The joys of shared equipment

I’ve written a little bit about the microscope that I use to look at the results of my experiments.  The scope belongs to the department, meaning it’s shared by several labs.  In order to use it, you have to schedule time on it.  Of late, it seems like it’s booked up like crazy–to the point that today I had to come into lab way earlier than usual in order to do this experiment so that I could look at the results this morning because the scope is booked until 8pm today.  I am not a morning person.  So, despite the fact that a large portion of the American population is at work at 8AM, for me to get here by 7:30AM (having showered and eaten breakfast beforehand and even *gasp* wearing makeup) is a miracle on the order of giving sight to the blind.  Usually, I roll in around 9 or 10 or sometimes even 11 (along with the majority of my lab, including my adviser).  This means that I stay later in the day (7 or 8pm) but for me that’s infinitely preferable to getting up at the ungodly hour of 6:30AM.