Wow. Many thanks to those who responded on the gloves/keyboard cover issue.
People obviously have been through this before and have strong
opinions. The replies were 6 out of 6 for telling the chemists to take
off their gloves (thanks for supporting my position).
However, to be clear, I should provide a few more details.....
We have an open lab design, so all my "Walkup" customers come from
one big lab down a short hall (no doors to contaminate at all!) into
the analytical lab. There are NO safety issues involved in getting
access to the spectrometer while wearing gloves/labcoat etc.
Safety is our highest of priorities, which is why is the
glove/keyboard issue has come up.
The customers for this instrument load their own samples into the SMS
autosampler rack, push a few keyboard buttons/mouse clicks and walk away.
The gloves/keyboard cover discussion arose when we had a rash of cases
where chemists broke NMR tubes when putting them into (or removing
them from) spinners. So I guess the real question is how often do
5 mm NMR tubes break upon inserting/removing them into/from the spinners?
My own personal experience is one broken tube per decade, regardless
of what brand/quality of NMR tubes you are using, so I am in favor of
no gloves at the spectrometer.
Anyway, as several responders pointed out, without a mouse cover, etc
a keyboard cover would do little good.
Thanks again for the input.
Regards,
Darryl
Received on Tue Sep 30 2003 - 07:25:39 MST