During the summer before medical school, I was working with the Zeiss EM 9A electron microscope at the Biological Labs in Cambridge.  I had finished an honors project doing electron microscopy, and was allowed to continue working on the device.  The bargain, however, stipulated that I keep the instrument aligned and functioning optimally.  That was well nigh impossible.  It had a poorly designed double cup condenser system that was always drifting out of mechanical alignment.  Each day I toiled for 1-2 hours just to get the image on the screen.

While I was working in the darkened EM room, Dick McIntosh, my research project advisor, came into the room with a little blonde slip of a girl.  He explained that she was coming to work as a technician, and that one of her chores would be to take over care of the Zeiss.  She was lovely, and I stammered out something about being willing to help her to learn about the device.

They left, and continued their tour.  I sat in the warm glow of the experience, but later chuckled to myself. I could not imagine that cute little blonde managing to deal with my microscope.

That turned out to be true.  Story found the Zeiss to be unusable.  So, she switched to the superb Siemens EM, and generated beautiful images.  I had not been trusted with that machine.