The asshole chemist is the same guy on Canadian sitcom Little Mosque on the Prairie. Talk about two diametrically opposed shows.

The dead pool (up to the end of season 4):

They are most certainly two different places. I believe Hank says something along the lines of "where they ship out all the chicken batter" for the distribution center he was looking at, whereas the laundry is, well, a laundry.

They aren't rocks, they're minerals.