Ooopsie

We really need to make sure to watch out for every little detail in life. Like making sure the gas tank is full or close to it before embarking on a long car trip. Or taking an umbrella along on a day when they're calling for rain. Or making sure you have chives to toss on your omelet before the omelet is finished omeletting in the pan. 

Omelet that joke alone, ok? 

Here for your sadness is the story about how the best-laid plans can go awry...

K.V. Lakshmi is a professor and the director of Rensselaer Polytechnic’s Center for Biochemical Solar Energy Research. For 20 years, she worked day and night on what was regarded as potential groundbreaking research, only to have all her work wrecked by a custodian flipping a switch.

The university is suing Daigle Cleaning Systems in Albany, N.Y., for a million dollars, claiming breach of contract and failure to train properly a janitor who turned off a circuit breaker at the laboratory. That cut the power to the freezer and destroyed all its contents.

The janitor's name is Joseph Herrington. In his deposition, he said he was worried because “annoying alarms” were sounding on the freezer, and he thought that “important breakers” had been turned off. But, according to the lawsuit, Herrington turned them off.

The suit says that Dr. Lakshimi was running “high level research” inside the Cogswell Laboratory building. She had a freezer that was designed to house cell cultures and samples that had to be kept at minus 112°.

An alarm was set to holler if the freezer temp increased to 78° below or decreased to 82° below. On the day in question, the alarm sounded, and Dr Lakshmi and her staff worked to protect their research cells, and placed a security lock on the freezer outlet. She added a note saying that the freezer should be left as is, no cleaning was required, and gave instructions on muting the alarm if it sounded again.

Along came Mr Herrington to clean the lab, and he reported that the alarms were sounding off all evening. He thought the breaker switch to the freezer was turned off, so he flipped it the other way, believing that would turn it on.

“He did not believe he had done anything wrong but was just trying to help,” according to the lawsuit.

An honest mistake, for sure, but “a majority of specimens were compromised, destroyed, and rendered unsalvageable, demolishing more than 20 years of research” according to the suit.

I don't think a million dollars will make up for it.