Janitor Destroys Decades of Scientific Work Because Freezer’s Beeping Sound was Bothering Him

The Science can’t survive without annoying machines making beeping sounds

I wonder if the guy was black?

Just joking – I don’t wonder.

Still: what a hero.

I’ve had it up to here with this “science” and its incessant beeping noises.

New York Post:

A janitor working in a laboratory who was annoyed by an incessant beep reportedly flipped a switch that killed the noise — but also shut off a storage freezer, destroying decades of scientific work, according to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lab in Troy.

The cleaner’s alleged carelessness cost the lab at least $1 million in damages, a lawsuit the university filed against its third-party cleaning service charges.

“People’s behavior and negligence caused all this,” Michael Ginsberg, RPI’s attorney, told the Times Union in Albany. “Unfortunately, they wiped out 25 years of research.”

The super-cold freezer the custodial worker allegedly shut down held cell cultures, samples, and other elements stored at minus-112 degrees Fahrenheit, the Times Union said.

But when the worker from Daigle Cleaning Services shut off the circuit breaker on Sept. 17, 2020, to silence a beeping alarm, the temperature leapt to minus-25.6 degrees, which damaged or destroyed the material, the lawsuit claimed.

A majority of specimens were compromised, destroyed and rendered unsalvageable demolishing more than 20 years of research,” the lawsuit said.

The newspaper said Derek Foster, president of Albany-based Daigle Cleaning Services, could not be reached for comment.

Ginsberg told the news outlet it would cost an estimated $1 million to replicate the work, which reportedly focused on photosynthesis and might have furthered solar panel development.

Yep.

Don’t care about solar panels.

One more thing on a long list of things I do not care about, in fact.

Good work, blackie.