Last year, I was fortunate enough to have to work in a cleanroom once a week, which as the name implies is supposed to be a Very Clean Room. I had largely forgotten about that fun until today, when iGoogle posted in its “how to” section on my homepage these instructions for entering a cleanroom, apparently written by someone who once read about entering a cleanroom. Since this is very helpful knowledge for anyone thinking of getting a job in a cleanroom, and you are by the way insane, I thought I’d pass it on to you.
A cleanroom is an environment, typically used in manufacturing or scientific research, that has a low level of environmental pollutants such as dust, airborne microbes, aerosol particles and chemical vapors. If you have been asked to work in one, you’ll need to take the appropriate steps to avoid introducing contamination.
A cleanroom is a room that has anywhere between 1 (1!) and 1,000,000 particulates of certain sizes (they measure down to 0.1 micron, or 0.0000001 m, particles for the cleanest ones) per cubic foot of air. In comparison, the air in your room is practically a solid block of crap containing five hundred million to a billion particles per cubic foot, some of which you can actually see. In America, the opportunities to spend all day in this hellishly pristine environment are few and far between; a mid-sized class 100 cleanroom can cost millions of dollars to build and takes up tons of space, and they are insanely expensive to maintain. In Asia, where our TVs and laptops come from, labor is cheaper than automation for many cleanroom tasks and thousands of fortunate Chinese technicians get to spend all day, every day in “bunny suits.” Some clean rooms are so clean that people get to wear two bunny suits to go in them, and those are the luckiest people of all.
Aside from regular wiping-down and vacuuming, a cleanroom is kept clean by constantly filtering the air. New air is drawn in from the outside, completely dehumidified and scrubbed, then rehumidified before being forced through the ceiling. The air is drawn through to the floor where it is dismissed as filthy, takes a pit stop in a filter to remove any dangerous vapors, and is chucked back outside. I forget why they don’t recycle, but rest assured there is a very good reason because all of this filtering is not cheap and cleanroom administrators all over the world would be very, very interested in making that process less costly.
The reason for all of this excessive care is to protect delicate and expensive processes from the dirty dirty world, and no part of the world is filthier than you and your clothes. For this reason, there is a special outfit and elaborate gowning procedure that anyone who wishes to enter a cleanroom must follow. Go to the bathroom first, because this is going to take awhile. I’ll wait.
Ok, ready? Let’s go:
Follow the instructions given by your employer or whoever operates and maintains the cleanroom. Cleanroom apparel varies. It may consist of gloves, a cap, and smock at its most basic all the way up to a full “bunny suit”. These are general instructions.
There’s no “may” about it. You will be wearing the gloves.
Shower in the morning on any day you will enter a cleanroom.
Technically, this is for scraping off last night’s skin flakes. But there is a certain amount of enlightened self-interest here: those suits do not breathe, and you will be wrapped up to your nose. Which reminds me, no sneezing. My first cleanroom experience was in a Class 1,000,000 or so cleanroom, where the suit requirements were basic: shoe covers, hair covers, and a long lab coat made of cleanroom material. However, my boss had a beard and felt that if he had to wear a beardcover, then we all had to wear a beardcover. Sneezing in one of these gauzy things caused them to emit a foul odor that only left your nostrils after you threw the damn thing away. Cleaner cleanroom suits only go downhill from there.
Do not wear cosmetics, hair spray, perfumes, or colognes into a cleanroom.
Unless you like rampant acne. In which case, trowel that shit on and let it simmer. And nothing impresses employers more than finding glitter eyeshadow all over the spincoater. I had tell-tale blue hair at my first cleanroom job. That was a bit of a mistake. Someone will say something.
Wear appropriate attire under your cleanroom garb. Skirts, high-heeled shoes, shorts, and in some cases, short-sleeved shirts are not appropriate attire. Also steer clear of clothing that is especially fuzzy or tends to produce a lot of lint or static electricity.
I have seen women wear heels inside cleanroom boots. I do not understand how they haven’t killed themselves. Imagine having a pair of heels on, now put a pair of waders on over them. Ah, comfort and safety!
So now we’ve sufficiently regulated your life outside the cleanroom and it’s time to gown up. Start by stamping your feet on a sticky pad to clean off your shoes. Now put some plastic booties on and go stamp your feet on a different sticky pad. Fun!
Put on your cleanroom gear in the correct order. Top-to-bottom is a good general rule to follow, and it is a good idea to use a bench to separate the “dressed” area from the “getting dressed” area.
There are three parts to a cleanroom suit: top, middle and bottom. First, put on some gloves and pick a top in your size (and for the ladies, I mean your size in men’s sizes, of course) stick it on your head. You should feel like when you were a kid and could make a space helmet by cutting a square eyespace out of a box. If you have long hair, be sure to pull it back securely and stick it under a hairnet, because even the dead cells that make up your hair will cry out for freedom and head straight for the only precious opening in the suit, leaving you with tufts of hair spewing out over the sides of safety goggles.
Then you put on the middle, which is similar to the pyjamas you get right after you’ve become to old for footie pyjamas. Snap this to the hood.
Then, pull the boots over your shoes and snap them to the suit, and tie them at the ankles to prevent slippage. Now, pause and take a second to admire your sillouette in the reflection of the air shower door. Don’t you look like big old sexy laundry bag? Soon, your coworkers will be able to recognize this misshapen lump as you, and you will be able to identify them as their bag of whatever it is they most resemble a bag of. This is just one of the many reasons that a cleanroom is a horrible place for flirting, making your no-dating-at-work policy a snap to stick to.
Get prescription safety glasses if you wear glasses. Your employer may offset the cost, and they are far more comfortable than wearing safety glasses over your glasses.
Not true, and some asshole will just take your prescription glasses even if you put your name on them. Stick with the generic glasses all ready sitting there. Now, just put on another set of gloves (forget manicures, you’ll be sweating yourself some shredded nails) and bam! We’re ready to get clean!
Now you enter the air shower, which would feel great if you could still feel. You are now as particulate free as a human being can be, and are ready to spend up to five sweltering hours splashing around in chemicals and trying not to think about how much you have to go to the bathroom.
My best friend is a chemical engineering graduate student, I’m an infectious diseases graduate student.
We spend a lot of time commiserating on how much is sucks to get up at the ass crack of dawn and suit up to spend the next 4-6 hours smelling your own morning breath.
It’s like all those Hollywood stories of “X star/let spent hours in makeup EVERY DAY during the shoot” without any of the subsequent glamor or paparazzi.
That’s awesome. So seldom do I ever see anybody write about the joys of my job, working as a process engineer in the manufacturing department of a major biotech company. You forgot about the part where you hose yourself down with sterile alcohol before entering though, and sometimes just for the hell of it later. And how impossible it is to put a second set of latex gloves over your first and actually have your fingers go all the way in the fingerholes so you don’t flap around looking like Bugs Bunny after somebody has stomped on his hands. And about how the mask redirects your breath straight up into your safety glasses, turning them into fog blinders. Or the fact that safety glasses were actually designed for protection against hard objects shooting towards your eyes, not liquid splashes, and so do absolutely zero good anyway as any gush of caustic smacking you in the forehead will instantly dribble down behind them into your eyes (I speak from experience). And how after wearing a hairnet for 4-6 hours you have a permanent line etched all the way across your forehead (we call this “nethead” at work). Or how the bootsnaps gradually come undone and slither down your calves to pool around your ankles, especially if you’re standing in one place holding a gauge over your head while somebody tries to take readings every minute or so for half an hour. Or–
You definitely got the amazing sexy factor of the gear down pat though. It does get scary how you start to develop the ability to recognize the shapeless blob across the room just by the way he/she/it moves after a few weeks though.
Oh man, and I actually still want to work in an infectious disease laboratory someday. I AM certifiably insane. Well, I’m going to go talk to those little dudes with the big black eyes standing next to the pretty spaceship now. See ya.
Lisa: “you forgot about the part where you hose yourself down with sterile alcohol before entering though, and sometimes just for the hell of it later.
Holy crap! Alcohol shower?
As for the glasses, as a carpenter I can tell you that the generic safety glasses only offer minimal protection here as well. Its seems that most generic order glasses were made for people with heads like melons and cheeks like a Neanderthal. Regularly when cutting, the resulting splinters will swirl around and find their way inside the glasses and onto my eyeballs. Do you have any idea what that benign, soft sawdust feels like when etching Jack Pollack imitations on your corneas?
I knew a commercial construction supervisor that specialized in clean room construction, he was one of a limited number country-wide. Did very well for himself might I say.
Cat – All I’m going to say is, don’t feel be surprised if you get lightheaded or in any way woozy. Personal protective equipment has brought many an intrepid researcher to his or her knees.
Also, you can still work with biosafety level 2 agents in a laboratory and be okay with just a biosafety cabinet. Biosafety cabinets are awesome.
Ha. Biosafety cabinets suck. As soon as I get my hands inside one, drenched in alcohol and double-sterile-gloved-and-sleeved, my nose starts itching madly. And after the twentieth or so tremblingly careful pipetting into the tall narrow-mouthed container your neck and shoulders REALLY start to ache. (Okay, you do get used to all this stuff.
)
Ick… I like laminar flow hoods, personally. I’m so glad I work in a lab that has nothing more dangerous than dinoflagelletes (that’d be red tide and its relatives to those not versed in phycology).
Lisa – that’s why I spend a good 5 minutes preemptively scratching my nose. And then my ear itches.
But I’d take a BSC over wearing a mask and face shield any day of the week. Uuugh… And you can’t scratch your nose then either anyway.
You do get used to it though..
posts like this one remind me why I love not having a job. interesting, though!