Had a bit of a disaster last Friday — we completely ran out of sterile pipette tips right before a full day of scheduled testing. I had to call in a favor from a colleague across town just to borrow enough to get us through the morning. It’s not the first time this has happened either. I feel like I’m always playing catch-up with our supplies. Do you guys keep any kind of emergency stash or a system for preventing shortages?

Oh wow, I’ve definitely been there. During one of our busiest practical blocks where students were working through the phases of meiosis , we ran out of microcentrifuge tubes halfway through a session. Total chaos. What saved us was keeping an "overstock bin" with 10–15% extra of the most-used items, and we set up a shared inventory sheet that flags low stock. Also helps if you're ordering from places that specialize in lab consumables — more reliable and better suited to real lab demand.

It’s wild how many little things can throw a whole day off. I don’t even work in a lab, but reading this makes me think about how much planning goes into every test result we take for granted. Definitely gives a new level of respect.