Knowledge is eschewed. - Senior Associate Scientist Catalent Pharma Employee Review

Sit down and buckle in. This is going to be a bumpy ride! Benefits: The insurance deductible is something like 6k, so don't expect to get a whole lot covered. A supervisor I know had a particular surgery and wasn't allowed to take off of work completely for more than a day. HR is completely useless in helping you out when you need it. They will shrug, refer you to phone numbers of insurance companies, and then smile. Yes, 'that smile', the one that says 'not my job'. HR: I remember 8 months ago when I complained to the EHS committee that my back was hurting during the long hours I would spend typing up reports and that I would prefer a more comfortable chair. (They dole out nice chairs that help your posture to people they like). Followed up with HR probably 5 times since then and only certain people get fancy chairs at the behest of your popularity. If you have a MAJOR issue with your supervisor that crosses ethical lines immensely, they will ask you to talk it out with your supervisor rather than intervene. It seems most effect to bypass site HR and go through corporate. Safety: Oh safety people... what a joke. Lab coats and lab glasses when you cross an arbitrary line and it all has to come off immediately when you leave the lab. Lab coats must be buttoned up all the way. Water bottles must be triple rinsed with water and labeled as such before disposal. Everything you touch must have a label on it or it's tetramethyl death and must be treated like a nuclear bomb. If you break any of these rules, your fellow associate scientist safety person will abuse their power to effect your end of year performance review. Yes they have this power and they will call you out on a public email list server. 'Safety' is a childish façade used to report your enemies and boost your career at Catalent RTP. Promotion: Experience at anywhere academic is not 'experience.' In other words, if you are published in Science and Nature with a Ph.D. and 2 post docs, Catalent RTP will start you out at the bottom. They will then proceed to teach you the 'safe' way of measuring the pH of a buffer and get you trained on how to use a balance. This way you are signed off on it so they can hold you accountable on any mistakes you make. Mistakes, 'deviations' are not really tolerated. They're tracked, along with your badge records and held against you during a performance review. Inter/intra-team drama is rife. You won't be promoted above your fellow colleague for enormous contributions and hard work if that employee has been at the site longer. Especially if that fellow colleague is in 'the inter circle'. Science : Woe unto science!!! You will be given and trained on SOPs from the day you start. Catalent RTP works so hard to ensure that you do as little thinking as possible. You have an idea, you say? Can't have that. 'Oh it's a good idea? I'll bring it up at the next high level meaning. Of course, it was my idea to begin with.' Work that the major pharma companies don't feel like doing gets passed off to the contract world. Meeting budget timelines for each project at the end of the month trumps good science every time. Even if you're customer isn't happy. In fact, you will be recognized for meeting budgetary goals even if you have 10 formal customer complaints. I've even seen underqualifed undergrad lead scientists promoted because of their unethical behavior, as long as they made the company $$$. There is no scientific journal access. There are no attendable conferences unless you advertise Catalent services. Instruments 'belong' to people, as do pipets. Nothing is communal. Even water can be made customer specific and hoarded for personal use. I've seen a 500k mass spec sit idle for months because it belongs to a certain group and no one else can use it. Salary: I made 57k as a Sr. associate scientist. It's at the high end too; higher than anyone in my group. Lab associates I see at the 38-42k range. Associate scientists can make from 40-52k. Sr associates can make up to 57-58k. Scientist is a title given to those who take responsibility for projects as 'project directors' in some cases. The pay ranges from 62-79k. Data reviewers make at the top end. Lab scientists that speak with the customers, lead a group, get the data, interpret results can make as little as 62k with 10 years of experience. Lead scientists: this is where things get interesting. The pay ranges from 78k with a B.Sc. to 90k with a Ph.D. You become eligible for bonuses based on how much you push your team above their head count. Can you cross ethical boundaries to make a buck? Dang right you can. I've seen people's careers end because of their greed. Sr. scientists make in the range of 80k+. Top of the pole: director of the group : the biggest science head honcho. Wonder why everyone else is getting paid 10k+ below the area average? It's this guy. And yes it will be a man. He makes base salary 190k, bonuses go up to bring the salary to 250k. Generally, this person can deal with the bureaucracy and get things done. Why do I know this? How can I possible know this, you ask? Because the way our instruments are set up, you have to use the director's username and password to use an instrument because Catalent will only buy 1 license for multiple users. Once in Windows under their username you have access to their email. Once you have their email, you have their workday number. Because you already have the password, you can log in under their workday username as well and have access to the entire group's salary information, personal information, employment history, education, performance reviews, etc.