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The cleaners don't do our labs either, supposedly as part of Health & Safety. Frankly, it makes sense to me. Just came back from two weeks holidays to find my email inbox melting down. Before I left, I said to my line manager "I really need to take holidays but you remember what happened last time?" (Phone never stopped pinging with people demanding I drop everything and fix their problems now.) "Don't worry," he said. "Just take them. What could happen?" So this time I swore to just never check my email. Ah, academia.
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Oct 19, 2015 13:53
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At an industry conference today (big data in life sciences). Lots of vendors, government officials, bureaucrats, and a few scientists. Worthwhile for me, but at times I've felt like making a bingo card: * Vendor buttonholes you and explains why their software solution is just what you need, at the cheap cheap price of $1000 per seat per month. * High level public health official gives a talk about new initiatives and how they are setting up a gold standard, best-of--breed world class system * Even the mildest interest in anyone's product is met with an attempt to set up a teleconf / "bring my people down to give you a presentation" / "let's push this thing forward" * Networking events! * Government or public health type gives a talk that is greeted with absolute silence from the audience * Scrubby geek-type has obviously been pulled in to give a talk about their work or systems and spends talk mumbling and looking at the floor * "We've set up a high-tech constellation of interoperating systems to allow everyone to fully leverage our data!" And you've used it and know it's crap. * Associate director / senior vice president / CTO / global manager ... * Bad coffee * Lots of old white dudes in suits ordering around a lot of young women in tight dresses * Talk that turns out to be a advertisement for a vendors product
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Oct 22, 2015 10:19
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outlier posted:At an industry conference today (big data in life sciences). Lots of vendors, government officials, bureaucrats, and a few scientists. Worthwhile for me, but at times I've felt like making a bingo card: My big conference is local this year and I kinda want to just get a local hotel and use it as an opportunity to have a staycation with my wife downtown, cause outside of regular networking there is so much hawked bullshit it's getting close to worthless outside of the fact that I get to be a VIP on an aircraft carrier.
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Oct 22, 2015 10:46
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outlier posted:* Government or public health type gives a talk that is greeted with absolute silence from the audience Tell me about the cause of this one- I'm genuinely curious.
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Oct 22, 2015 17:37
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Discendo Vox posted:Tell me about the cause of this one- I'm genuinely curious. When I've seen that it was that the entire audience was focused on research research research, and then here's this guy talking about something, and ya ya ok i get it, when is he going to get to the results, show me the data, wait its over. There was no data, nothing to grapple with, so I don't have anything to say about that. Cuz I'm just in the research mode. Also this sounds suspiciously like service, giving my time for- sure something that is important, but taking precious time from research research research. If I speak up that means I am volunteering.
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Oct 22, 2015 20:53
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Epitope posted:When I've seen that it was that the entire audience was focused on research research research, and then here's this guy talking about something, and ya ya ok i get it, when is he going to get to the results, show me the data, wait its over. There was no data, nothing to grapple with, so I don't have anything to say about that. Cuz I'm just in the research mode. Also this sounds suspiciously like service, giving my time for- sure something that is important, but taking precious time from research research research. If I speak up that means I am volunteering. Eugh, tragedy of the commons. Thanks, that's helpful (my career will partially involve having to give similar talks).
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Oct 22, 2015 23:30
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I've worked in a lab about two years now, fresh out of college (chemistry), doing analytical chem stuff. Instead of grad school I thought, "What if I get some job experience and see what people in the real world do with chemistry degrees", which may have been the best decision I've made in a long time. Grad students and post docs work stupid hours for low pay. Full PhD jobs are getting more and more rare due to old folks not leaving, and even then you end up doing more writing than lab work. It's all boring and I don't want to do it anymore, what other neat jobs can a chemist do that aren't chemistry?
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Oct 23, 2015 01:38
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I ended up working for an instrument manufacturer doing field service and it kinda owns. It's not research tho. I'm considering getting an MS to be more helpful but I may or may not go back to the same type of position because the travel is a p big lifestyle differenceMortimer posted:I've worked in a lab about two years now, fresh out of college (chemistry), doing analytical chem stuff. Instead of grad school I thought, "What if I get some job experience and see what people in the real world do with chemistry degrees", which may have been the best decision I've made in a long time. Grad students and post docs work stupid hours for low pay. Full PhD jobs are getting more and more rare due to old folks not leaving, and even then you end up doing more writing than lab work. It's all boring and I don't want to do it anymore, what other neat jobs can a chemist do that aren't chemistry?
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Oct 23, 2015 03:26
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Discendo Vox posted:Tell me about the cause of this one- I'm genuinely curious. It's a classic no-content presentation: nothing a government official has to say will be new or a surprise, no announcement is being made, it's all stuff that everyone already knows. ("We've invested over £100 million in a number of centres ...") Add in that it's all high-level stuff that has no immediate impact, a dose of waffle words and bureaucratease and you've got an audience that's just waiting until the next talk.
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Oct 23, 2015 07:59
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Mortimer posted:I've worked in a lab about two years now, fresh out of college (chemistry), doing analytical chem stuff. Instead of grad school I thought, "What if I get some job experience and see what people in the real world do with chemistry degrees", which may have been the best decision I've made in a long time. Grad students and post docs work stupid hours for low pay. Full PhD jobs are getting more and more rare due to old folks not leaving, and even then you end up doing more writing than lab work. It's all boring and I don't want to do it anymore, what other neat jobs can a chemist do that aren't chemistry? My wife finished a (bio)chem PhD last spring and is postdoc-ing right now, and as an alternate to just entering the pharma grind after she's done she is looking into IP law, patent agent, and marketing positions that want PhDs as "expert opinions" or whatever. She's done a pretty good amount of research on it and has had a few interviews in the last month or so, which leads me to believe there's something to the idea. I'll have to ask her about specifics when I get home tonight, it's been a little while since she laid out her master plan to me. For my part, me and my chemistry MS are currently in cosmetics Regulatory and it is boring as poo poo, though admittedly I've only been here since June and haven't given up hope that it might get more exciting later. Before that I was QC in food chemistry, which was fun enough even if I was way over-qualified and the company was poorly run. The great irony is that while my wife is encouraging me to stick with Regulatory and desk stuff in general, I would much rather be in the lab and basically think she and I should switch career paths, lol. I'd say if you want a neat job that isn't chemistry, find something in a field that's tangentially related to chemistry, such as food science. Other MS holders out there- have you been able to find jobs or career paths that actually care about your extra degree? My first job out of grad school was that food chem job and I was way over-qualified, and my current Regulatory job didn't require an MS. In fact before hiring me, my boss said "we can't pay you what a Master's holder deserves, but the extra chemistry MS should make up for the Regulatory background you don't have" (there's very little chemistry in my job, other than being able to pronounce chemical names and understanding one polymerization). Both times I applied for jobs I saw very few that wanted MS degrees, it was either research positions that require PhDs or lab techs that only need Bachelor's degrees. Maybe it's just an early career problem but both times I felt like no one cared that I have a Master's, and certainly haven't cared to pay me more for it. I just feel like a bastard middle child in between in BS and PhD tracks, without my own track. C-Euro fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Oct 23, 2015 |
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Oct 23, 2015 14:35
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Anyone do anything related to plant biology? My wife and I are hitting the point where I can sustain the family, and the stipend she would get from pursuing MS/PhD is about equal to her hourly pay at her little environmental place (started bench work doing water quality testing - now right hand lady to soon-to-retire owners). She really liked it in undergrad and is feeling out what she wants her career to be but is getting overwhelmed. The main problem is that she is beating herself up on what she could do with such a degree. I told her that talking to the university professors is the best way, but figure I'd ask here, just in case.
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Oct 23, 2015 15:19
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C-Euro posted:Other MS holders out there- have you been able to find jobs or career paths that actually care about your extra degree? My first job out of grad school was that food chem job and I was way over-qualified, and my current Regulatory job didn't require an MS. In fact before hiring me, my boss said "we can't pay you what a Master's holder deserves, but the extra chemistry MS should make up for the Regulatory background you don't have" (there's very little chemistry in my job, other than being able to pronounce chemical names and understanding one polymerization). Both times I applied for jobs I saw very few that wanted MS degrees, it was either research positions that require PhDs or lab techs that only need Bachelor's degrees. Maybe it's just an early career problem but both times I felt like no one cared that I have a Master's, and certainly haven't cared to pay me more for it. I just feel like a bastard middle child in between in BS and PhD tracks, without my own track. Some companies will let you use the MS time count towards positions that need 5-10 years of experience but I have seen maybe one or two positions list a masters as a requirement. Most people I have met whom have masters simply make slightly more than the non MS chemists but work BS level jobs. Unfortunately lab world seems to need two types of people, sets of hands (BS) and brains to direct the hands (PhDs). The MS is weird because your smarter than a set of hands but don't have the title (and in theory the brains) to give an office to and make a brain, so instead your just a set of hands with a super BS degree. I also might have a huge dislike of my masters and consider it the second worst mistake of my life so take my comments with a grain of salt.
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Oct 23, 2015 19:46
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Any microbiologists finding work? Stuck in the Boston area for at least a year or two more, postdoc funding is about to run out and the NIH just rejected my latest grant application so it's probably time to hang up the "future academic" part of the career path for good. At this point I'm not even sure what kind of position I should be shooting for / reasonably expect to land. Cursory looks around only seem to be for more postdoctoral positions or for BS level technicians. As far as training goes I've got tons, only a bit in high-throughput sequencing stuff but have some experience with it and will publish that work hopefully within the next few weeks.
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Oct 24, 2015 03:06
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Shoot off a resume to Genzyme, Biogen, Takeda, Shire, and whoever else I'm forgetting. Go get drunk in Kendall square, someone will hire you.
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Oct 24, 2015 22:52
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OnceIWasAnOstrich posted:I don't trust that either. Show me a column-scatter/box/violinplot. Where did you pull that p-value from, was it the right statistical test? Does the data you used fit the assumptions for that test? If I look at a column scatter or violin I can judge for myself whether there is a difference and whether the data is suitable for whatever test you used. Previous lab manager was like that. She is an ace at tracking numbers. Current one, not so much. This one is more shoot from the hip and no patience for data to come in and make more sound decisions. This is a big part of why I left lab and went to operations. I can't frantically make decisions over data I can't trust. Also, our equipment has become more unreliable lately over lack of regular calibration. If we were ever audited over equipment maintenance, we'd be screwed also since documentation of that is non-existent at this point. Previous lab manager documented the hell out of everything. It's very 
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Oct 25, 2015 00:35
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It's burgin' time! 
RadioPassive posted:Shoot off a resume to Genzyme, Biogen, Takeda, Shire, and whoever else I'm forgetting. Go get drunk in Kendall square, someone will hire you. Yeah. Been looking around, just starting as the bad news came yesterday. Looks like anything searched under "microbiologist' is very thin but where all of my higher level training lies so am trying to work with that. I already work in Kendall just in an academic lab. Got a few friends in different industry spots I'll be tapping for contacts/ info but figured this thread is also a good resource. Mainly just still very much out of sorts and in disarray right now as a fairly slam dunk set of things have fallen through over the course of a year with yesterday finally being the linchpin.
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Oct 25, 2015 00:45
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That Works posted:Yeah. Been looking around, just starting as the bad news came yesterday. Looks like anything searched under "microbiologist' is very thin but where all of my higher level training lies so am trying to work with that. Biotech tuesdays, google it.
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Oct 25, 2015 18:32
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Appachai posted:Biotech tuesdays, google it.
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Oct 25, 2015 23:32
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Just Boston.
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Oct 25, 2015 23:38
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That moment where you've been pressing both your direct supervisor and his supervisor(the entire lab manager) that we need more dry ice because of our freezer consolidation... only to see the exact same dry ice shipment arrive on Monday, and see that the same order is placed for Wednesday as well.  Am I the only sane person here!?
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Oct 26, 2015 18:11
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Appachai posted:Biotech tuesdays, google it. Yeah will be going. My wife already has gone a fair amount.
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Oct 28, 2015 11:53
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I heart bacon posted:Previous lab manager was like that. She is an ace at tracking numbers. Current one, not so much. This one is more shoot from the hip and no patience for data to come in and make more sound decisions. This is a big part of why I left lab and went to operations. I can't frantically make decisions over data I can't trust. Also, our equipment has become more unreliable lately over lack of regular calibration. If we were ever audited over equipment maintenance, we'd be screwed also since documentation of that is non-existent at this point. Previous lab manager documented the hell out of everything. It's very Christ, what the gently caress is wrong with your lab manager? If that poo poo isn't calibrated, you can't trust those results at all.
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Oct 28, 2015 13:01
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Solkanar512 posted:Christ, what the gently caress is wrong with your lab manager? If that poo poo isn't calibrated, you can't trust those results at all. I think the routine PM and calibration list may be coming back, but I don't really know for sure. Before I left the lab for operations, documentation on it was half-assed at best. Sometimes it helps me that I'm just a peon and this isn't my headache to deal with.
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Oct 28, 2015 20:59
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If anyone here works at Allergan, I offer my sympathies over what is about to happen to you.  http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/29/pfizer-allergan-eigh-up-big-pharma-mega-merger
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Nov 3, 2015 15:40
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john ashpool fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2015 18:50
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It's week for getting angry. Yesterday, I was at a scientific software meeting where we all shared battle stories, most of which were familiar: * being asked to design a webtool or pipeline with vague, handwavy details * going back for clarification and getting the irritated reply, "just finish it and I'll tell you what needs changing" * said software being "urgent" but then not being used at all * some people use the words "urgent", "crisis" and "emergency" as synonyms for "might be useful" or "would be nice to have" * users who assume that any software changes are no more complex than the time spent to vaguely describe them All of which set me up in a righteous mood for a teleconf this morning (about clinical data and merging multiple datasets). I got repeatedly angry, shouted and told someone "Oh my loving god, we are not talking about that now, we haven't resolved the previous point! Can you focus?" It was very productive. nonathlon fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Nov 5, 2015 |
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Nov 5, 2015 11:54
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Hey, I hope someone here can help me. I work in a laboratory for a major company running tests for r&d, product certification, and investigation purposes (ie what part is contaminated and why). Ive been a temp here for 1 year. Now they're bringing me on full time. My problem is I can't find a good average or starting salary number for a lab technician. Whenever I try and search for it I get results for medical lab techs which obviously isn't the same. Is there a keyword I'm missing or does anyone have knowledge about what a starting salary should be? I'm in the midwest.
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Nov 5, 2015 18:19
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packsmack posted:Hey, I hope someone here can help me. I work in a laboratory for a major company running tests for r&d, product certification, and investigation purposes (ie what part is contaminated and why). Ive been a temp here for 1 year. Now they're bringing me on full time. I'd ask for 45-50k. Check out Glassdoor for similar positions and go from there.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:30
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I work in R&D designing mass spectrometers at a big instrument manufacturer. I just wanted to comment that I have 3 or 4 colleagues with MS degrees that are quite successful. The path into R&D can be a bit trickier without the PhD, but it's definitely possible.
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Nov 6, 2015 00:47
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Day Man posted:I work in R&D designing mass spectrometers at a big instrument manufacturer. is it shimadzu I bet it's shimadzu edit: I actually hope it isn't shimadzu mbt fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 00:56
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Mortimer posted:is it shimadzu I bet it's shimadzu It's Thermo Day Man fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 01:19
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packsmack posted:Hey, I hope someone here can help me. I work in a laboratory for a major company running tests for r&d, product certification, and investigation purposes (ie what part is contaminated and why). Ive been a temp here for 1 year. Now they're bringing me on full time. Just to confirm, do you have a degree? How many total years of experience do you have besides your 1 year as a temp?
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Nov 6, 2015 02:01
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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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packsmack posted:Hey, I hope someone here can help me. I work in a laboratory for a major company running tests for r&d, product certification, and investigation purposes (ie what part is contaminated and why). Ive been a temp here for 1 year. Now they're bringing me on full time. http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/salaries/surveys.html
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Nov 6, 2015 02:06
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Day Man posted:It's Thermo I just bought one this year. The MS is very very well designed. Kudos! Now tell your software people to make it easier to stack spectra. Thanks!
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Nov 6, 2015 02:08
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Sundae posted:If anyone here works at Allergan, I offer my sympathies over what is about to happen to you. I can also sympathize. Endless pfun.
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Nov 6, 2015 02:47
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Day Man posted:I work in R&D designing mass spectrometers at a big instrument manufacturer. I just wanted to comment that I have 3 or 4 colleagues with MS degrees that are quite successful. The path into R&D can be a bit trickier without the PhD, but it's definitely possible. How does one end up in that sort of job? i like doing instrument work but no one seems to want to hire me since i have totally useless experience. Also how many years of experience do your colleagues have? i would imagine they have enough that the masters is just waved over or they started back when a masters had some sort of value beyond a super-undergraduate degree.
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Nov 6, 2015 02:53
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Dik Hz posted:I just bought one this year. The MS is very very well designed. Kudos! Now tell your software people to make it easier to stack spectra. Thanks! Thanks! Which model did you get? I'll go talk to the software guys tomorrow, ha ha Which software package are you using? Ezekiel_980 posted:How does one end up in that sort of job? i like doing instrument work but no one seems to want to hire me since i have totally useless experience. Well, I sort of stumbled into it, frankly. As an undergrad, I wanted to be a surgeon. I decided that volunteering to work in a professor's lab would look good on a med school application, so I volunteered for my Organic professor's lab. He turned me down, as he had a bunch of volunteers, and my grades weren't as good as theirs. I then found a posting asking for a student to work in a p chem lab, which I did. I fell in love with instruments working in that lab. It's sort of like astronomy, which I find to be really interesting, but instead of measuring unfathomably huge things with wrenches and electricity, you measure unimaginably small things with wrenches and electricity. I decided I wanted to work in a lab to develop instrumentation, and joined a lab to work on a novel mass spectrometer when I went to grad school to get my PhD. That set me up for a career in the field, because there are only a few labs across the country that really develop instruments from scratch. Getting that experience is invaluable. I know one colleague with an MS degree that got it in England. He worked for a small company in England, as a junior scientist. He assembled the first commercial Orbitrap for Alaxander Makarov. I don't know the details of how they got acquired, but that was his way on. I know a guy that has an MS that has worked his way up to manage about half of the scientists in R&D at one of the sites. He is also European, and probably got his degree back when they were treated as more meaningful. There's another guy, though, who is about my age, that got the job straight out of school. He was in a physics lab at a good university working with laser systems. He was in his fifth year and his professor told him it was going to take another 4 or 5 years, so he took the masters. His reasoning for not getting the PhD was reasonable, and he showed tremendous technical understanding, so they took a chance and brought him on. He has immediately become one of the best scientists on the team, and is working on an mba in his off time. I predict that he'll be going way up the chain of command.
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Nov 6, 2015 03:59
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Day Man posted:Thanks! Which model did you get? I'll go talk to the software guys tomorrow, ha ha Which software package are you using?
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Nov 6, 2015 04:18
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Dik Hz posted:The latest ISQ. Your sales guys down at PittCon really made the sale. Chromeleon software package. I'm starting to work more with Chromeleon soon, I'll see what I can do.
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Nov 6, 2015 05:02
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Pain of Mind posted:Just to confirm, do you have a degree? How many total years of experience do you have besides your 1 year as a temp? My degree is in biology. I had a year of research, a summer in a different universities lab and then a school year in my university. I then went to grad school for 2 years to go into the medical field before deciding that wasn't for me. I'm now in a lab that focuses on water filtration. So, biological contaminants and my slightly above average chemistry skills are what is in demand there. Edit: Thanks for the ACS link, but all that information is behind an ACS member paywall. packsmack fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Nov 6, 2015 |
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Nov 6, 2015 05:54
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