Mornings: My Arch Nemesis

It’s official. After a seven-month hiatus, I have been unceremoniously dumped into the working world. I started working in January when my recruiter (or ‘The Vindicator of the Unemployed,’ as he is known by people, like myself, who enjoy assigning unnecessary yet impressive titles) gave me a call. “Jobs!” he cried enthusiastically, if only for the purpose of this narrative. So I set up an interview at an automated laboratory equipment company, and began shuffling my morals, ethics and core beliefs in preparation for my first real-world interview.

I shouldn’t have worried. Topics discussed during the interview included dogs, Cambridge, and my ability and/or willingness to perform repetitive tasks. I should have been suspicious about that last one, though, because it was touched on several times. Repetitively, one might say. However, the scent of a possible paycheck had numbed my mind. A few days later, supposedly after some other candidates had been interviewed, I got a call. The job was mine if I wanted it.

I actually had to choose between three jobs: validating automated laboratory equipment, sorting corn, and testing wastewater. Just like being a kid in a candy store... only instead of candy, the store is full of glass shards and red-hot barbed wire: take your pick! It was about this time that I began to seriously question my decision to be a biology major. Ha, ha. Just kidding. I’ve been questioning that decision for months now. Anyway, I made my decision based on a few factors. For one, the hours - "sorting corn at 6 a.m." is a little lower on my list of Stuff I Want To Do than “melon-balling my left eye out.” Thus, the corn would go unsorted. By me, at least. Another factor was the money – it’s a material world, baby, and I am a material girl. Also, I don't even want to contemplate what 'wastewater' encompasses for more than one millisecond, let alone test it for eight hours a day. Add all these factors up and you get me, going for the highly repetitive, highly paid temporary job.

My mom said they were probably lying about having other people to interview. Initially, I preferred to think that I won out against numerous highly qualified foes with my sparkling personality and impressive resume. But when I think about it now, I wonder if 'won' is really the most appropriate word to use- considering what I do day in and day out. Let me fill you in on what my biology degree entitles me to do, before the suspense overtakes the both of us.

I work in the glitzy and glamorous field of automated laboratory equipment. Try to contain your envy. To put it in layman's terms - the machine I work with is like one of those claw machines in grocery stores. You spend $10.00 to grasp at and ultimately fail to pick up a 2 oz. stuffed animal that has approximately the same value as a postage stamp. Fortunately for the suckers who fork over $45,000 for one of these marvels of modern technology, these are a little bit more accurate. And in addition to a claw, it has pipettes - basically a set of highly accurate basters for turkey fetuses. Or gerbil-sized squirt guns. Whichever makes me seem like less of a loser. These - say it with me now - pipettes move liquids into assays. An assay is like a tiny ice cube tray that could make 96 itty-bitty ice cubes.

These machines are, in my mind at least, used at some point during processes such as cloning dinosaurs, or any number of projects thought up by the licensed mad scientists in the country. This way, I can tell myself that I am in a small way a part of the scientific field I like to call "Friggin' Cool Science," instead of my quite obvious association with what we know as "Lame-Ass Science." Let's put it this way- Michael Crichton's never gonna write a book based on me or anything I do at work. Not by a long shot.

The first day of work, it was like having a new robot toy. Ten minutes later, the novelty had worn off and I was over it. There's really only so much fun you can have moving water around. The discovery and implementation of some food coloring managed to capture my interest for another five minutes. I definitely feel that the true potential of these machines is being overlooked: breakfast making machines.

Clearly, the need exists. Hollywood has proven it. I can think of numerous- well, several- okay, at least a few movies that feature these devices, and this only confirms for me that this is a very human aspiration, transcending time, language and religion. The first breakfast machine is featured in a film called "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and has been invented by a brilliant but misunderstood scientist. Primarily featuring a flying, sentient automobile, a small cameo is made by an albeit slightly antiquated breakfast making machine. If memory serves me correctly, it made toast and eggs and then sent the meals to the family on rolling plates. Even in 1968, the dream was alive.

Then, again in 1985, we see yet another mad scientist character, Dr. Emmet Brown, who is desperately striving to meet the world's demand for automatically prepared breakfast foodstuffs. The movie features, as a side project, a car that can travel through time. Obviously, a case can be made for some sort of relationship between cars with heightened functionalities, MAD SCIENTISTS, and breakfast making machines. The aforementioned machine reflects apparent advances in technology by adding a dog-feeding feature, demonstrating state-of-the-art technology. The breakfast automation knowledge base was advancing by leaps and bounds.

Other movies to feature breakfast making machines include Casper, Flubber, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I feel this technology is ready for the inevitable step from the big screen to a kitchen near you and me. And I feel obligated- no, that's not strong enough- I feel bored enough to explore the feasibility and potential for this technology.

The machines I work with now will need some obvious adjustments if they are to be competitive in the cutthroat world of today's automated breakfast machine market. For example, the scale is much too small. A 'pancake' function would ideally create a plate full of pancakes 5 to 6 inches in diameter. Current settings, however, would only allow for the creation of 96 dime sized pancakes. Which, now that I think about it, has its own friggin' awesome potential right there. Baby pancakes eaten with a spoon! Pancake shaped cereal! Miniscule pancakes so numerous in number could surely solve at least half of the world's major problems.

Today's laser, computer and egg technology could create new, higher standards for perfect toast, un-runny eggs (or runny, if you like 'em that way. I'll make a setting for that) and tiny pancakes. But it doesn't have to stop there. French toast, fresh squeezed orange juice, bacon and sausage, even more tiny pancakes: all this could be waiting for you when you wake up, while your breakfast making machine flashes a good morning message to you on its high-definition touch-sensitive monitor. It's time for humankind to wake up to the dawning of breakfast automation technology.

So, in summation, my job sucks and I still have to make my own breakfast. For now.