Good Karma or Bad Karma?

Harvey is always saying, "The Aquarium is a dangerous place to work". I've had stitches twice for cutting myself while filleting fish. I've been complaining that we don't have an exhaust hood in the chem lab because some of the chemicals we use during testing is carcinogenic. Namely the molybdate mixed with amino acids. I have to hold my breath when dumping it in the sink and rinsing the cylinders. Have you ever had a whiff of industrial strength hydrochloric acid? It sends up visible fumes. I have to wear a mask and rubber apron and gloves. I still cough.

The guy I work with is a royal jerk. He's mostly stoned. He'll go for a couple of weeks being the nicest guy. Then "Mr. Hyde" shows up and he gets real nasty. He gets turned in by other employees because of yelling or talking ugly to them. I'm trying my best to learn how to get back in his face, but that's just not my personality. I HATE confrontations. Sometimes our boss comes in to tell me something she wants us to start doing and she tells me to tell him. Cop-out.

Well, one of our hardest jobs is to make salt water. We fill up a 9,000 gallon tank with filtered fresh water. Then we slice open around 40 boxes of salt. Inside the boxes are two 27 lb plastic bags of salt. We lift them up to a cat-walk where I stand, receive them and stack them up 3 steps. He slices them open with a box knife and pours them into the top of the tank. Talk about a dirty, sweaty job. I try to look on the bright side and realize I'm getting a weights work-out. Well, yesterday I was stacking away when he (not going to use his name to protect myself)walked underneath the catwalk. The bags were wet after sitting outside for 3 months. That made them slippery. They slid and one fell off and hit him. Smashed his hand against a pipe and macerated his hand into two huge gashes. The funny thing was I didn't particularly feel bad about it. He was yelling and cussing and dripping blood everywhere. They bandaged him and sent him to the work-med clinic for stitches. We had to spend 45 minutes cleaning up his blood he flung everywhere. We were concerned about his blood because of his drug use and his past, so we were really careful. We used tons of industrial bleach.

One of my funny co-workers said, "Well you know how bad karma can really be good karma, considering he was the one who got hurt". I was shocked when he said that, but he said, "Come on, Cheri, you were thinking that too, weren't you?" Well, yes, I was.