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I got my BS in chemistry in 2009 and spent the last 5 years working in Boston doing research reagent manufacture, mostly radiolabeling and HPLC method development but much more over 5 years here. I like it here, it's comfortable, but it's slowly become evident that this is a dead end job with a below-average salary and raises that will never beat inflation. Still, the work's alright, the people are great, and the hours are "eh, come in whenever, leave 8 hours later." So I'm not deathly urgent to get out, but I'd like to move on some time in the next ~6 months. I've been sending out resumes on Indeed for listings that look like they'll either pay better or have a decent chance at some upward mobility, but I'm not really sure if I'm targeting the right jobs and I'm not sure where else to look for listings (Indeed, Monster, LinkedIn? What else?). Already I've had two recruiters call to ask about more details about my LinkedIn resume, and I don't know shitall about recruiters. I know not to trust a drat thing because they're parasites, but that's about it. Also they asked about contract and contract-to-perm work and I also don't know anything about that. I know to ask for more money, since contract work doesn't come with benefits and I'd be more "on my own" financially as a contractor, but I don't know anything about negotiating contract work once the interview is over. Still, Boston's a pretty good town for biotech/chemistry work, and I've only really just started hunting, so so far I'm not finding a shortage of listings to apply to. I hired a service to write my resume, and I'm happy with the result, but I still don't feel confident in any part of the application process prior to the interview.
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Jan 5, 2015 16:53
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Thanks, hadn't heard of that, on it.
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Jan 6, 2015 05:59
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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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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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Just Boston.
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Oct 25, 2015 23:38
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Pete Zah posted:What worries me is that I’ve spent close to three years doing computational chemistry (trying to find transition states using Gaussian) instead of fiddling with the HPLC columns and spectrometers. I had a chem BS and some undergrad research on an organic synthetic method study coming out of college. I told the interviewers that I had no HPLC experience whatsoever, my school owned exactly 1 HPLC and we were too poor and it was considered too valuable to let undergrads touch it. My first job was complete manufacturing and quality control work using HPLC all day every day. 5 years later I interviewed for a position closer to biochem than chem and again pretty much explained in the interview that I hadn't run a gel or pcr since college and had no experience on whatever other instruments they said they were using in the lab. I had 5 years' HPLC experience but the job didn't use it. The interviewer basically said she didn't care, "it's obvious that you can do the job, at your level this isn't hard, I just want to see that you can answer the question and talk with me about it. After this I'm going to let you get lunch with the team and then hire based on their opinion."
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Dec 3, 2015 00:37
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I don't understand what GC tanks being in the locker room has to do with gender?
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Dec 6, 2015 15:56
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What wavelength?
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Jan 8, 2016 04:18
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I feel like I just came from where you are career-wise, and it went well. BS in chem, 5 years in a research reagent manufacturing lab, no GMP, underpaid at $48k inside the city of Boston, job title was "Chemist" for 5 years, raises below inflation every year. No real jewels on the resume but a wide, wide variety of weird techniques because the lab had been around forever and still did all these wonky syntheses and purifications. But also no GMP. They laid me off and inside of 2 months I took an ~18+ month contract job for a GMP QC lab at $37/hour as a Senior Analyst. I'll either go permanent once the contract renewal rolls around or I'll have 5 years in manufacturing and 1-2 years GMP experience on this contract and expect to find high $70ks to mid $80ks in the area. If you can get your resume in front of the right eyes, you can get interviews with that experience. If you interview well, you can get jobs with that experience. I dunno what things are like in South Carolina, but eastern Massachusetts has a bunch of biotech/pharma around. Pfizer, Shire, Astrazeneca, Biogen, Millipore, Waters, Agilent, Novartis, Genzyme, Takeda, Vertex are all probably within 45 minutes of each other. And that's just off the top of my head. TheSpartacus posted:I might also note that this is an anomaly, this did not happen the last 10x I have ran this particular assay, with this particular drug. Hm, spent the last 5 years doing HPLC almost every work day and this has me stumped. That's a weird one.
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Jan 10, 2016 19:58
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Dik Hz posted:Your viscous sample is causing a change in the index of refraction, which is affecting your UV signal. Reduce concentration to get nice peaks. Doesn't explain why it hasn't happened before. This sample isn't atypical, but this result is.
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Jan 11, 2016 06:43
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seacat posted:How the hell did you get by on that little in Boston? I used to live in Boston so I know how expensive poo poo is... I make more than that in DFW and the cost of living is like 1/4 Lived in Waltham at first because you're right, but I moved into a 3 bedroom in Boston for $1200/mo at the time. It went pretty well. A lot about the job was okay, a lot about the job was not okay.
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Jan 13, 2016 03:27
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Why did you tolerate it for 5 years??
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I'd do that.
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Jan 15, 2016 02:17
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john ashpool posted:I'm thinking somewhere around Kendall, maybe 7pm on a work day. I haven't been to Flat Top Johnny's in a while. 7PM on some blank Monday or Tuesday? Or do you guys get done earlier than that?
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Jan 16, 2016 01:41
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Uhhhh so I don't know exactly what a 'lab tech' means in your country, but I have a BS in chemistry in the states, which is our four year degree, and I do a buttload of hands on lab work, so functionally I think this might answer your question, but then again, what's a lab tech? Everyone in my labs have bachelors or up.Trier posted:Is it social or solitary? Yes. When you are in the darkroom setting up multiple square-meter paper chromatography blocks with nitromethane for several hours, it can get kinda lonely. When you are aliquotting thirty thousand vials using autopipettors alongside the entire lab's labor pool because this thing is made once every several years and it's not worth buying a filler machine over it, people say dumb poo poo. Trier posted:Is it repetitive and hum-drum, or not? Yes. See above. There is so much stupid esoteric poo poo being done in labs that it's really just a matter of waiting for the right interview and you can find goofy schedules, weird hours, night crew, huge lab staffs or tiny tech teams, or whatever else. Plenty of 9-5m-f too.
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Jun 1, 2016 03:34
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I used to make nucleotides with rhodamine, cyanines, and fluorescein labels. They look like you're running highlighter inks through the HPLC. Edit: Here's an old photo of some Cy5 in an unmixed layer of HPLC waste: 
RadioPassive fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Jun 29, 2016 |
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Jun 29, 2016 11:29
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I mean stealing office supplies is a time honored tradition but if someone actually asks for it back you gotta give it up.
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Jul 14, 2016 01:19
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I work for Genzyme, what's up?
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Aug 29, 2016 13:02
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I'm in QC chemistry and we're way understaffed. I'm here at least until my 401k vests in 2 years, and if they treat me well I could easily see myself here forever. Assuming I don't die of stress induced alcoholism or suicide before then. Fast paced high stress doesn't even begin to describe my lab. I loving love it, but we are completely insane. I wouldn't worry about layoffs at all. I laughed when I read your question.
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Sep 1, 2016 16:59
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Benefits are great, time off is pretty poo poo here. Everything is over complicated by upper management freaking out about data integrity vulnerabilities without actually understanding what data integrity means in a lab.
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Sep 2, 2016 19:37
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I repair/rebuild the rubber soles of my Rockport Rugged Bucks with some Shoe Goo every several months. They're really soft and I wore through the balls of the soles in like 12 months on my first pair. Comfy though, and the Shoe Goo does a great job of replacing the worn sole rubber.
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Sep 30, 2016 19:04
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Organic acids?
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Apr 7, 2017 19:21
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100% hit them up personally first to say "hey, job hunting, saw its you, what's the job like? Should I apply?" or whatever. Be chummy. Also, where in Boston? I'm at Genzyme in Framingham and I used to be at PerkinElmer in the South End.
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May 18, 2017 21:18
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Can’t have bad data integrity if you never log in and generate data.
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Mar 30, 2018 19:47
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crabrock posted:my lab has solved this by printing a label whoa there mr postdoc Gobbeldygook posted:A thinkpad with a sticky note on the monitor: as GMP intended.
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May 20, 2018 22:14
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ascii genitals posted:The best is dealing with the bizarre quirks of blended systems We run instruments that can only be controlled by Chromeleon but in a GDP environment where data can only be captured by Empower. I'm quitting soon.
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May 30, 2018 00:55
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It's GDP, it's legally required to be depressing. Even if it was cool like that, I'm sure I'd be required by some obscure SOP to line-out the chameleon and footnote it with explanatory language about why it's not needed.
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May 30, 2018 02:02
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Lyon posted:What is GDP? I'm unfamiliar with that term. Seen plenty of GMP, GLP, GAMP, but never GDP. We’re not manufacturing so GMP isn’t quite right. We’re quality control so we’re all about documentation and data integrity, so GDP instead.
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May 30, 2018 21:25
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Yup. Chemist: If we run the carbohydrate analysis on any instrument other than HPLC Number 5, it'll fail the control and system suitability criteria. Number 5 is in use today, we can't run carbohydrate analysis until tomorrow, which is fine, the deadline for this stability timepoint is in 3 days. Management: Any instrument should be able to run any test, carbohydrate analysis needs to happen today because scheduling and I can't have you just sitting around not testing. Chemist: *Runs carbos on HPLC Number 4* *Fails control range* Management: Since you've failed, write up the Lab Event GMP paperwork for the failure and get a signature to authorize re-testing, contact Sample Management to get a contingency sample for the re-test, remove HPLC #4 from service and contact the vendor if you can't identify or address the root cause of the failure yourself, and re-run the test on any other instrument since they should all be able to run any test. Vendor: Yeah this thing's running perfectly, passes all my performance checks with flying colors.
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Nov 15, 2018 14:48
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I wish I still worked for QC so I could sneak that into some slideshow for a meeting but goddamn am I glad I no longer work in QC.
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Jan 29, 2019 06:25
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Is that actually a plastic slide holder? Looks like the packaging to something completely different that happens to work well as a little rest for slides.
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May 30, 2019 16:14
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This is probably what 3d printing is for.
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May 30, 2019 16:22
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Does humidity matter? If not, I'm with your boss on this one.
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Jul 10, 2019 22:01
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Sorry, I come from a GMP environment where you never generate more data than you need, and you absolutely do not make a measurement unless the paperwork calls for it. If the procedure document says "we weigh under nitrogen" and nothing about humidity, then you ignore the humidity and take it up with QA if you think that's a problem.
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Jul 11, 2019 13:28
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Where?
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Sep 10, 2019 06:30
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If you don't have strong GDP culture, I don't know of a short term solution here. Our approach, also in a company under consent decree and extreme scrutiny, was to attach a 3-5 employee document review team to each laboratory. Operators could review and sign off one another's data if required to meet deadlines or deliverables, but without special circumstance, all handwritten material gets passed through two independent reviews, requiring signatures of each, before the data is considered part of the quality record. If it doesn't meet GDP it gets sent back to the originator for corrections. No results, materials, data, or reports leave the lab without the go-ahead from the document reviewers. For some of our more error-prone processes, or intermediate steps capable of process-ending errors, we would require a review signature on checkpoint paperwork before proceeding. Can't run the instrument without a signed permission slip. You can't error-correct until you error-detect, so effective review is critical. RadioPassive fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Feb 5, 2021 |
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Feb 5, 2021 07:42
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I wish we could've done mass firings and PIPs. Instead we just slowly gave the worst offenders fewer and fewer GDP responsibilities, and developed a culture of "please don't resent these fools for being so unproductive, if they tried helping it would be a disaster."
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Feb 5, 2021 07:46
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Sundae posted:We also had a broad re-write of the batch records to try to fix poorly-designed pages, remove unnecessary documentation, make it very clear where things needed documentation, blah blah. This is an often overlooked and very poorly understood dimension of GDP error prevention. Your procedural document lifecycle needs to include someone in the creation team who knows what the gently caress UI/UX is. A black and white clip art of a roadside stop sign does not magically improve operator precision when entering data on this form you rubes.
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Feb 5, 2021 18:29
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That sucks.
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Feb 14, 2021 06:42
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Come post with us in the Boston thread. I moved away like 5 years ago but I'm actually still posting from the T, waiting to leave.
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Mar 30, 2021 20:39
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Dik Hz posted:Also, of course the analytical chemists are collecting the <LOQ data and analyzing it for trends. They're analytical chemists; they live and breath that stuff. They're just not reporting it to you. If it’s gmp data we absolutely do not analyze it for trends unless required to do so. If you want to analyze that data, first you ask QA or QC management whether it’s appropriate to even generate or capture that data.
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May 28, 2021 13:06
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