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Appachai posted:Apparently my old x-ray crystallography CRO employer just laid off all of molecular biology, fermentation, cell culture, and purification (about half the company). Wonder what the thinking is there. Well those people cost money.
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Mar 17, 2015 14:16
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What are the requirements/prospects for becoming a laboratory technician of any kind? I have a BA in biology and was looking around and seeing there are various lab technician certification programs. Can anyone give me some details on what is a good line to pursue, if any lines are good to pursue?
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Mar 17, 2015 15:45
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- hi
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Do you mean in order to work in a hospital lab? If so, it varies state to state. You would want to look into ASCP certification pathways, which you can usually do a one year training/clinic rotation program. Also since you have a bachelors you would be more interested in technologist certification rather than technician. The pay is much better. It's not a particularly bad gig, and there are plenty of jobs (most of your coworkers will be lateish baby boomers who got in before licenses were a thing), but there is little room for growth unlike RNs. But it pays the bills and you get to help people, and blood banking is super cool.
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Mar 17, 2015 17:52
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Day 1: Me- So new temp, what's your background? Temp- I studied bio and did some clinical research at Stanford! Me- Holy poo poo why are you here? Day 2: Temp- I should use a new autopipette tip for each sample, right? Me- Oh, THAT'S why you're here.  Get me out of this joke of a lab.
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Apr 15, 2015 15:13
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C-Euro posted:Day 1: This is too similar to my lab. Manager: Oh, your pico standard curve there isn't that great... try deleting a few of these data points(FROM THE CONTROL STANDARD), that should make it better. Me: ... 
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Apr 15, 2015 16:55
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C-Euro posted:Day 1: Make that shithead hand pipette samples of DI water onto a precision balance until s/he can pipette samples 10 samples ranging from 10uL to 1mL within 5% of each other with dominant and non-dominant hands. In a row. Make sure s/he follows these guidelines. /I could do it at the 0.2uL range, I was a loving pipetting master when I was calibrating them.
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Apr 15, 2015 17:19
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You guys and your knowledge of science-y stuff. I'll just be over here in the corner studying for the entry level AALAS exam for a cert that's probably about as good as cheap toilet paper.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:18
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Johnny Truant posted:This is too similar to my lab. Me: Here's the data for your grant. PI: Your standard deviations look too big. Run the experiment until you get three numbers that are closer together.
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Apr 15, 2015 23:25
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Dik Hz posted:Me: Here's the data for your grant. Welcome to academic science.
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Apr 16, 2015 20:12
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C-Euro posted:Day 1: High five, I taught someone to pipette for the first time yesterday too. Poor bastard
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Apr 16, 2015 20:19
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Yoyboy posted:Welcome to academic science. - We prefer the R2 value of the standard curve to be >0.998, so we just delete one of the two data points at the lowest concentration where it naturally deviates the most. - How do you decide which one to delete? - Whichever makes the curve fit better. Welcome to healthcare.
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Apr 17, 2015 06:12
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kissekatt posted:qPCR When i was working on my masters thesis i was talking to my adviser about a NOESY NMR correlation that didn't make any sense and she said "eh we can fix that with white out".
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Apr 17, 2015 14:40
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kissekatt posted:qPCR Glad it's not just my lab! The head director of our lab has been telling us to drop everything and work on consolidating our freezers, so they'll be able to store ~175 brains instead of just ~60. So he tells us to completely stop distributions. Two days later he asks, "How come none of our distributions are going out!? That's where we get most of our funding from!" 
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Apr 17, 2015 15:31
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Ezekiel_980 posted:When i was working on my masters thesis i was talking to my adviser about a NOESY NMR correlation that didn't make any sense and she said "eh we can fix that with white out". I'm sorry but but whiting out spectra is scientific fraud of a pretty high degree.
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Apr 19, 2015 01:40
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Everything described in these last posts is blowing my mind.
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Apr 19, 2015 01:47
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Vladimir Putin posted:I'm sorry but but whiting out spectra is scientific fraud of a pretty high degree.
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Apr 19, 2015 14:48
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Dik Hz posted:It's not a coincidence that the burn-out and depression rates in scientific PhD programs is so high. The last super controversy from whited out spectra was student driven.
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Apr 19, 2015 15:15
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OnceIWasAnOstrich posted:Everything described in these last posts is blowing my mind.
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Apr 20, 2015 20:48
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Here's a new one- it appears someone has been re-filling our acetone wash bottles with stock bottles we keep in our flammables cabinet, and then putting the empty stock bottles BACK into the flammables cabinet, so no one could tell that we were out of acetone until we pulled the stock bottles out and saw that they were all empty How did I end up working with some many dummies, and what does that say about me? So glad that I get to give notice today (which I was going to do before I found out this bottle issue), now does anyone in Philadelphia want to give me a job? VV Master's in Chemistry. I've started looking and I'm in touch with a couple recruiters, also I had an inkling that Sundae might be in the area so I did ask him who his employer is so I can dodge them 
C-Euro fucked around with this message at 22:43 on May 4, 2015 |
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May 4, 2015 20:53
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C-Euro posted:Here's a new one- it appears someone has been re-filling our acetone wash bottles with stock bottles we keep in our flammables cabinet, and then putting the empty stock bottles BACK into the flammables cabinet, so no one could tell that we were out of acetone until we pulled the stock bottles out and saw that they were all empty What's your masters in? There is a lot of pharma in the area and I have friends who work for GSK, Pfizer (not sure if they do research out this way or not), Merck, etc. You could always ask Sundae if I remember correctly... though if you follow BFC I think you'll probably want to avoid that...
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May 4, 2015 21:25
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C-Euro and I talked over PM.  The latest Rotating Subforum is actually really convenient. I've started posting the old stories from the TPS and Lab Rat thread in diary format.  http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3718345 I'd like to get these things archived somewhere when I transcribe them all. I may publish them under (yet another) pen name. No idea if there's any appeal to it in any non-scientific audience, but worth a shot.
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May 6, 2015 16:28
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Is there a preferred resume format for lab jobs? I thought it should go most recent job to least recent, but I'm being told the standard is the oldest to newest.
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May 8, 2015 15:22
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Who told you that? In my experience, most recent goes at the top.
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May 8, 2015 15:54
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Scientastic posted:Who told you that? In my experience, most recent goes at the top. Right? I'm trying to help my brother with his resume and cover letters since he hasn't had any nibbles yet. Pretty sure the fact that his oldest job is first (making him seem like a brand-new graduate instead of someone with 5+ yrs experience) and the horrible writing/typos in his cover letter explain the lack of interest. Anyway, he was the one arguing for least to most recent as well as italicizing every position he's held at his current employer. 
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May 8, 2015 16:48
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I've read a lot of resumes, and it's never occured to me that it would not be newest position on the top. The most important stuff should be on the top, since people scan from the top down, and rapidly stop paying attention - If it's not on the top half of the resume I probably didn't read it.
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May 8, 2015 17:18
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Sundae posted:C-Euro and I talked over PM. I read your entries and immediately bookmarked the thread. I have only been keeping up with your latest saga of manufacturing, which I hope you can sanely escape when the relocation contract period is up.
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May 9, 2015 23:11
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Sundae posted:C-Euro and I talked over PM. These are fun. I'm debating if I should post something for my previous academic position.
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May 10, 2015 20:40
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No matter how depressing or painful your job is, just remind yourself that you don't work for a CRO. (unless you do in which case you have my condolences)
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May 11, 2015 00:46
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Zerstorung posted:No matter how depressing or painful your job is, just remind yourself that you don't work for a CRO. (unless you do in which case you have my condolences) I work for a CRO, I envy the dead.
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May 11, 2015 01:12
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Ezekiel_980 posted:I work for a CRO, I envy the dead. I used to. it was horrible.
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May 11, 2015 02:07
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Mourne posted:$580/month is just for me. I did graduate last December, but I was working as a research assistant in a biochem lab for 3.5 years while I was in school, so I have actual experience. It's just that 15$/hr is not enough to make ends meet, and the job is located in Pittsburgh and I'd have to relocate there. Looking around, rent and utilities were gonna be about 1000$/month. I just can't afford to take the job. I balked when I heard the details because I made almost as much working in a lab without a degree. It was shocking because it's a very large, well recognized company in chemistry, you'd think if they wanted to attract any talent, they'd pay more than what an assistant manager makes at a gas station. Recruiters for Merck have put me in for jobs that start at 23-25$/hr. I'm working for essentially the same amount, but I get free healthcare. It's awful. One of my managers keeps telling me to leave because this place is a dead end for anyone with a brain. Currently training a new guy, told him to put a cotton plug in a funnel. He comes back with a whole cotton ball stuffed into the tiniest funnel in existence. Someone please rescue me from this hell hole.
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May 18, 2015 21:00
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Miss Ginger posted:I'm working for essentially the same amount, but I get free healthcare. It's awful. One of my managers keeps telling me to leave because this place is a dead end for anyone with a brain. Currently training a new guy, told him to put a cotton plug in a funnel. He comes back with a whole cotton ball stuffed into the tiniest funnel in existence. Someone please rescue me from this hell hole. You have my condolences. That sounds just awful. If it makes you feel any better I am no longer even getting any call-backs for the hundreds of resumes I have been firing off into the void. I'm starting to question whether or not I picked the right field.
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May 18, 2015 21:04
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Mourne posted:You have my condolences. That sounds just awful. If it makes you feel any better I am no longer even getting any call-backs for the hundreds of resumes I have been firing off into the void. I'm starting to question whether or not I picked the right field. Same new guy just asked me if it's possible to buy pure vanilla extract. Hot drat I need to get out of food QC.
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May 18, 2015 23:47
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Miss Ginger posted:Same new guy just asked me if it's possible to buy pure vanilla extract. Hot drat I need to get out of food QC. Wait, I'm confused. "Pure" vanilla extract? I thought vanilla extract was just some aromatic compound which was fucntionalized and created en masse from some sort of hydrocarbon or organic feed stock? If you want "pure" vanilla flavor, shouldn't you just buy and seep some vanilla beans? Trying to buy pure vanilla extract doesn't even make any sense. I guess that was the point, wasn't it? This is the level of intelligence you have to deal with on a daily basis.
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May 19, 2015 01:13
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Mourne posted:Wait, I'm confused. "Pure" vanilla extract? I thought vanilla extract was just some aromatic compound which was fucntionalized and created en masse from some sort of hydrocarbon or organic feed stock? If you want "pure" vanilla flavor, shouldn't you just buy and seep some vanilla beans? That's exactly the point. One of my many tasks is quantifying vanillin content in vanilla extracts. I'm pretty sure he doesn't understand what vanilla extract actually is. Update: same guy just turned off my kjeldahl digestion because I walked away when I left it to run for 4 hours 
Miss Ginger fucked around with this message at 16:25 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 02:24
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Mourne posted:You have my condolences. That sounds just awful. If it makes you feel any better I am no longer even getting any call-backs for the hundreds of resumes I have been firing off into the void. I'm starting to question whether or not I picked the right field. After months and months of this, I gave up and started learning to program.  e: I see I told you this in march as well. Chemistry isn't the healthiest field these days. PokeJoe fucked around with this message at 01:12 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 00:32
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Miss Ginger posted:Same new guy just asked me if it's possible to buy pure vanilla extract. Hot drat I need to get out of food QC. I just left food QC actually, and today a recruiter told me that my resume was really impressive but that she didn't understand why I was in QC and never transferred out at my last job. I tried lady!
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May 20, 2015 00:41
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C-Euro posted:I just left food QC actually, and today a recruiter told me that my resume was really impressive but that she didn't understand why I was in QC and never transferred out at my last job. I tried lady! What field are you in now? I only took this job because I had just moved across the country and needed to pay rent. How on earth do I get out?
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May 20, 2015 14:34
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Miss Ginger posted:What field are you in now? I only took this job because I had just moved across the country and needed to pay rent. How on earth do I get out? I was in Food Safety QA, and got into Aerospace. The whole key is to look for generalist/analysis positions and show that you have a good understanding of what it's like to work in a heavily regulated cGMP/ISO/AS/WTFBBQ environment. The industy specific knowledge comes in time. Also, that you know how to use Office. For some weird reason lots of folks don't. Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 14:52 on May 20, 2015 |
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May 20, 2015 14:48
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The WTFBBQ regulations are by far my favorite set. I wish I could hire replacement quality guys, by the way. I'm having to do their jobs because they're so heavily in bed with manufacturing here that they will bend over backward to make sure that nothing they do interferes with production. Execs are straight up telling them to find justification to under no circumstances reject a batch or stop production. I've been creating ways to force their hand when it comes to quality issues here. =X
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May 20, 2015 15:06
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