Some nice personalities, most very stressed and unhappy
Non-scientific staff's general competence and willingness to venture outside of their job description is wildly inconsistent. The key for anyone new to the Lab is to figure out who the people are in each department that can be relied on.
I have a very few excellent co-workers in my department and others who actively detract from the quality of our work. Management has a tendency to add complexity to our processes and work flows to work around team members who aren't getting their work done - rather than dealing with the source.
The coworkers are generally too competitive and only care about getting authorship rather than a collaborative process