My Sense of Humor... Bombing

Many of my coworkers think I have no sense of humor at all. The trouble is, many of them have no clue that I’m joking.

This is not my fault.

True story from recently. I was in the lunchroom, standing at the sink washing my soup bowl. (I usually eat at my desk.) The Principle Scientist for my building (Ph.D. Chemist) walks in. He had been complaining earlier about the heat and humidity of the clean room housing the GMP (pharmaceutical-grade) dryer. He’s right to do so. Product manufacturing specifications require that room to be about 72 F and 70% relative humidity. With one of the A/C units down, it was much warmer in there and completely humidified.

The problem had been reported to maintenance and was being repaired, but he still had to spend time in there while parts were on order. Just to play around, he was insisting that I, as the building engineer, should develop an immediate workaround to get the room back into range.

I laughed, looked up, and said, “You’re probably just hot because of all the gear you have to put on to go in there!” (GMP requires anyone entering the room to be wearing a lab coat, hairnet, and “booties” – which are like hairnets for over your shoes.)

He said loudly, “Well yeah!” At this point, half a dozen chemical operators at the lunch tables look up at the two of us. He and I get along great, much to the mystification of most of our coworkers. They think both of us are crazy.

I smiled and replied, “Well, you know, our procedure says you have to wear the lab coat, hairnet and booties to go in there. Skip the uniform next time. You’ll be much cooler.”

He grinned, laughed, and left. Meanwhile, several operators at the table were whispering to each other something along the lines of, “We can do that?” (No.)

I routinely have to stop people from actually performing other joking suggestions I’ve made. Now I have to worry that I accidentally set off a wave of August nudism.

The first person who tries to pin a chemical burn on their ass to me gets written up.

The second person gets a soda. I’ll be laughing for days if it happens twice.