Sundae posted:

They're lumping it under salaried-exempt, just like IT companies (try to) do.

Sundae posted:

seacat posted:

There's a saying around my company that goes "once you're salaried, you're hosed", but at least my hours are only around 55-60 and we still get national holidays off. I guess I should count myself lucky, because according to your story you can go around any law by forcing your employees to sign a waiver (presumablu under threat of termination!)

porkypocky posted:

Speaking of which...I got a job as a temp biologist. Yay! From what I hear in this company after a while they'll hire you on permanently if they have room for you. I get paid hourly right now. If I get a permanent position does this mean it's likely I'll have to switch to a salary?

Also: I have to come in on weekends to dose animals on top of my 40-hour work week. This makes it okay for me to put those hours in as overtime, right?

Lyon posted:

I'm pretty sure if you're hourly it is illegal to not record hours worked/them not pay you for hours worked regardless of the industry.

porkypocky posted:

Nooo, I haven't been coming in on weekends yet, but they said it would be likely if their experiments keep going. I guess I worded that strangely. My bad. What made me think that it might not count is that dosing animals is really quick. All you do is walk in, eyedrop the animals and then leave. So on one hand it's like "I need to record every minute I work!" but then again it's only 15 minutes...
I haven't talked about it with my supervisor because I haven't been trained on how to do it or been scheduled for any weekend shifts. They're just starting to talk about it more.

Sundae posted:

Do any of you guys work in clinical operations?

I'm looking for escape routes, and there's an opening for a scientific communications associate at Lilly. Salary range / scale is the same as my current role, and they're looking for someone with R&D experience, writing skills, a publication background, and a life-sciences background including research experience. Basically a perfect fit in terms of background when I look at the years desired, etc.

"The purpose of the Scientific Communications Associate role is to work with cross-functional, multidisciplinary teams to facilitate external scientific publications (including and not limited to, abstracts, posters, manuscripts and presentations), and/or regulatory documents(including, but not limited to, protocols, clinical study reports, briefing documents, regulatory responses, and marketing authorizationapplications).
"


What sort of horrible, soul-draining stuff would I be setting myself up for by considering this? Glorified secretary, or reasonable brain-use?

Engineer Lenk posted:

Do you like project management?

Article posted:

Part of civil fines address allegations that, from 1994 to 2003, GSK underpaid money owed to Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor run jointly by states and the federal government. The company had an obligation to tell the government its "best prices" but failed to do so, prosecutors said, and $300 million of the settlement will go to states and other public health authorities.

Sundae posted:

So here's a THING.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-glaxo-settlement-idUSBRE8610S720120702

Pfizer loses its #1 position for largest fine in pharmaceutical history, thanks to GSK not learning a loving thing from them or Lilly before them.

$3-billion fine.

I said this after Lilly, and I said this after Pfizer, so I'm going to say this again now that GSK's gone and done it. The government needs to stop playing softball with big pharma. The "real" penalty for fraud is not a big fine. It is being locked out of government contracts, aka being blocked from Medicare. They need to stop with the stupid fines and actually enforce that, even though it will kill the company. There is no fine big enough to make anyone in big pharma give a poo poo; they need to stop playing TBTF games and lay the hammer into someone, or nobody's ever going to change.

Sundae posted:

So here's a THING.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-glaxo-settlement-idUSBRE8610S720120702

Pfizer loses its #1 position for largest fine in pharmaceutical history, thanks to GSK not learning a loving thing from them or Lilly before them.

$3-billion fine.

I said this after Lilly, and I said this after Pfizer, so I'm going to say this again now that GSK's gone and done it. The government needs to stop playing softball with big pharma. The "real" penalty for fraud is not a big fine. It is being locked out of government contracts, aka being blocked from Medicare. They need to stop with the stupid fines and actually enforce that, even though it will kill the company. There is no fine big enough to make anyone in big pharma give a poo poo; they need to stop playing TBTF games and lay the hammer into someone, or nobody's ever going to change.

EtaBetaPi posted:

Locking them out of medicare would lock their drugs out, right? Wouldn't it be more feasible just to threaten to pull their patents if they keep this poo poo up? Like revoke the wellbutrin patent (or others if wellbutrin is off patent, which I think it is?), that way it becomes generic and we get the benefit of a cheaper drug earlier as punishment for misconduct.

quote:

Is there such a thing as a good pharmaceutical marketing story?

quote:

How do you spend 3.7 billion in fines in a 2 year period as just cost of doing business????

Sundae posted:

You know what really gets me? Check the article. They claim they paid the $3B in cash. They just had it kinda sitting around.

canvasbagfight posted:

I dunno, that PhD sounds pretty tempting. Insensitive I know but aren't we in the lab rat thread?

Edit: Something else to consider is since you already did your MSc with this PI your PhD would probably go quicker... I'm not extremely attuned to how it scales but I've heard just a couple years to finish thrown around as a ballpark for people in your situation (obviously with some wiggle room since it is science, after all). Compared to like 5-7 years that's a pretty good deal isn't it?

BrownieMinusEye posted:

Some questions for anyone in industry. I'll finally be getting my PhD in about 5 months and I'm woefully uninformed on my chances for getting a decent job in biotech. The topic of my thesis work is pretty much pure science but my lab specializes in mass spec/proteomics which I figure is to my advantage.

What sort of positions should I be applying for in biotech? Looking at websites I'm seeing some companies listing Scientist III as only requiring a PhD with no experience while others that have industry experience requirements for Scientist I positions. Is it just sort of random?

What are my chances without doing a postdoc? I'm really not looking forward to having to do that but I know it might be necessary.

Also, when is it appropriate to start applying for jobs? I don't have a date set for graduation yet, just waiting for my paper to get accepted. Are companies understanding of the graduate school process and willing to wait a few months after seeing you to hire you or would I need to be pretty close to graduating before they will even consider me?

Appachai posted:

You'll probably want to do a postdoc, to get an actual PhD level position. You're most likely looking at Scientist I/II. Usually we want to have you on site within 1-2 months of the interview.

Have you considered doing an industry postdoc? As you have probably already seen, having "Industry Experience" is a very valuable thing if you're trying to get into a biotech career.

BrownieMinusEye posted:

Is there a better way of finding industry postdoc positions than just looking at various company websites? A few are listed at Science Careers but was hoping there might be a better place.

Sundae posted:

About your postdoc friend: If he was on good terms at the place, absolutely you use the reference.

One more thing to think about with animal husbandry stuff is how they source their rats. Some facilities just put you in charge of animal care and buy rats through companies, but I've seen at least one major research facility that used so many rats that it literally bred its own. On top of being in charge of that, the husbandry crew was in charge of artificial insemination for more selective breeding as well.

quote:

Depending on whether you're squeamish about stuff, you might want to find out about that part of the responsibilities.

Edit: Also - do you have any background in animal stuff at all? There's a lot of USDA animal-care requirements, sometimes some off-the-cuff veterinary stuff, etc. Not "real" veterinary work, per se, but there's more to caring for animals than just "toss some food, fill water bottle, and change the newspapers."

plester1 posted:

Realize that "animal husbandry" in a lab setting also means systematically killing them when the experiments are done. A friend of mine once got a job doing "lab work" and on the first day found out the job was killing rats for 8 hours a day.

quote:

Must be available to work weekends and holidays, stand for extended periods of time, lift 50 pounds and push/pull heavy equipment. The candidate may have to euthanize animals. Vaccinations and/or TB testing may be required.

john ashpool posted:

What are people's opinions about masters degrees? I really like my job, but I worry that 20 years down the road my mere B.S. will make me obsolete.

In terms of part-time masters degree's there are alot of options in the Boston area. However they are almost all Biotechnology or Bioinformatics. I already do analytical work with proteins. Which program might be more useful if I want to move into drug discovery? Out of the 3, which might you recommend? Are there other programs I should look at?

Northeastern Biotechnology Professional Science Masters
Brandeis Bioinformatics Masters of Science
Harvard Extension Biotechnology MLA