Bastard Tetris posted:

That can be true, but spending your early-mid 30s making twice minimum wage with a Ph.D is soul-crushing, especially when you don't know how long it's going to last.

Sundae posted:

In slightly less depressing news than my previous post (though still depressing nonetheless), my purchase order for black ballpoint pens was just rejected by our accounting department.

We make something like $25B a year in profits. I'm sure they can spare $8.00 so that I have pens.

bairfanx posted:

So, I just recently graduated with my BS in Physics. I've been looking around for jobs, and it seems like even lab positions want a not-insignificant amount of experience. Am I basically hosed for finding a job that does anything with my degree if I don't pursue further education?

Sundae posted:

I'm gone. My entire line got cut, even the managers.

Any of you guys need formulation scientists?

Sundae posted:

Eh, it's okay. It was going to be a 50/50 thing based on what the organization decided to do. They were either going to kill the entire scientific formulations division from an actual "we do research" view, or they were going to keep it. If they kept it, I was 100% safe. (I saw my year-end rating; I was one of the best in the department, hands down.) They decided, instead, to let India- and China-based CRO/CDOs handle all the grunt work and just keep project managers, so they canned my entire line and kept the high-end scientists.

It's typical Pfizer, basically. Might hurt in the short-term, but I'll be better off somewhere else overall.


Absolutely. I stay on for a bit over a month (mid-Sept departure), then 60 more days of pay to comply with the WARN Act, then my severance package is going to be about 20 weeks of salary plus 12 months of retaining my health insurance at my own rate (not the COBRA rate thank god) and an extra $5K "retraining bonus" to supposedly go and learn poo poo with, but realistically to stay alive with.

All in all, I'll be walking away with about $35,000 plus my health insurance.

The real kicker? This was my first day back after getting married on Saturday. The first thing I did in the morning was add my wife to my benefits package. She gets to keep it all for 12 months as well, because it went into effect before I got the layoff announcement.

plester1 posted:

Sounds about right for a Hopkins lab. That place has a particularly masochistic culture, even down to the undergraduate level where people cutthroat each other and literally sleep in the library which is open 24/7.

Also, that guy's life story is kind of amazing, he was featured on ABC's Hopkins documentary. Dude came into the country as an illegal migrant farm worker who didn't speak any English and is now a loving professor of neurosurgery at the most prestigious hospital in the world.

I'd be intimidated too.

edit: Goddamn, bringing in a cancer patient to lab meetings is a particularly nasty mindfuck

Scientastic posted:

Ignore these people and do a PhD. Sure, the money's shite, but after three years, you'll be a DOCTOR!

Appachai posted:

I'm not really sure, but somehow they've been there for 10 years. I think maybe they got a spectacular deal on the building

Pain of Mind posted:

I just received a phone call from some HR guy at a 50 person or so start up I interviewed at (I never met HR at the interview) that said they would like to make me an offer, and they will submit all my info to the board of directors to decide on an offer, then get back to me in a few days. At least he did not poo poo his pants when I told him my previous salary unlike the last startup, though I still have no idea what they are going to come back with. I noticed this company has a ton of foreign post docs, over half the people I interviewed with were postdocs from china, it was weird. I am not sure if that is a bad omen or not (cheap)?

Solkanar512 posted:

2. So the H1-B visa holders who work as researchers have been started on an incentive plan. They get a bonus if and only if they create something that the owner can patent. This has led to at least one researcher injecting herself with an untested drug on a regular basis to show how safe it is for humans. No, it hasn't been tested anywhere else, that would waste time. But apparently lots of folks knew about it.

Sundae posted:

I'm interviewing with a major company based out of Midland MI right now. The position is a biz-side suit & tie position, interfacing with R&D and QA.

I just used interface as a verb. I am becoming the villain. Someone save me.

Pain of Mind posted:

Sundae posted:

Anyone here done a PhD as a US citizen outside the USA? Could you tell me about your experience in selecting programs, labs, the application process for your school, etc?



VVVV Thanks. Heading over there!

Solkanar512 posted:

So for a quick update on the lab, apparently the DHS is investigating them, and the lab is losing customers left and right.

In other news, everyone's favorite lab is having some issues...

I can't loving wait for the lawsuits that will come out of this.

Sundae posted:

One of my former co-workers has run into a strange problem at his new company.

He was offered a salary in the $75K range + a relocation package. The typical stipulations around relo applied, basically that if he left before a year was up, he would owe back the full cost of all relo benefits supplied to him. He accepted this, moved out to the San Diego area, and started his job.

He received one paycheck at his $75K range, and then received notification that he was subject to a paycut down to the mid $40K range. When he protested the change, HR told him he could take it or leave it, and that if he left, it would violate his severance contract and he'd owe them the (as usual, heavily inflated) cost of his relo back to the company.



Where would I send him to deal with this? Department of Labor? Department of Suck It Up You Lost the Gamble?


Meanwhile, I am now working at Lilly in an engineering-related role, so my lab stories are pretty much over now. I will miss this thread.

Solkanar512 posted:

This is a slightly related topic, but loving christ it's getting on my nerves.

I'm at that age where everyone is getting married and having kids. And suddenly everyone is a fan of that loving quack Dr. Sears and his "unbiased" alternative schedule for vaccinations. Why is it that so many new moms are going for this stupid naturalistic bullshit regarding vaccines!? And any time you give them good information they just scream at you that you think they're bad parents and they know their kids better than some know-it-all doctor or scientist.

Sorry for the rant, my area now has a whooping cough epidemic.

squigadoo posted:

Working my way through this thread, and I have to say the idea of going to industry sounds distressing and depressing. Not that my experiences in an academic research lab have been fantastic.

I'm someone who took too long and messed up along the way to finding education/work, and finished with a Masters in a biology field in 2008. Pretty horrible timing. I'm on my 2nd lab tech position in academia, and I am stressed the hell out all the time due to worrying about whether the postdoc I work under will chew me out for little things that may or may not be my doing.

My goal is to work my way into a lab manager position, which I noticed is occupied mostly by women who have gotten their positions by dint of being there forever and knowing everything. Case in point, my lab manager is retiring next year and celebrated her 25th year at this institution. I would love her position, but I do not know if I am qualified for it. Also, I do not see her position up on the job site for the lab so I suspect they have someone already.

Does anyone have advice or experience in moving from tech to manager?

Sabaka posted:

It really pisses me off that no companies appear to be willing to train anyone, ever, for anything. They just hope some other company will do the training and produce a trained employee they can then hire without having to put in that initial effort and investment.

squigadoo posted:

I suppose reading the first 6 pages of people saying, dear god no science gets done, people are dangerous, we're more administrated than scienced, my co-workers are terribads, I can't buy black pens! was a bit shocking to me. Then again, I am not sure how different academia is from that, really. (ETA that dear god, I just hit the page on the researcher injecting herself and the poor male mice)

I'm looking to get into managing an academic research lab, preferably in molecular biology, that will allow me to do both admin work and bench work. My affection for science has lessened and at least I can track paperowrk. I saw an opening on my campus for a behavioral lab, and that is not what I want to participate in. I do mouse work now, and my previous position had me doing a huge amount of mouse colony maintenance, but I'd like to cut back so I don't smell like mice. At the very least, I don't want to work on anything bigger than a mouse. I had pets, yknow?

Ideally, I'd find a lab with a PI that is starting out so I can help build and learn from the ground up. I did see something like that in NYC if anyone is interested, but I need to stay in MA for the fiancee's schooling. There's time for me to look as while money in the lab is tighter than before, it's still decently funded.

I have experience in cell culture, generating knockdown cell lines (I have nothing to do with generating the hairpins though), cloning, IHC, all the basics. The biggest issue is seeing if I have enough admin experience.

My first lab had me as lab tech, supply stocker/order dude, and cat herder. If a postdoc was hogging reagents, making messes and not cleaning up, eating in lab, not emptying his vacuum flask, I was the one that told them to stop being a jerk. Also, forced them to keep track of their mouse colonies, etc. I've assisted with a bit of animal protocol writing, but not a lot, and I've tracked accounts for ordering purposes. Also, general maintenance: defrosted freezers, emptied failing freezers, tracked down maintenance, cleaned up after summer students (dear god, 1L of bacteria spilled on the floor), all that wonderful stuff.


What kind of administrative tasks should I work on adding to my work experience to make myself look more attractive?

Zenzirouj posted:

So now the drawbridges are up and everybody is hoarding. The talent and experience exists, but it's not being passed along. There's gonna be major problems when the boomers start dropping dead or finally retiring and these companies are forced to turn to the younger crowd, who are still largely inexperienced but now have nobody to teach them.

Lyon posted:

Hah well that was fast. LIMS is laboratory management software, specifically around sample management, but most of them have extended quite a bit beyond that narrow scope. The most common use for a LIMS is to track a sample from collection, to receipt, through all of the testing and the test results, review (print CoA), and then disposal. We also have modules for specific laboratory testing such as stability, QC batches, CAPA workflows, reagent/consumable tracking, instrument maintenance/calibration schedules, analyst training, etc. A LIMS becomes the repository for all of your samples, test results, specifications, etc.

Pay depends on function and experience like anything else. What is your background? We are hiring Domain Experts and Business Analysts.

Solkanar512 posted:

I knew a guy who would start small companies, get swallowed by huge ones, pull away a few of his buddies to start a new firm, rinse and repeat. It was nuts.

Ezekiel_980 posted:

It feels like the outsourcing is having an effect. Our r&d departments state side are almost non existent, maybe 30-40 people total. Our India sites are several hundred people now. Although I work for a CRO so most of what we do is tied to what big pharma wants to fund this year.

*edit*
Also if you were looking to escape GMP pharma land what else is there for someone with the Chem MS?

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".

Dik Hz posted:

It's not a coincidence that the burn-out and depression rates in scientific PhD programs is so high.