You're going to be working with soil samples

I'm going for my new job tomorrow. All I know is that I shall be working with soil samples. Naively, at first, I just thought this meant playing around with mud - great fun! But...it is a water company I'll be working for and the idea has been suggested that I could infact be working with sewage.

So, you may choose only one.

Does 'You're going to be working with soil samples' mean

Im an optimist so Mud! Yay!!!!!!!!

i enjoy mud, and if it's poo, you can pretend its mud and bring clothespins for your nose

Just make sure you shower thoroughly..

Poo isn't so bad! I used to test pig slurry for microbes. You get used to it.

I talk a lot of the time, does that count??

I'm sure they refer to working with mud though!

What is mud after all if its not just broken down poo!?

water companies have lots of mud at the bottom of their pondy things
it's got a funny long german name that I can't remember
*oo, looked it up it's schmutzdecke - good word!*
and there are larvae that live in it and turn into chironomids (non-bitey midges) which is why I know so much about such things.

did they tell you anything about what you're going to be doing with your samples?

hehehe... actually you can spin the chironomid larvae at about 20,000 rpm in the centrifuge (in sewage samples!) and they'll survive! My friend does sewage analyses, it's not that bad at all

You didn't appreciate my funky German word Birgit! I feel cheated.

Maybe we should take our midgies and that centrifuge off to one corner and not geek up the poor thread

could be worse at least there wasnt an "ed" at the end of soil :P and samples arnt going to be that big - just buy so industrial strength air freshner

There's money in mud.

(old farmer saying)

See, soil is this stuff that you find on the ground.

STOOL is....something different. Although soiling one's pants is a term for stooling in one's pants, I think they would have probably made it more clear.

However, the old raver trick of the vick's vapo-rub in the dustmask is a great way of hiding the smell of stool if you ever have to work with it. That or invest in some lavendar oil or peppermint oil and spread that in the onside of a dustmask.

I reckon you could be having to deal with either or both, depending if you're testing samples from treatment/purification sites or from reservoir sites.

I know we never trusted our lecturers when next weeks samples sounded innocent...

Ah, microbiology, in all its smelly, underpaid glory

Either way sounds great - used love watching activated sludge -sigh...

And soil sampling is great and the analyses is great (presuming the equipment work - bad ICP ES machine - grrrr - better use the AA and look at each metal separately - 10x previous workload). In the interview check out their resources - if they have a reliable ICP ES machine go for it and enjoy watching argon plasma.

Thanks for all your input guys. It turns out it is mud I'm working with. Yay! mud!

And that is a very scary image NYC. I've perviously been ankle deep in puppy poo, but never knee deep.

lol your welcome
so whatcha doing with the soil?

I *think* I'm working with TPH analysis, I'll ask more questions tomorrow.