In light of the sobering layoff figures I listed in my last post, you can imagine that the competition for available job postings is tremendous. When one goes to the job fairs at the American Chemical Society semi-annual national meetings, it is startling the number of people vying for the posted job ads.
When I was going through the process about a year ago, there were people ranging from their mid-50s to those fresh out of grad school hoping for job interviews. The level of stress in the job seeker area was high. Everyone was trying to put their best foot forward.
Which is why, when we had a job candidate onsite this week, I was shocked at his demeanor.
He was speaking with me and a few other chemists. We were having a conversation about what he wanted from a job when he said,"Well, shit! I am really impressed by this company. You get the feeling from some companies that they are in existance just to get bought out. But, hell, I can tell you guys are in it for the long haul."
*blink*
He continued,"The top thing I want from a job is that I want to like the people I work with. I mean we have all worked with people whom we liked and others who were jackasses. There was this one guy in my lab who was a fuckin' asshole. Completely toxic. But luckily, my advisor got the point early on and shit-canned him.'
*blink blink*
Ooooooooookay. Colorful language there.
Shit-canned??? I learned a new phrase. It takes a lot to teach a 33 year old who has been through grad school in a predominately male lab a new way to cuss. But apparently, some of the guys at work had heard of it. It comes from the Army---there are cans under the latrines that some poor soul must empty every day. Ick.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see if he will be joining us. He is certainly the most colorful character we have interviewed during my time at the company.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Current Job Market for Synthetic Chemists
For those in the chemical field, I probably don't have to tell you the state of the job market. For the uninitiated, it sucks. Tighter R&D budgets, less government funding, outsourcing of jobs, patent issues (these include patents expiring and patent infringement problems), and the ever increasing expectations of shareholders have led to routine yearly layoffs in the sector.
After a quick survey of the web, the following is a short list of companies that recently announced layoffs (since 2007, with dates of announcements-courtsey of the AP). It doesn't include many smaller start-ups and biotechs that were either bought out by a larger company or shut down after their business model/drug candidate failed.
--Schering-Plough Corp., 5,500 jobs, 10 percent of staff (April 2)
--Wyeth, 5,000 jobs, or 10 percent, Jan. 25
--Novartis AG, more than 3,760 jobs, or 4 percent (Oct. 2007-Jan. 2008)
--Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., about 4,200, 10 percent (Dec. 2007)
--Bayer AG, 1,500 jobs, 1.5 percent (Nov. 2007)
--GlaxoSmithKline PLC, unspecified jobs (Oct. 2007; I noticed where they announced a second round in recent days.)
--King Pharmaceuticals Inc., 560 jobs, or 20 percent (Oct. 2007)
--Johnson & Johnson, up to 4,800 jobs, or 4 percent (July 2007)
--AstraZeneca PLC, 7,600 jobs, 4 percent (July 2007)
--Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., 150 jobs, 70 percent (June 2007)
--Pfizer Inc., 10,000 jobs, or 10 percent (Jan. 2007)
--Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., 267 jobs, or 76 percent (Jan. 2007)
Prior major restructurings:
--Merck & Co., trimmed 7,200 jobs since December 2005.
--Eli Lilly & Co., trimmed more than 5,000 jobs, about 11 percent, since 2004 and continuing.
Of course, it didn't always used to be this way.
As a grad student in the late 1990s, I had been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of my chosen field. The pharma sector was booming.
I saw people getting snatched out of our group (natural products/synthetic organic) and given money hand over fist to work in pharma. The pay at large pharma for someone just out of grad school had reached dizzying heights. Large signing bonuses were so common that if you got one below $10K, people thought something must be wrong with you.
I held my breath and prayed the market wouldn't tank before I graduated. However, the dot-com bust, 9/11 and the following recession occurred about a year before I defended. Just my luck.
Good thing there are these things called post-docs. Yeah, right. Two more years of working 80 hour weeks for slave wages. I did two post-docs for varying reasons but one of the largest factors was that the job market was poor. I count myself lucky though--I know many people who are on their 3rd and 4th postdocs. Academe was able to absorb many of the chemists industry couldn't but based on anecdotal evidence, this is trend is slowing. Competition for available postdocs is increasing.
So my fellow lab rats, keep those resumes/CVs up-to-date and keep building new skills to set yourself apart from the crowd. And good luck.
After a quick survey of the web, the following is a short list of companies that recently announced layoffs (since 2007, with dates of announcements-courtsey of the AP). It doesn't include many smaller start-ups and biotechs that were either bought out by a larger company or shut down after their business model/drug candidate failed.
--Schering-Plough Corp., 5,500 jobs, 10 percent of staff (April 2)
--Wyeth, 5,000 jobs, or 10 percent, Jan. 25
--Novartis AG, more than 3,760 jobs, or 4 percent (Oct. 2007-Jan. 2008)
--Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., about 4,200, 10 percent (Dec. 2007)
--Bayer AG, 1,500 jobs, 1.5 percent (Nov. 2007)
--GlaxoSmithKline PLC, unspecified jobs (Oct. 2007; I noticed where they announced a second round in recent days.)
--King Pharmaceuticals Inc., 560 jobs, or 20 percent (Oct. 2007)
--Johnson & Johnson, up to 4,800 jobs, or 4 percent (July 2007)
--AstraZeneca PLC, 7,600 jobs, 4 percent (July 2007)
--Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., 150 jobs, 70 percent (June 2007)
--Pfizer Inc., 10,000 jobs, or 10 percent (Jan. 2007)
--Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., 267 jobs, or 76 percent (Jan. 2007)
Prior major restructurings:
--Merck & Co., trimmed 7,200 jobs since December 2005.
--Eli Lilly & Co., trimmed more than 5,000 jobs, about 11 percent, since 2004 and continuing.
Of course, it didn't always used to be this way.
As a grad student in the late 1990s, I had been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of my chosen field. The pharma sector was booming.
I saw people getting snatched out of our group (natural products/synthetic organic) and given money hand over fist to work in pharma. The pay at large pharma for someone just out of grad school had reached dizzying heights. Large signing bonuses were so common that if you got one below $10K, people thought something must be wrong with you.
I held my breath and prayed the market wouldn't tank before I graduated. However, the dot-com bust, 9/11 and the following recession occurred about a year before I defended. Just my luck.
Good thing there are these things called post-docs. Yeah, right. Two more years of working 80 hour weeks for slave wages. I did two post-docs for varying reasons but one of the largest factors was that the job market was poor. I count myself lucky though--I know many people who are on their 3rd and 4th postdocs. Academe was able to absorb many of the chemists industry couldn't but based on anecdotal evidence, this is trend is slowing. Competition for available postdocs is increasing.
So my fellow lab rats, keep those resumes/CVs up-to-date and keep building new skills to set yourself apart from the crowd. And good luck.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Viral Video of the Day: Police Dashboard Video
Below is a link to a video that you have to see to believe.
http://www.trutv.com/video/index.html?id=829&link=truTVVideoeflk
This video illustrates nicely why I don't have a job that requires dealing the public at large. People are crazy and are becoming more so every day.
I am perfectly happy standing in front of my hood, sniffing, er, handling chemicals all day, thank you very much.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Rockin' and a Rollin'
It's 4:37AM on Friday and my bed is swaying slightly. Hmmm, sounds great....except I am alone. I sit up and listen as the heating system (located in the room behind my bedroom) rattles to life with a loud clunk! and proceeds with various clings! and clanks! as though it were coming to life and slowly disentangling itself from the structure built around it.
Hmmm, strong winds, maybe?
I have lived in the Midwest twice in my life: once, for a year and a half in Minnesota while doing my first academic postdoc out of grad school at a large research university and again for the past 8 months, this time in another state, for my first industrial position.
And one thing I have noticed in my two plus years of living in the Midwest is that the wind blows constantly here. Not just blows---whips.
Not really an issue unless it is -30 degrees below (actual air temperature) and you are outside waiting on the bus that takes you to campus. The bus that is always late.
Anyway, where I am currently living is a POC (translation: piece of crap). How I got here is a long story but the synopsis is there was no time between accepting this position and the start date to come out and look at apartments (they were very short-handed). I went through HR to find this duplex where I am currently living. I moved from the East Coast a week before my start date to find that while yes, it is technically a duplex as it is divided into two living spaces, it really is just a double-wide, extra long tornado magnet (translation: mobile home) built up on cinder blocks to create a crawl space underneath.
It is covered in vinyl siding that billows every time the wind blows. There is no insulation so you can hear the wind hit the northwest corner of the "duplex", blow down the length of that wall towards the south, come around the corner and rattle all of the siding on the backside of the "duplex".
The first time I heard it, having never lived in a structure with vinyl siding on it, I screamed "OMG! There are rats in the walls!" Once I calmed down some, and stepped off the coffee table, I noticed the rustling sound was rhythmic and not random which you would expect sounds to be if made by nasty vermin chewing through drywall. I went outside and I could see the siding billowing like a flag in the wind. It was coming several inches up from the plywood (Dear God, please let there be at least some plywood under there!). After a hysterical phone call to my parents, I was reassured that this was normal to an extent.
So when the heating system was clinging and a-clanging on Friday, I thought the wind must be whipping up. Except the siding wasn't making that billowing sound....hmmm, my bottle of water on the night stand was beginning to rock.
Maybe it is the really hot next door neighbor doing his laundry and his washer was unbalanced?
Nope, there is no water running (yeah, I can hear that too--like I said, no insulation.).
Every thing was rattling at this point. Surely, it couldn't be an earthquake here! I always imagined my first experience with an earthquake would be out in California during an ACS convention (American Chemical Society--every other one seems to be in either San Diego or San Francisco).
But yes, it was an earthquake--which they are now describing as a 5.2 in magnitude. Immediately, everyone starts wondering if it is a prelude to the big one--meaning the New Madrid fault.
Hmmm, which leads me to wonder: how do tornado magnets fare during earthquakes????
Hmmm, strong winds, maybe?
I have lived in the Midwest twice in my life: once, for a year and a half in Minnesota while doing my first academic postdoc out of grad school at a large research university and again for the past 8 months, this time in another state, for my first industrial position.
And one thing I have noticed in my two plus years of living in the Midwest is that the wind blows constantly here. Not just blows---whips.
Not really an issue unless it is -30 degrees below (actual air temperature) and you are outside waiting on the bus that takes you to campus. The bus that is always late.
Anyway, where I am currently living is a POC (translation: piece of crap). How I got here is a long story but the synopsis is there was no time between accepting this position and the start date to come out and look at apartments (they were very short-handed). I went through HR to find this duplex where I am currently living. I moved from the East Coast a week before my start date to find that while yes, it is technically a duplex as it is divided into two living spaces, it really is just a double-wide, extra long tornado magnet (translation: mobile home) built up on cinder blocks to create a crawl space underneath.
It is covered in vinyl siding that billows every time the wind blows. There is no insulation so you can hear the wind hit the northwest corner of the "duplex", blow down the length of that wall towards the south, come around the corner and rattle all of the siding on the backside of the "duplex".
The first time I heard it, having never lived in a structure with vinyl siding on it, I screamed "OMG! There are rats in the walls!" Once I calmed down some, and stepped off the coffee table, I noticed the rustling sound was rhythmic and not random which you would expect sounds to be if made by nasty vermin chewing through drywall. I went outside and I could see the siding billowing like a flag in the wind. It was coming several inches up from the plywood (Dear God, please let there be at least some plywood under there!). After a hysterical phone call to my parents, I was reassured that this was normal to an extent.
So when the heating system was clinging and a-clanging on Friday, I thought the wind must be whipping up. Except the siding wasn't making that billowing sound....hmmm, my bottle of water on the night stand was beginning to rock.
Maybe it is the really hot next door neighbor doing his laundry and his washer was unbalanced?
Nope, there is no water running (yeah, I can hear that too--like I said, no insulation.).
Every thing was rattling at this point. Surely, it couldn't be an earthquake here! I always imagined my first experience with an earthquake would be out in California during an ACS convention (American Chemical Society--every other one seems to be in either San Diego or San Francisco).
But yes, it was an earthquake--which they are now describing as a 5.2 in magnitude. Immediately, everyone starts wondering if it is a prelude to the big one--meaning the New Madrid fault.
Hmmm, which leads me to wonder: how do tornado magnets fare during earthquakes????
Sunday, April 13, 2008
In the News: Problems with Botox?
Newsweek has published a report of new evidence that Botox may be inflitrating the central nervous system and finding its way into the brain:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131749
A New Reason to Frown
Does Botox get into the brain? Troubling research contradicts earlier findings about the treatment.
By Sharon Begley
In a reversal of the usual sequence in science, researchers have discovered, after millions of people have received the drug, something fundamental about how Botox can act. Contrary to what turned up in preclinical testing, botulinum toxin can travel along neurons from the injection site into the brain, at least in lab animals....
http://www.newsweek.com/id/131749
A New Reason to Frown
Does Botox get into the brain? Troubling research contradicts earlier findings about the treatment.
By Sharon Begley
In a reversal of the usual sequence in science, researchers have discovered, after millions of people have received the drug, something fundamental about how Botox can act. Contrary to what turned up in preclinical testing, botulinum toxin can travel along neurons from the injection site into the brain, at least in lab animals....
Within three days, the toxin had migrated from the whisker muscles to the brainstem, where it disrupted neuronal activity. "The discovery was quite serendipitous ... and surprising," Matteo Caleo, who led the study, told the journal Science. "A significant portion of the toxin is active where it's not intended to be." That stands in contrast to the findings of earlier studies, which suggested that the neurotoxin is completely broken down at the injection site into innocuous compounds and does not migrate beyond it—or if it does, only into the bloodstream or lymph system.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Respecting Jerks
Jerk: (Slang.) a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.
Respect: esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment.
So can you respect someone who is a jerk?
This is a question I have struggled to answer for a long time. I, like so many others, have horror stories about my professors and people I worked with during my time in academia. Some were great chemists, others not so much. My grad advisor is one such person.
On first meeting him, my impression was that he was an OK guy who was quiet--maybe even a little shy. He is well published in the field of organic chemistry having worked on both methodology and natural product synthesis. His "pedigree" as it is called in organic chemistry, includes one of the "rock star" chemists known the world over.
In fact, he attended my college alma mater and we were awarded the same overall best senior chemistry major award some 20 years apart. I was excited when I was accepted by the major research university where he was employed and that he seemed to take a personal interest in recruiting me.
That excitement quickly changed to disappointment once I joined his lab as a first year grad student. He was moody and given to fits of throwing things when angry. Big things like large vacuum pumps. He never offered an encouraging word and had a nasty tendency to blame the chemist first when chemistry wasn't working instead of thinking how the chemistry itself might be flawed (I guess looking back that shouldn't be a surprise to me as he was the one who thought up the synthetic routes, etc.). He played favorites and made it clear to people when you weren't one of them. He claimed to want to help women in the field and then did every thing possible to run them down. He was and is still extremely two-faced. I could go on further but it is probably best to say that he is not one of my favorite people.
The more I learned about him, the harder it was to respect him. It didn't matter if he was a great chemist--he sucked as a human being. I initially made excuses for his behaviors but now, with some time passed, there are no excuses for the things he inflicted on his students. He is one of the biggest jerks (I typically use other colorful descriptions of him in private but since Blogger has standards and all....) I have ever known.
This week, I was speaking with some co-workers who had previously worked together before joining our current company. They were speaking of their former boss. Apparently, this former employer had many
I was stuck by a statement of one of my co-workers. He said even though he hated the guy, he still respected him because he did his job well. I asked him about the apparent disconnect--if all those "wonderful" qualities didn't spill over into his work and he said at times, yes, it did, but he treated everyone the same crappy way and that he usually knew what he was talking about when it came to business.
I asked how anyone could respect a jerk and another co-worker suggested that women tended to view people as a whole while men tended to compartmentalize which made it easier for men to respect jerks.
Interesting hypothesis. So can you respect a jerk?
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