6 ms·

If you've ever worked as a bench technician in a Bio/Genetics/Testing lab you know that the hours are totally ridiculous and/or unstructured (expected to work w

If you've ever worked as a bench technician in a Bio/Genetics/Testing lab you know that the hours are totally ridiculous and/or unstructured (expected to work weekends without much notice or the like). Also you are expected to make just a touch above minimum wage (take home) as a salary while working much more than 40 hours a week. (Post-docs and Grad Students are also expected to work for similar low pay and extreme hours but this is more to further their career.) I'd say that this part of the article describes more or less exactly why the Science workforce is in such a bad shape (at least in the States): Companies would rather not pay STEM professionals high salaries with lavish benefits, offer them training on the job, or guarantee them decades of stable employment. So having an oversupply of workers, whether domestically educated or imported, is to their benefit There are very few who even bother to make it to "the top" where the actual salaries are because to get there involves getting stepped on, scooped (or outright left off papers), and generally used/abused. At a certain point most people burn out or just say screw it and move on to a different career. What you end up getting are a lot of people who had good intentions, loved the idea of a STEM job, and/or idealistic beginnings, and then were destroyed by the reality of working in Science.

ilbe 13y ago
Anyone who has read Grapes of Wrath knows that the correct statement is, "Companies would rather not pay ANY professionals high salaries..." Call it a conflict of interest or call it the market. One way or the other, the conclusion is improve your skills, increase your value, and in the name of friendly competition, skin the company alive for as much as you can get for the skill the company demands. They are playing the same game with you.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Problem being that in this sort of industry you can't improve your skills or increase your value without the 'company' (often not a company but an institution) doing the above to you. I agree with what you're saying! I'm more pointing out that the problem isn't with educating more individuals (or doing it better) its with the way the system utilizes said individuals and their education/skills. You can't expect (or bemoan the lack of) breakthroughs if you are grinding the people you expect to make these advances into the dirt.
scottcha 13y ago
I think its time to differentiate Science from Technology and Engineering (I'm not sure about mathematics) when talking about this. I think the problem you site is certainly true for Science majors but I don't believe its true for Technology (i.e., comp sci) or engineering.
- vonmoltke 13y ago
  Its a problem for all majors who want to go into those areas. A few years ago I was looking at EE positions at some of those labs, and they all wanted an MS or greater, as well as either academic research experience or publications, preferably both. And this was just to be the fucking cluster administrator. Anyone who wanted to work on the research directly had to go through the process ItendToDisagree described in order to meet their qualification requirements.
Aloisius 13y ago
Isn't a bench technician kind of the lowest rung on the ladder? I was under the impression that once you had a Ph.D., salary for say, a Scientist at Genentech, paid pretty well.
- craigyk 13y ago
  there is probably a pretty big range for 'scientist' position. I'd guess 70-120k would cover most though.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Getting to the 'Ph.D' as opposed to just 'post doc' is exactly the struggle I described. You have to make it through that whole cluster f'ck and get enough (good) publications for your Ph.D to mean a damn thing. If it doesn't... Congrats 'Doctor' you make 50k a year after working in the field for 10 years (plus all the schooling you had to pay for)!
ianbicking 13y ago
Sounds like a lack of bottom-up entrepreneurship in science, such that the only way to participate professionally is with the permission and employment of large organizations. And maybe those organizations are also not led by people with an appreciation for the craft and discipline of science (ie the actual lab work).
Dan_Nguyen 13y ago
This is precisely what happened to me. I started off in Molecular and Cellular Bio, but recently switched to programming. Like you said, the field is simply brutal. Making it to the top of your career track is extremely difficult and demands a lot of time and effort for little pay. Not to mention that final step, becoming a professor, is out of your control as all you can do is wait for an existing one to retire or die.

ilbe 13y ago

Anyone who has read Grapes of Wrath knows that the correct statement is, "Companies would rather not pay ANY professionals high salaries..." Call it a conflict of interest or call it the market. One way or the other, the conclusion is improve your skills, increase your value, and in the name of friendly competition, skin the company alive for as much as you can get for the skill the company demands. They are playing the same game with you.

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
Problem being that in this sort of industry you can't improve your skills or increase your value without the 'company' (often not a company but an institution) doing the above to you. I agree with what you're saying! I'm more pointing out that the problem isn't with educating more individuals (or doing it better) its with the way the system utilizes said individuals and their education/skills. You can't expect (or bemoan the lack of) breakthroughs if you are grinding the people you expect to make these advances into the dirt.

scottcha 13y ago

I think its time to differentiate Science from Technology and Engineering (I'm not sure about mathematics) when talking about this. I think the problem you site is certainly true for Science majors but I don't believe its true for Technology (i.e., comp sci) or engineering.

vonmoltke 13y ago
Its a problem for all majors who want to go into those areas. A few years ago I was looking at EE positions at some of those labs, and they all wanted an MS or greater, as well as either academic research experience or publications, preferably both. And this was just to be the fucking cluster administrator. Anyone who wanted to work on the research directly had to go through the process ItendToDisagree described in order to meet their qualification requirements.

Aloisius 13y ago

Isn't a bench technician kind of the lowest rung on the ladder? I was under the impression that once you had a Ph.D., salary for say, a Scientist at Genentech, paid pretty well.

craigyk 13y ago
there is probably a pretty big range for 'scientist' position. I'd guess 70-120k would cover most though.
ItendToDisagree 13y ago
Getting to the 'Ph.D' as opposed to just 'post doc' is exactly the struggle I described. You have to make it through that whole cluster f'ck and get enough (good) publications for your Ph.D to mean a damn thing. If it doesn't... Congrats 'Doctor' you make 50k a year after working in the field for 10 years (plus all the schooling you had to pay for)!

ianbicking 13y ago

Sounds like a lack of bottom-up entrepreneurship in science, such that the only way to participate professionally is with the permission and employment of large organizations. And maybe those organizations are also not led by people with an appreciation for the craft and discipline of science (ie the actual lab work).

Dan_Nguyen 13y ago

This is precisely what happened to me. I started off in Molecular and Cellular Bio, but recently switched to programming. Like you said, the field is simply brutal. Making it to the top of your career track is extremely difficult and demands a lot of time and effort for little pay. Not to mention that final step, becoming a professor, is out of your control as all you can do is wait for an existing one to retire or die.