Reason I Hate My Job #1864

Equipment.

To understand why this is as bad as it is, let me provide a little background information. I work in an environmental & engineering consulting firm. Part of my duties within the environmental department include helping out with soil and/or groundwater sampling at sites with suspected contamination (old gas stations, dry cleaners, former mills, etc). A device used in all this is a photoionization detector (PID). We use a PID in the field to measure levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs - gas, diesel, dry cleaning fluids, etc) in the soil or groundwater. Gives us an idea what levels are like before sending the samples to the lab to be analyzed.

Why is this a gripe about my company? Because for the longest time, they wouldn't buy us a new one. They always acted surprised when we complained about it - apparently the old one worked just fine.

Riiiiiight.

The old one was a relic from the 70s, had a vague dial for a read-out display, and the cable connecting the meter to the sensor was held together by electrical tape. Although, it did have a convenient shoulder carry strap! Don't believe me? Check out the pictures below, as Amy models our lovely antique.

Now, here is our new one. It's a convenient hand-held model, digital read-out, and about a billion times more accurate than the old one. Can connect it to the computer and download all your data right away, all sorts of fun little tricks Mr. PID can do. This one here is our new one that Amy bought for us. Reached the point that we kept renting a unit, and it was coming out to be more expensive to keep renting it!

So that's the new toy. Yes, we do have a good PID now, but the run-around we had to get to have it approved was ridiculous. Now, if our engineering department had wanted it, you can bet it wouldn't have been nearly such a hassle for them. Just a bit of bitterness there. Only a touch.

What happened to the old PID? Amy wanted to send it to the Museum of Jurassic Technologies in CA (yes, there is such a place), but we ended up getting rid of it in the massive storage room clean-out last week.