Great progress

This week, because Tony is back and the Hamilton technician is here, I have enough spare time to really focus on the QC training. It has made a huge difference.
This morning I was shown to a plate and told to come and ask if I had any questions. I made all the forms found and created the right reagents and templates, ran the PCR machine programs, analysed the results and did the gels by myself.
I definitely needed confirmation on the analysis step but got all but one well right.
Now I am learning the results phase with lots of minutia about which files to upload and where to put finished analysis. I feel great about this. The uploading is the final step and is the only one I cant do on my own (baring unforeseen disaster.).
I am not fast and I am not confident but I do think if I needed to I could now cover for someone in QC if they got sick tomorrow.
I think with another week of this amount of time, I wont dread the upcoming vacations.

Here is the RT2 and Methylation plate I got this morning.

A rough week

This week was supposed to be my big independence week. The hope was that I would be running PCR plates from start to finish on my own by the end of the week.
Unfortunately my friend and co-worker Tony has had a rather serious medical problem and is in the hospital.
That has changed by an order of magnitude the amount of free time I have to devote to cross-training.
I did actually run my own PCR plates twice this week and that feels a little like a miracle at this point.
I feel the upcoming vacations of all the many QC folks that are going to China in late October and early November looming over me like a tidal wave.
In other news my robots are all having personal meltdowns this week....
its not even a full moon.
My job right now is kicking robots and scurrying about trying to fill in big shoes.
I am stressed.
The good news is that Tony is OK and they will be letting him out of the hospital maybe as early as this weekend.
The other good new is that when I ran things they went well.
The bad news is I am just not ready to take over for anyone at this point and I am not sure that I will get enough time to practice before I am given that job.

Huzzah

I ran my first RT2 and Methylation plates on my own today. They worked well and I remembered all the steps. I also took my first whack at doing a gel myself. So far so good!
next week I will be in QC every day working on PCR and gles and hypothetically doing analysis too.
It is a good thing my other class is wrapping up. I am about to be completely out of spare time.

Yay!

chugging along

Last week was the end of quarter, which means in production, a very busy time. I hardly did anything with QC. Now its October and I am back in the saddle. Today I did 8 gel plates and got some big news.
I am being transferred to QC for between 2 weeks and 2 months.
This is going to be great for this class. I am going to spend a great deal of time following Yuye around in the next few weeks. Then in the beginning of November or the end of October I will be taking over several PCR duties.
I am excited and a little scared.
I am so glad to have the opportunity and proud that I am being trusted with it.
I am also anxious to not screw anything up.
Tomorrow will be my first day of heavy shadowing in preparation for my upcoming responsibilities.
Wish me luck.