Job Satisfaction... a moment of peace and the illusion of control

The pristine, decluttered benches (in advance of next week's MAF inspection) and anticipation of the 6 month absence of the boss, create a serene medatative aura in the lab... tubes await gel aliquots, pretty in a pink rack... my sample currently nestles in the 30 degree heatblock under a blanket of tinfoil. And I'm working in hope (unusual for recent times) because last week's prep yielded 29 mass-spec-identifiable proteins (count them again to be sure), and though I need ten times that many (and more convincing peptide coverage too) for the project to be viable, a ten-fold improvement seems more feasible than pulling something out of the nothing in my empty thinking cap.