Should You Be at My Bench Right Now? (Probably Not)

Unlike traditional offices, our lab benches don’t come with a door to shut when we want privacy.  As a result, there’s no physical barrier to alert visitors to the fact that they’re now in our personal space.  Even in the event the approaching individual is courteous, without a door where are they to knock – on the bench, trash can, our head?  Although a couple of pieces of drywall and a door would dramatically cut down on the riff raff dropping by our bench, lab safety departments would likely stroke out at the first sight of our handiwork.  But there’s another way.

There are very few reasons we want to be interrupted when in the middle of performing an experiment, reading a paper, or gossiping wildly with our baymate.  Unfortunately, some people need a little help when considering whether the reason they’re awkwardly looming over our shoulder is actually worthy of interrupting us.  So we’ve created a simple flow-chart to aid newcomers to our bench in deciding whether they should be standing there or not.

Below is a sample flow chart – ready to be printed – along with an accompanying blank chart for the creation of custom charts.  Enjoy the new found privacy…

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Click here or on the image below to download the “Should you be at my bench right now?” flow chart

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Click here or on the image below to download a blank version of the flow chart

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