In the old days...

After university I was technically a scientist. It should've been exciting. It wasn't. The thing about working in a lab is it soon feels like any other job. I was surround by liquid nitrogen, I played with hydrogen cyanide (a special game I called “trying not to die”) and spent my time encircled by all manner of bubbling tubes and danger. At one place where the chief tech thought health and safety happened to other people, we made gunpowder from scratch and set it off in the fume cupboards. We were supposed to be testing the fuel filters for the Eurofighter.

Overall, though, nothing really changed from day to day. Even though I had to go home once and explain to my girlfriend why part of my thumb wasn't where I left it and the nail had melted a bit. It definitely had its moments – short painful ones that ended in accident report forms – but it was only stimulating when things caught fire. And there's a limit to how many times you can get away with that. So I quit. Looking back now it was probably for the best.