Antick Musing's Fridays, Black and Otherwise

[james_davis_nicoll]

[...] [M]odern Westerners can be separated by the work they did when they were young and unskilled. One great mass worked in retail, selling goods of one kind or another. A second cohort worked in food service, waiting tables or working a grill. And the third group, seemingly the luck ones, were those rich or privileged enough not to have to work at all -- the ones who were children, then entirely students, and then set off on their careers, without ever having had "just a job."

Comments

[mr-mediocre.livejournal.com]

One semester in high school I was the chemistry teacher's 'lab assistant' and did various preparations while she taught a different science section. Most of the labs I have utterly forgotten, but on one occasion I was supposed to prepare a solution of (IIRC) ammonium chloride. The only bottle of the stuff said 'anhydrous', so I poured a bit of the powder into a flask of water. The small explosion produced a big gout of fumes, but I think the flask held together until it hit the floor. No injuries, but a memorable lesson in checking with the teacher when the label doesn't *quite* match the directions.