![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
looking respectably
Feb. 3rd, 2005 04:35 pmAs part of our overall transformation into a respectable laboratory full of people who look like grownups, we are supposed to start wearing safety glasses. The vast majority of our lab work is in fact extremely low risk. It's hard to justify going to a lot of trouble to protect oneself from potato starch. (Another aspect of the transition to respectability is that we must not call it potato starch anymore. Pfui. I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it. Is it getting hungry in here or something?) We have ordered respectable-looking lab coats, that are not covered with blotches of ink in assorted colors. They will not have "Mad Scientists Union, Local 42" printed on the back, more's the pity. This is not a union shop.
I've been wearing flimsy little fashionable glasses since October, when I had my eyes examined and discovered my nearsightedness had improved enough that I didn't need a sturdy frame to hold lenses the opticians call high power. (It's remarkable how many more choices in frames there are at 5.5 diopters, compared to 7. It's like shopping for women's clothes at size 14 rather than 18. The difference is not so very big, but it crosses a major marketing shift.) When I wore sturdy glasses all the time, it was a terrible nuisance to find protective eyewear that fit over them, other than goggles that seal to the face and fog up and generally make a person miserable, unless they are providing obviously useful protection from something scary. I generally wore huge over-glasses with side shields, though one company had special prescription safety glasses made with even sturdier frames and lenses than I usually wore, and side shields screwed on...they felt heavy and lopsided and I rarely wore them. Now I can wear ordinary safety glasses. They fit right over these flimsy little things, like I have good eyes, or like I'm wearing contact lenses. I've been wondering if that's what I want to do every day in lab, or if I want sturdy prescription safety glasses. The company might even pay for it.
My regular glasses are not at all safe or sturdy. I cracked them last night, in two places, while indulging in the terribly risky habit of reading in bed. (_The Straw Men_) Or maybe it was after that. I don't know how many hundreds of times I slept in my old glasses, or hugged tall people, or did other glasses-stressing activities without worse consequences than popping a lens temporarily out of the frame. But these lenses are permanently attached to the frame -- they can't pop under strain, and the middle of the frame can't twist. So the nose pieces split. Both of them. I'm going to have them replaced, and start looking at alternatives to wear during dangerous activities.
I've been wearing flimsy little fashionable glasses since October, when I had my eyes examined and discovered my nearsightedness had improved enough that I didn't need a sturdy frame to hold lenses the opticians call high power. (It's remarkable how many more choices in frames there are at 5.5 diopters, compared to 7. It's like shopping for women's clothes at size 14 rather than 18. The difference is not so very big, but it crosses a major marketing shift.) When I wore sturdy glasses all the time, it was a terrible nuisance to find protective eyewear that fit over them, other than goggles that seal to the face and fog up and generally make a person miserable, unless they are providing obviously useful protection from something scary. I generally wore huge over-glasses with side shields, though one company had special prescription safety glasses made with even sturdier frames and lenses than I usually wore, and side shields screwed on...they felt heavy and lopsided and I rarely wore them. Now I can wear ordinary safety glasses. They fit right over these flimsy little things, like I have good eyes, or like I'm wearing contact lenses. I've been wondering if that's what I want to do every day in lab, or if I want sturdy prescription safety glasses. The company might even pay for it.
My regular glasses are not at all safe or sturdy. I cracked them last night, in two places, while indulging in the terribly risky habit of reading in bed. (_The Straw Men_) Or maybe it was after that. I don't know how many hundreds of times I slept in my old glasses, or hugged tall people, or did other glasses-stressing activities without worse consequences than popping a lens temporarily out of the frame. But these lenses are permanently attached to the frame -- they can't pop under strain, and the middle of the frame can't twist. So the nose pieces split. Both of them. I'm going to have them replaced, and start looking at alternatives to wear during dangerous activities.
