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Janitor heard 'annoying alarms' and turned off freezer, ruining 20 years of school research worth $1 million, lawsuit says | CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/27/us/janitor-alarm-freezer-rensselaer-polytechnic-lawsuit-new-york/index.html

A university janitor who turned off a freezer after hearing multiple “annoying alarms,” ruined more than 20 years of research, according to a lawsuit filed against his employer by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.

Janitor heard 'annoying alarms' and turned off freezer, ruining 20 years of school research worth $1 million, lawsuit says | CNN

4 comments

megabucks

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I can't wrap my head around the custodian's thought process. They were able to figure out which breaker to hit, but they couldn't read the note?

I can't imagine losing 20+ years of research to something so foolish. Then again, I also can't imagine not having an additional local redudancy for power failures (assuming they already had generators for the entire facility).

CookieJarObserver

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How much drugs can people take to think about that being a good idea...

withersailor

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Specially as:

A warning was posted on the freezer, according to the court filing.

“THIS FREEZER IS BEEPING AS IT IS UNDER REPAIR. PLEASE DO NOT MOVE OR UNPLUG IT. NO CLEANING REQUIRED IN THIS AREA. YOU CAN PRESS THE ALARM/TEST MUTE BUTTON FOR 5-10 SECONDS IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MUTE THE SOUND,”

furrowsofar

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Only $1. Shows how little graduate student labor costs. I would think that this would be way more damage then that to replace the samples even if it was possible which it probably is not.