User talk:Karsten Theis/Takustr6
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Weekends
Weekends were the time you really could make progress on the graphics system or one of the purification machines. Sometimes, though, the PI would walk in and have suggestions (like "did you try to add calcium") and your plans would change.
Smoking
Famously, Joerg Labahn and Hui-Woog Choe swore on their own brands of cigarettes to generate smoke to induce nucleation in crystallization. They would smoke in the lab no matter whether they were setting up crystallization trays or not.
Secretaries
Students and guest scientists came and went, but the secretary provided institutional memory.
IT dept
Leibniz keks
1988: 
Surprises
The day the FAST detector got flooded... The day in seminar the PI shouted "that alpha helix is left-handed" and the speaker, after some consternation, flipped the overhead slide... The day a grad student wanted to announce to the world that crystallization of novel proteins in space works, and the post-doc recognized the units cell dimensions as those of hen-egg white lysozyme, the positive control.
Occupational hazards
Sometimes, you would get yelled at. Like the new students asking what the red button on the X-ray generator does while reaching for it. Or like the PI when he picked up the physical model of FIS (still in 10 amino acid segments) and started fidgeting with it, changing side chain torsion angles. Sometimes, you would get embarrassed. Like the diploma student who first learned how to crystallize RNAse T1 with TTP, and then tried to crystallize RNAse A with TTP ("what do you think the A stands for?", asked the old-hand grad student laughing out loud after the entire tray had already been set up, with the PI grinning in the background"). And folks wore special undergarments when they knew they had to spend hours in the cold room.
, respectively.
Magic word you had to use at least twice or four times in posters and papers, respectively.
Culture clashes
We had a variety of people, some who grew up in Berlin and had never left it (and didn't speak much English), and visitors from all over the world. Interactions weren't always smooth. The 16-year old lab tech started calling a visitor from Japan Kamikaze because he was so polite that he would quickly move to the wall of the main hallway when someone else approached him. Everyone learned how to say "yes" in Russian because one of the co-workers kept uttering "da, da, da, da" on the phone.
Myths
The one about the pipette tips floating in the bottled buffer solutions ("they increase the shelf-life of the buffer").
Food supply
Olfert Landt started two businesses during his time at Takustr 6. The Biobar was a drawer below one of the fridges stocked with candy bars. The checklist, which was evaluated weekly, was taped to the fridge. You could see who had deadlines or no other place to be by looking at the list. There was another list for coffee. Tobacco was not provided. Olfert's other business is still going strong.
Sleeping arrangements
Most folks had homes most of the time. On synchrotron trips, though, sleeping arrangements were sketchy. For one trip to DESY in Hamburg, the PI determined the number of reserved beds by dividing the number of travelers by two. After all, the synchrotron runs 24/7, and half of the crew should always be at the beam.
