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Johnny Truant posted:That moment where your IT department says they restored all your accessioned freezer sample databases only to find out that they restored everything... but only up to four months ago. Oh, and the restoration was spotty so they recommend a full audit on all our samples. Damnnnnn that sucks. Are you working with human samples (I typically see the word accessioned used by our bio banking/cancer research customers)? Hopefully not because if you that's going to be extra brutal. How many freezers/samples are we talking about here?
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Aug 20, 2015 22:50
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Discendo Vox posted:(quote block)
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Aug 21, 2015 00:16
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Lyon posted:Damnnnnn that sucks. Are you working with human samples (I typically see the word accessioned used by our bio banking/cancer research customers)? Hopefully not because if you that's going to be extra brutal. How many freezers/samples are we talking about here? Yup, human samples. Preliminarily I've only seen major errors in three freezers, but sample wise? Could potentially be in the thousands. 
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Aug 21, 2015 13:26
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knox_harrington posted:Umm, so actually this turned out not to be the final step and I have a third interview with one of the doctors at the company. It's a long process! Luckily I am now dealing with them directly rather than through the recruiter so that's a plus. They're offering me the job! Aaaargh! 
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Aug 21, 2015 13:44
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I need to make diazomethane today. RIP
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Aug 26, 2015 18:55
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So speaking of safety incidents, this one takes the cake. We had to evacuate for a fire. Here's why. Our applications people were working on a pump that circulates an epoxy coating for spraying. The pump was seized due to being idle for a couple months. They first tried to loosen it with a lot of acetone to dissolve any dried material. It's a 100% epoxy material, so it doesn't dry out, but we won't hold that against them. They were smart, and used a large tub to catch the acetone that they washed this pump with so that the acetone wouldn't spill everywhere. However, the acetone didn't work. Their next attempt was to use an acetylene torch to heat up the material in the pump and lower its viscosity. This attempt was successful. So successful that a drop of material oozed out of the release valve, got ignited by the acetylene torch, and dropped into the catch-pan with ~2 gallons of acetone in it. Every fire crew in the county turned up because we're registered with them as having large amounts of flammable chemicals. Fortunately, the fire was contained and the fire crews were disappointed by the small scale of the fire.
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Aug 27, 2015 12:10
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They fired up an acetylene torch within ten miles' radius of an open container of two gallons of acetone??
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Aug 27, 2015 13:25
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RadioPassive posted:They fired up an acetylene torch within ten miles' radius of an open container of two gallons of acetone??
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Aug 31, 2015 00:10
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Sundae posted:Oh hey - sorry, I missed this post. Long story short, Lilly in any laboratory role is pretty damned good. Well turns out their director hit me up directly and told me to apply. It's a senior R&D role with no relocation, I was talking to them for a few months and am currently working at a smaller genomics company but I'll go ahead and check it out. Thanks for the input!
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Aug 31, 2015 08:23
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Bastard Tetris posted:Well turns out their director hit me up directly and told me to apply. It's a senior R&D role with no relocation, I was talking to them for a few months and am currently working at a smaller genomics company but I'll go ahead and check it out. Thanks for the input! FYI -- "No relocation" often means "that's our starting point for negotiations." Twice now, companies have told me positions had no relocation available and then post-offer, suddenly had it available when I commented that there was no way I could take it without relo. Of course, that sure as gently caress didn't work out in my favor in the end, but hey! 
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Aug 31, 2015 14:39
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Sundae posted:FYI -- "No relocation" often means "that's our starting point for negotiations." Twice now, companies have told me positions had no relocation available and then post-offer, suddenly had it available when I commented that there was no way I could take it without relo. Of course, that sure as gently caress didn't work out in my favor in the end, but hey! Oh I meant it's six miles from my house 
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Aug 31, 2015 22:58
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Bastard Tetris posted:Oh I meant it's six miles from my house 
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Aug 31, 2015 23:00
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Bastard Tetris posted:Oh I meant it's six miles from my house Ahh, well that's a different matter. On a different note, I just received a call from an HR recruiter at Genentech asking me to apply for a certain position at their main HQ in South San Francisco. Is anyone here familiar enough with the area to tell me whether the ungodly expensive costs I'm seeing for the area are real? I've heard it's crazy costly to rent anything, but $2.5K for studios is just... it's Manhattan level insane, so I want to make sure I'm not just looking in completely the wrong places.
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Sep 1, 2015 00:14
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Sundae posted:Ahh, well that's a different matter. It all depends on how far you're willing to commute from. East Bay areas are cheaper than South Bay
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Sep 1, 2015 00:19
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Spikes32 posted:It all depends on how far you're willing to commute from. East Bay areas are cheaper than South Bay I'm willing to commute 15 min max. gently caress cars and traffic. My current commute (although the job itself is kind of hellish) is a glorious 8 minutes, or 20 on a bike.
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Sep 1, 2015 00:21
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Sundae posted:On a different note, I just received a call from an HR recruiter at Genentech asking me to apply for a certain position at their main HQ in South San Francisco. Gyahahaha, it's happening! Let me know when you're in town to give the PhRMA annual keynote, we'll do lunch.
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Sep 1, 2015 00:22
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Sundae posted:I'm willing to commute 15 min max. gently caress cars and traffic. My current commute (although the job itself is kind of hellish) is a glorious 8 minutes, or 20 on a bike. In which case yes those prices you're seeing are accurate. South San Francisco is crazy expensive. Try and find out where there are van commute pickups, and find a spot near there? Commuter vans are better because you can work/read/sleep while someone else drives.
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Sep 1, 2015 00:41
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I had a relative that worked for Genetech, and they lived in Millbrae (about 10 min south of the airport), it was a short drive or they could walk to the BART station to get work. I believe they were paying around $3K for a 2 bedroom apartment, but this was ~5 years ago. Apparently, Genetech will pay your fare and give you money if you don't drive in due to lack of parking space (or at least they did at the time).
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Sep 1, 2015 00:44
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Sundae posted:I'm willing to commute 15 min max. gently caress cars and traffic. My current commute (although the job itself is kind of hellish) is a glorious 8 minutes, or 20 on a bike. If you don't like cars and traffic then the bay area is not for you. I grew up around there and would only move back if about a dozen other places didn't work out.
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Sep 1, 2015 04:58
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Sundae posted:Ahh, well that's a different matter. I have lived in a bunch of different cities in the SF bay area. South San Francisco and San Bruno (right next to South San Francisco), are the cheapest cities if you don't want to be driving from somewhere crappy in the east bay. Coincidently they are also the closest to all of the biotech stuff there, so your commute would be really short. I lived in SSF 10 years ago and paid $1600 for a 2 bed 1 bath house. I don't know exactly how much rent would be now, but I would guess you could get a 2 bed/1bath or maybe 2 bed 2 bath for $1800-$2500. Currently I live about 14 miles south of SSF, my commute is typically 20-35 minutes depending on traffic, so not too bad. Depending where you live on the peninsula (or in SF), it is very possible to take public transportation. I can walk to a train station in 5 minutes, and then walk a half mile to work from the stop in SSF. Also, San Bruno has my favorite $/quality sushi place. A simple list of non SF cities ~ within 15 miles of SSF: Brisbane - Don't really know much about this city other than it is on a hill, cheaper than some places, more expensive than others. Daly City - I know the least about this city because I never go there, but I think it is pretty cheap. Pacifica - I know a bunch of people there and it is cheap and relatively nice, but whenever someone asks me to go there I am annoyed because it is on the other side of some mountains and there is no convenient way to go there from my house. It is not too bad going to SSF though. SSF - Lived there a few years and liked it. Cheap for the area, though from what I hear schools are kind of crappy if you care about that. San Bruno -- Essentially the same as SSF. Millbrae - Also lived there. Mostly expensive upper middle-class city. Might be able to find something around El Camino for $2500. Burlingame - Too expensive. San Mateo- Biggest city on the peninsula, ranges from cheap to expensive. I lived in one of the cheaper areas for a while and it seemed fine. Foster City - Kind of expensive landfill city, the blandest of suburbs. Belmont - Expensive upper middle class suburb. Not as bland as Foster City because it has a hill. San Carlos - Same as Belmont, but less bland since it has a downtown. Redwood City - Has cheap really crappy areas, also has areas that are expensive without feeling as nice as more expensive cities nearby, not sure why. I know a lot of companies will give tours of residential areas as part of their interview package trip if they fly someone out, could always try and get an interview for a free trip if nothing else. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Sep 1, 2015 |
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Sep 1, 2015 06:33
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You are receiving this broadcast as a dream...We are transmitting from the year one nine... nine nine ...You are receiving this broadcast in order t
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Thanks for the info. We'll see how it goes when/if interviews occur.
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Sep 2, 2015 16:17
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I interviewed at Google Life Sciences, Natera, and Counsyl and the housing situation was a major turnoff. I would be losing money if I didn't go for a 50% raise. Housing and commuting is chump-level for anyone that doesn't take a helicopter to work. Also my wife and I are probably doing the kid thing soon and juggling all that poo poo and child care sounds awful. Bastard Tetris fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Sep 3, 2015 |
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Sep 3, 2015 09:46
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quote:Also my wife and I are probably doing the kid thing soon and juggling all that poo poo and child care sounds awful. That's one nice thing -- subsidized on-site daycare at work. Also, fingers crossed here (and all the more reason I won't get the job), but comparable positions to the one they're recruiting for represent a 100-150% salary increase compared to my current job. Yeah... I'll stay in pharma for another trip on the merry-go-round for that kind of money.
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Sep 3, 2015 14:00
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Here's to selling out
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Sep 3, 2015 23:18
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Being hungover and making gallons upon gallons of paraformaldehyde is awful 
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Sep 10, 2015 20:57
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I recall one awful day during my honours year where I spent the day feeding all sorts of volatiles and noxious materials into a HPLC, inhaling vapours, then went out to see a band and drunk heavily. Didn't make it through the whole gig, just staggered back to the lab and fell asleep on the floor. Woke up with a vicious hangover. And that's why analysis rules. nonathlon fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Sep 14, 2015 |
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Sep 11, 2015 15:55
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outlier posted:just staggered back to the lab and fell asleep on the floor. Ha, that's pretty great. I've been trying to convince my lab for the ~2 years I've been here to invest in a little folding cot for when we get called in at all hours of the night, but no dice yet. Completely unrelated, but does anyone have any experience with mold? More specifically my lab has had issues for a loooong time now about mold growing inside refrigerators we keep fixed tissue in, the boxes we keep the tissue in, the bags we keep the tissue in inside the box, and, yes, even on the tissue itself in a glycerol/DMSO cryoprotectant. We currently bleach the boxes and bags, scrub them with a brush, then give them a water rinse before going back into a cryoprotectant until we rinse again, then bag them up in fresh cryoprotectant, and we still are having issues. I mentioned it to my supervisor the other day, but I will handle upwards of 50 brains a day in various states of freshness/fixation, and that doesn't bug me, but then I see a giant moldblob and it's like 
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Sep 11, 2015 20:58
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Johnny Truant posted:Ha, that's pretty great. I've been trying to convince my lab for the ~2 years I've been here to invest in a little folding cot for when we get called in at all hours of the night, but no dice yet. Uhg, mold is a bitch. We got rid of one fridge because it was too infected and we couldn't keep it from re-growing. I don't know how storing brains works, but do you need cryoprotectant if they're not being frozen? Maybe there's another storage solution that would be less prone to mold growth?
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Sep 14, 2015 18:38
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Get facilities to gas the gently caress out of it, then use sticky pads on the floor of every ingress point.
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Sep 15, 2015 09:01
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Epitope posted:Uhg, mold is a bitch. We got rid of one fridge because it was too infected and we couldn't keep it from re-growing. We're looking into alternate storage methods, but for the foreseeable future we're going to be using the DMSO/glycerol mixture. Next time I pull a brain that's just -worthy I'll try to snap a photo so you can see how whack it gets. I never knew anaerobic mold would really love already fixed tissue. I don't even want to think about having to get rid of fridges though, there are some of ours that are reaching the more-mold-than-fridge point too quickly...Bastard Tetris posted:Get facilities to gas the gently caress out of it, then use sticky pads on the floor of every ingress point. Pretty sure I'm going to get to be the lucky sonofagun who, eventually, will do a deep clean of our fridges(hooray  ), but what do you mean sticky pads on the floor of the ingress points? Do you mean like weather sealing things, like what you put under your door to keep a draft from entering?
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Sep 15, 2015 14:33
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Johnny Truant posted:but what do you mean sticky pads on the floor of the ingress points? Do you mean like weather sealing things, like what you put under your door to keep a draft from entering? I think he means those pads that you place down like a mat in front of all the doors and it's like walking on upside down duct tape. They have removable layers when the top most layer becomes too dirty.
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Sep 15, 2015 14:49
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Hey mold buddy. We just had our walk in torn out and had our cleaning policies completely revamped. Guess who had to clean out the mold covered fridge! (You're welcome)
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Sep 15, 2015 16:01
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Best suggestions I have for mold are using sporklenz or bleach, letting it sit, doing it again, cleaning again with ipa. And then continuing to do this deep clean on a monthly basis till the problem goes away. Is there anyway to seal off the brains any better so there is no way for the mold to get in?
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Sep 15, 2015 18:39
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outlier posted:I recall one awful day during my honours year where I spent the day feeding all sorts of volatiles and noxious materials into a HPLC, inhaling vapours, then went out to see a band and drunk heavily. Didn't make it through the whole gig, just staggered back to the lab and fell asleep on the floor. Woke up with a vicious hangover. Reminds me of a story one of the theoretical chemistry professors at my grad school (a pretty well-respected guy in his field) told me about why he became a theoretical chemist. When he was in college, lab safety was still at the point where you would pipette by mouth. One day he put too much effort in pippetting concentrated nitric acid 
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Sep 15, 2015 19:49
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Trying to relocate back to Kansas City (stuck in central KS right now), wish me luck on the search. drat pharma is bad there. Real bad.
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Sep 16, 2015 03:27
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spacemang_spliff posted:Trying to relocate back to Kansas City (stuck in central KS right now), wish me luck on the search. Places pharma is not bad: San Francisco Boston San Diego? NJ if you like giant companies that are constantly laying off. Not sure why you would work anywhere else unless you like moving every time you get laid off. Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 04:04
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Pain of Mind posted:Places pharma is not bad: I've heard that Raleigh isn't that bad for pharma either, aside from being stuck in Raleigh and working in pharma.
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Sep 16, 2015 12:15
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There's a decent amount of stuff in the greater Philadelphia area, not that any of them wanted to hire me (and you could probably just lump it in with NJ on your list).
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Sep 16, 2015 12:32
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Plus then you have to live near loving Philadelphia. The Fort Washington area in particular is miserable to drive in, and I wish a slow, painful death on whoever designed Germantown Road.
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Sep 16, 2015 13:54
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Seems like Seattle has some places as well. A couple people have recently left my company to work in there.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:34
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