The One Percent Difference

Nothing quite captures the existential despair of synthetic chemistry like getting a 5% yield while your lab mate smugly reports 6%. Those stone faces perfectly embody the judgmental silence that follows your presentation at group meeting. That single percentage point might as well be the Grand Canyon of competence. Meanwhile, your PI is wondering why they didn't accept that industry job offer instead of babysitting a lab full of underperforming grad students who can't even crystallize water. The hierarchy of stone faces judging your synthetic failures is the perfect metaphor for academic pecking orders—silent, immovable, and eternally unimpressed.