Whenever anything is turned on, there’s a loud whirring and a big shower of sparks. Computer screens with big flashing “WARNING!” signs are optional.
Something is inevitably spinning on the lab bench. It’s unclear if it does anything.
Fixing a major problem is solved when someone has an “Ah-hah!” brainstorm moment, wires up something on the spot, and it magically works perfectly.
Assembling a new thingymajig involves lots of power tools and pieces which fit together seamlessly. If they don’t fit, they can be made to fit with some elbow grease and definitely won’t fail horribly the first time you turn them on.
Labs are festooned in such random pieces of hazardous equipment as high-voltage power lines, random chemicals, blowtorches, and radioactive materials.
In reality, we spend a lot of our days at our desks, the equipment is surprisingly quiet (and that which isn’t, you stay well away from while it is operating), and spinny stuff largely went away in the 1980s. Assembling a new thing is 30 minutes of grumbling, 3 hours of pulling your hair out, and day(s) of waiting for a new part because someone screwed up tolerances or signal polarity. The most dangerous thing in the lab is stuff sloppily left laying on the floor, which I have tripped over and nearly cracked my skull before.
In fairness, #4 happens sometimes. It’s extremely rare, but occasionally you do get those moments where you figure out what the bug in the system is and can rectify it in an hour or two. Most of the time, a fast fix for one problem causes another.
(Engineering)
According to movies:
We spend our entire workdays in the lab.
Whenever anything is turned on, there’s a loud whirring and a big shower of sparks. Computer screens with big flashing “WARNING!” signs are optional.
Something is inevitably spinning on the lab bench. It’s unclear if it does anything.
Fixing a major problem is solved when someone has an “Ah-hah!” brainstorm moment, wires up something on the spot, and it magically works perfectly.
Assembling a new thingymajig involves lots of power tools and pieces which fit together seamlessly. If they don’t fit, they can be made to fit with some elbow grease and definitely won’t fail horribly the first time you turn them on.
Labs are festooned in such random pieces of hazardous equipment as high-voltage power lines, random chemicals, blowtorches, and radioactive materials.
In reality, we spend a lot of our days at our desks, the equipment is surprisingly quiet (and that which isn’t, you stay well away from while it is operating), and spinny stuff largely went away in the 1980s. Assembling a new thing is 30 minutes of grumbling, 3 hours of pulling your hair out, and day(s) of waiting for a new part because someone screwed up tolerances or signal polarity. The most dangerous thing in the lab is stuff sloppily left laying on the floor, which I have tripped over and nearly cracked my skull before.
In fairness, #4 happens sometimes. It’s extremely rare, but occasionally you do get those moments where you figure out what the bug in the system is and can rectify it in an hour or two. Most of the time, a fast fix for one problem causes another.