Nothing to demonstrate

Junior demonstrating is one of those things that D.Phil. chemists are ambivalent about.

On the one hand, it is a really boring experience where you get to watch a bunch of incompetent and inept undergraduates make a complete hash of really easy experiments, break countless items of glassware and if you're unlucky, injure themselves in the process. Most of the time it is about as exciting as watching paint dry and it usually turns out that your demonstrating slot coincides with the day that you have the most other stuff that really needs to be done now.

On the other hand it pays. In fact it pays rather well: about £70 per day (usually 4-6 hours with 45 minute lunchbreak). Pay is something that no grad student (especially if it looks like he'll over-run) can afford to turn down. It's much better than tutoring since there's no preparation, no non-contact time marking, and you can usually take an entertaining book to read (I've been taking PG Wodehouse this term (see:Wodehouse: the non-Jeeves stories)

Just occasionally, though, there will be a really, really good day where nobody turns up! Since experiments have to be started by 1130 (in order that they have a reasonable chance of finishing them) if no one has turned up by then the demonstrators can leave, but they still get paid (they can be called back to sign someone off if required).

Today has turned out to be one of those glorious days! So it's back to the lab for all the column chromatography anyone could wish for. There had to be a downside, didn't there?