I have spent the last week working on a now months-long issue at work. I mean, I’ve been working on it for months, but over the last couple weeks it has become a particular focus for me as the mechanical engineers and I are taking some of my recent test results and reproducing them again and again, tweaking variables here or there, as we try to find a path out of this mess. Since I work on heavy machinery and the software that goes in that machinery, this means that I have spent my time working on gearboxes and the goop that goes inside them. Which means that I finally have a job that involves getting my hands dirty despite largely being a white collar worker (well, this job is a sort of interesting mix of white and blue collars but it’s still mostly white collar since it is still a knowledge job by-and-large) and that I’m also using all the engineering, math, and physics knowledge I’ve picked up over the years of being raised by two engineers and mistakenly believing that I was going to study math and physics in college because I was really good at calculus. It also means that my poor, sensitive nose has been assaulted by some of the most heinous scents I’ve had the displeasure to sniff. The only things that outdo them is raw sewage and the sulfurous chemical solution my chemistry teacher in high school made everyone sniff on the first day of class so he could threaten to put it under our noses if we ever fell asleep on him (which smelled so much like raw sewage that it is pointless to make the distinction between the malodorus mixtures). Even through a properly-fitted N95 mask, some of these stinks send me reeling, lightheaded and nostrils aflame, any time I’m unfortunate enough to stand over one of these suckers when we crack them open to check our test results.