Trabajando en Santiago

I know I already posted today. But I´m here for such a short time, and I want to document everything, and I just have so many things I notice! I´ve worked in quite a few laboratories in my day. Some were very strict, and some were not, some in between. But to be honest, nothing compares to a foreign country. Everything here is SO lax.
For example, in the U.S., in every single lab I worked at we were required to put anything pointy, as well as anything glass in these special metal containers that we then had to lock, and they were taken out by special cleaning people each week in special biohazard bags. And this was not just something labs did, this is due to a law meant to protect people. Here in Chile, they have a container to collect glass in, but it is an open tub. Gloves go in a normal trash can, gloves can be reused, gloves can be taken off however you please! AND I worked with phenol for the first time. Phenol is a very volitale and dangerous incredibly toxic. There are also experiments where it seems to be a possible carcinogen in lab animals. Good lord! I used this stuff in the most unordered lab environment I´ve ever worked in.
Having said all this and possibly made labs in Chile seem inept, I have forever thought all the regulations in the states were unecessary. I thought it was so stupid, even when I was working with human skin on a regular basis, that I needed to be wary of contamination and being careful to wash my hands every 5 seconds. And for the most part, it really is unecessary. I´m sure the accident rate here in Chile in labs is not any worse than in the states. However, when we went through hours and hours of safety training at P&G, we got to watch a lot of videos about things that can go wrong in a lab. Most of them were based on true stories. They were not kidding around, all this stuff can kill you. It is scary shit on the real. The worst was Remember Charlie, which is an amazing video that made everyone in the audience all three times I had to watch it break out into crocodile tears. I don´t reccomend watching it if you are paranoid or have a weak stomach.
So now, all those things I learned, like how phenol can be absorbed in the skin, and you need to clean your bench with alcohol each day, or even storing glass in a locked container start to make sense. My new awareness has made me extra cautious, and thus brings me to my conclusion. They say before you must know the rules before you can break them. I think my time in the U.S. fully taught me the rules, and I mastered them. Chile makes a little more sense, but I believe I will only avoid an accident because of my intense training in the U.S. I don´t know what training is like here in Chile, but I can´t help but wonder if my two countries need to mingle a bit more to come to a commonality.