Vent/Rant

I'm going to rant for a moment.

So today. I'm validating an instrument at a new hospital. It's still being built and no one is really in the building except 3 people from 3 different companies installing equipment in the lab.

We've all been doing our own thing, validating our instruments and chatting every once in a while. I had a lot of trouble locating my reagents, so I spent most of yesterday and today trying to locate them, in the meantime validating what I could on the reagents that I did have. Plus I'm trying to figure out how to use this new software, and it's been a while since I've used this particular instrument, so everything was kind of a carefully controlled mess.
In fact everyone had some sort of setback, which is typical, and since it's such a small lab we all knew about everyone else's issues. Still, it comes with the job and it's not a big deal.

This afternoon I was able to locate many of the reagents I was missing, yay! So when I got back in the lab I was ready to focus and get a lot done.

TELL ME WHY one of the other ladies there validating her instrument, who had barely said a word ALL DAY, decided to start chatting. And would. literally. not. stop. talking.

She was not catching any of the typical, "Heyyy I'm trying to work here and don't want to chat" cues. None. Even when I busted out with a, "I can barely hear you because this instrument is kinda loud." She didn't even slow down. And she KNEW I had finally gotten reagents so I thought something would click in her head and she would understand that I was trying to work. Nope.

At one point I tried to ignore her, but she was asking me questions, like obviously trying to get to know me, and I felt bad blowing her off. And the med tech world is small and she could be my boss one day so I didn't want to be rude.
Instead of focusing and getting a lot done like I wanted, I half-way chatted and half-way worked, which in the end sucked and I also made a couple mistakes that I would have caught if I was giving things my full attention.

At the end of the day I was so annoyed and then had to spend 90 minutes in traffic so I'm just done. There's no food in the house but I have wine so.

I think tomorrow I'll bring headphones or pretend I'm on a conference call for a while if I have to focus, and maybe she'll chat with the other people.

But she seems really sweet at the same time and networking is PRICELESS, especially with the competition, so I also think I might try saying something like, I really have to focus right now but I'd love to have lunch later and we can chat. Still, as nice as you try to say that, it always comes across kind of mean. When I finally master that I'll consider it a valuable life skill.