A tragic waste of an amazing team - BioA
Pros
The people in the department are some of the most hardworking, helpful and fun colleagues to work with. A great place for new graduates to gain experience in a variety of laboratory and analytical techniques. If you enjoy lab work, this place will gives you plenty of practice and experience. If you’re lucky and get a nice line manager you’ll learn too. Constant work means good job security
Cons
Where to start? The workload was never-ending which is fair enough since this is a business after all. (But don’t use this fact to pressure and guilt the staffs. We’re not paid enough to stress over that!) There seems to be a lack of comprehension that more people leaving means that more work is left for everyone that is still there. Analysts are expected to get on with work the moment they get in but management struggles to decide on the day’s task leading to multiple changes and setback throughout the day. 8 hours was the contract, 9+ hours workday was the reality. It is expectant for analysts to put in extra hours. It’s easy to get burnout if you don’t stand up for yourself. The expectations that are placed on lab staffs are heavy and unrealistic. Expect every mistake to be heavily scrutinised despite the thousand other things you did do correctly. Study managers who has never set foot in the lab does not understand how much time and work is required in a lab. They set work, expect it to be done, and data is available the next day but it’s there at the cost of the analysts. Rinse and repeat everyday and forget work-life balance. Progression will prove to be a difficult fight. If you want to step up, the requirement is at you must go above and beyond working at the higher level (for the lower pay of your grade, of course, because apparently you can pay rent and feed yourself with experience.). Training programs for new-starters dwindled since the start and the responsibility are now pushed down to non-management staffs (whom will graciously help you despite being busy themselves). Daily departmental meeting is a thing but it feels more like a school register being taken. A lot of time is wasted especially since these meetings run over a lot. Only analysts are subjected to have to recant their previous workday and explain their day's schedule. Analysts and Study managers are fully capable of communicating with each other to agree on work scheduling. There is no need for daily department meeting where every studies and workplan, relevant and irrelevant, to be aired out. It feels like guise for upper management to have the chance to micro-manage and belittle lower level staffs. Random rules are introduced every now and then and the explanation for them usually implies that it is company's policy (it is not). Also HR recruitment are downright nasty. Telling an applicant their current job grade is too low to qualify applying for a higher grade lab role is highly rude, demeaning, and unprofessional. If you are ever on the verge of breaking down, try to remember this is for science. You might just make it through then.
