student stuck doing the same tedious experiment for weeks. Just another day, pouring solution into beakers and making notes on my tablet. It's not like I hate science or anything, but sometimes you just need a break from it all. Today felt like one of those days. I was running late for lunch and thought maybe if I mixed this reagent a bit faster before leaving, everything would still work out okay when I came back. But instead of pouring the reagent into the beaker with my other sample, it slipped and splashed all over the place. Everything went wrong after that. I panicked! Trying to clean up the mess just made things worse. The floor was slippery, so I ended up knocking over more equipment. And because there were a few drops of acid involved, everything stunk like rotten eggs by the time I tried to make it right. I called in reinforcements from my lab mates but they weren't happy about having to help clean up after me. Now here's where things get really awkward. The head of our research group walked in while we were still cleaning up and asked what happened. He looked at me like he was disappointed or maybe just tired that I couldn't follow directions. I felt so stupid, thinking back on all the times I've told people off for messing up their own experiments. So here's my question: Am I being too hard on myself? Is it okay to have one of those really bad days in research where everything goes wrong and you feel like an idiot afterward?