technician

histology technician

specimen processor

laboratory technician

chemist

Antech-Diagnostics

Antech Diagnostics at Oak Brook, IL is a poorly managed, understaffed processing lab with a revolving door. The high turnover rate is due to low wages, understaffed departments, and poor management and leadership. This is a narcissistic safe haven where management, HR, and leadership are family members and friends who have worked there for several years. Everyone else is disposable, unhappy, and overworked. Overtime is mandatory because the volume of work exceeds the capacity of the workforce. You will be expected to work hours exceeding 8-10 hours with “rotating Saturdays” and irregular schedules: work-life balance is poor. You’ll get free coffee because you will be restless and overwhelmed the whole night. You will not be well-trained—but you are expected to perform fast and accurate. You will be expected to quit your job before you receive benefits or your first paycheck. If you are hired in the lab departments, you will be on your feet up to 100% of the day. You will receive a 30-minute lunch break and two, 15-minute breaks—but don’t expect to use them often because the workload is relentless. Opportunities for growth are poor; promotions are on a urgent need basis. High performers will not work here for long because the compensation is lower than average. Underperforming is acceptable and even tolerated. There is no sense of belonging here because the perks are sparse and the work culture is malcontent, lazy, and unprofessional. The best performers working there are exploited, they are overworked and expected to work across departments wherever there is understaffing. The worst performers are given the blind eye—the only job responsibility is that you show up to work! Management will watch the best performers come and go and replaces them with unprofessionals with no lab experience, then expects the lowest paid people to train them without consent or contract. After you have found a new job—because you will not stop searching for a new job here—management will simply watch you leave without much feedback. HR is helpless and apathetic, and they don’t have the nerve to show up until the turnover problem gets so bad. If you are a college graduate, then you don’t need to work here unless you need clinical lab experience or a steady paycheck. 

Lab Manager came to the interview disheveled.  I ended up working in two different departments because she placed me in a job I hadn't originally applied for.  
The lab itself is small and cluttered using an outdated computer lab system. 
 
I didn't like either department I worked in because of people. 
The Processing department was very gossipy and disorganized.  It's a clique over there with the Supervisor being apart of that clique.  The Lead fuels a lot of drama in that department, as well. 
They are doing bonuses right now for processing a lot of reqs, so ppl pick thru the work and pull out the easy stuff leaving the harder work for someone else, so they can get bonus, and you never do because you are stuck with all the more time consuming reqs.  
 
The Parasitology department was an easy job that paid less than processing.  It was mixing/centrifuging animal waste.  The Lead was awful.  He was unfair and kept picking on you for petty stuff when he wasn't missing from the lab for long periods.  I was glad to get away from him.    
He was cursing on the job, throwing specimens, refusing to train, having secretive meetings with a select few, blaming you for others' mistakes, watching you like a hawk, misrepresenting your production numbers, just all kinds of strange behavior.   I believe he had a lot to do with why 6 people quit from that department in less than 2 months.  

Also, they do not rotate the Saturday schedule like they are supposed to in the Parasitology department causing you to work multiple Saturdays in a row.   Working Saturdays is not OT.  They make you take a day off during the week, and since Sat.'s are usually light days, your check will be short.  I didn't even make 80 hrs a pay period working Saturdays.  

They paid $15 in processing plus $2 bonus for so many reqs processed, and $14 in Parasitology.  I would have stayed on the job, but the ppl were too much for me.  The managers were ok, they didn't bother you much, but the Leads I couldn't work with anymore.  


This lab is terribly mismanaged both on a local and corporate level. The lab is too small for the amount of samples processed there over the night shift, and is kept small, understaffed, and without proper resources probably on purpose for the sake of "cost effectiveness" at the expense of the employees. There is basically no management support overnight whatsoever. There is no night shift differential paid, despite this being an industry standard. There are at most 3 people working per shift, not nearly enough to complete all of the work without extreme detriment to employees' physical and mental health, and due to the lack of adequate staffing, employees are virtually incapable of taking sick days or needing to call out for an emergency. If your time off isn't scheduled months in advance, you're not able to get out of it without being subjected to guilt trips at the least and threats to your continued employment at most. There is basically no work/life balance as the workload guarantees overtime. There is no accommodation or understanding for employees dealing with disabilities and there have been violations of the ADA by management against employees. It's a high stress, high volume environment with none of the adequate management, accessible resources, or timely training required to make an environment like that bearable for employees. Upper management goes out of its way to try and screw employees out of fair compensation or treatment and counts on employees not speaking to one another about their compensation and finding out these disparities. This location may as well not even exist to corporate HR. This lab would do anything to save money at the expense of the employees. Employees have to deal with outdated and faulty equipment, including support equipment that was considered old in 1990.

Management really really needs to learn how to train people. There's no reason someone should still be learning basic functions (like seeing what samples are required for a test) almost a year in. They're trying to get better about meetings and communication but even the training modules are dry, unintuitive standards of procedure - you don't need 5 pages to tell us how to put stickers on tubes. You have to ask questions and take notes constantly or the leads (who are busy with other stuff other than supposedly training you) can get impatient and condescending. If they grab your problem and start hacking away on the keyboard you have to demand they tell you what they did or you won't learn how to do it differently next time. The environment changes with the people they hire, you have to make an effort to make friends here because everyone hides in their car. Vacation accrual is a pittance, watch out because pto is used for holidays automatically and sick days, so just go in sick anyway i guess. A lot of burnout culture (Who Slept Less competitions, "You know technically the 15 min break is 10 + 5 because we're being nice but [your production numbers] start counting after 10 mins."). Workload is pretty bad and the repetitive motions are destroying people's backs, wrists, and shoulders, which is incredibly discouraging. The differential pay is nice but constantly being in overtime for the first 4-6 months of the year is insane, and night shift is physically taxing on a lot of people. At least you have job security and they're lax about being late because they're desperate for people. Maybe if we're lucky they'll get us pizza, instead of, idk, a raise or more pto so we can pretend to have lives outside of post-work exhaustion.

It was my job to stain histology slides, cover slip them, match them with paper work and pack them up to their respective doctors and pathologists. I don't mind doing hard work but I had to do all of this at the same time, with a massive work load. Antech cared more about getting the shipments out at a certain time, then doing an accurate job. Also, the paperwork was extremely disorganized and it took a lot of time to find the files. I was being called in to work 6 days a week, and on Sundays working ridiculous hours. My shift was supposed to be 12 pm to 8:30 pm but I freuqently have had to stay overtime. I'll take the money but I was accused of taking advantage of the system. There was just a ton of work and I wanted to do it right, not quicker. But for antech, it's all about the money.

What made me quit was that after I had stayed until 11 pm the night before, the next day, my boss said that you have to reduce your overtime. But.. the kind of job I had, I could not just leave, I had to get the packages packed up. He basically wanted me to sign out around 9 pm and just work for free. I should be fair- it was probably his boss from management that told him that they can't pay for that much overtime.

I was working my hardest and to be labelled as taking advantage of the system to get more overtime is extremely insulting. Some of the other issues I had was the attitude I got when I called in on a snow day. It was extremely icy, and because I work into the evening, I was concerned about getting home. Basically, my boss told me that everyone else is here, why am I not here. No concern for my safety with this nasty attitude.

Anyways,
I lasted almost 3 months, and I burned out. It was very stressful going to work and I would NOT recommend this place at all. The other employees were nice, but they seemed very over worked and did not enjoy being there. Too much is expected of people there, and there is a lot of tension there.

I worked at Antech for 9 months. If you are a person who  is used to working day shifts and is considering working overnight, really weigh in those pros and cons. 
If you want a work life balance this is not the place, your sleep/ physical health and well being is all out of whack working overnights at antech. Weekends are alternating, so expect to be sleeping on the days off all the time to the point you will need to get you groceries online especially if you commute. 
There is an extremely high turnover rate, you will be  working most shifts overtime instead of regular 8 hour shift sometimes it can be up to 12 hours five NIGHTS out of the week. Sleep will be your number one priority. Eating will be your second, and family and social life and basic tasks in the house will be out the window.
If you have pets, you are married, you have kids, you are a person who likes to have a social life then don’t consider this place it will affect every aspect of your life and cause a strain in your relationships with the people you love and care about. 
 
If you are single, are extremely introvert and you are okay with all those things above go for it. 

I will say some employees  with kids say it works so they don't have to pay for a caretaker, you will be home during the day and your partner will be home during the night, but watching your child while you sleep sounds risky. 


Overall, my work experience as a hematology lab aid and chemistry lab aid for Antech Diagnostics at Oak Brook, IL was stressful and poor. The nitty gritty work is collecting samples and building analyzed samples into libraries. Their working environment has the minimum required to get the job done and rules are strict. Staff are there to get the company’s work done, and that’s all. There’s no provision for performance bonuses, meaningful recognition awards or anything else. The laboratory team lead's style of micromanaging lowers motivation and makes productivity below average, which means too much overtime or after-hours work. The workload for both Chemistry Lab Aides and Technician is unreasonable, with leadership expecting over 3000 samples during peak season to be processed in under 8 hours. The compensation is terrible, similar to fast food wages and even less benefits! Management shows clear signs of favoritism and promotes gossiping with a break room clique. Management turns a blind eye to bullying behavior, workplace harassment, and even theft. A lot of the issues here are directly due to management and leadership issues that is no secret to anyone who has been there for longer than a few weeks. I would absolutely avoid working here! Your social life and mental health will take a deep dive, and you will either get sick of this place and quit or lose a lot of ambition. 

I was on night shift. Showed up at 11, immediately start getting machines ready. Second person arrives to help at 11:30. Once the machines are prepped, set up QCs, run those. Break whenever done. QCs either come in (they are within values) or don't (re-run as necessary). Had to pick up samples from the processing department every 10-20 minutes, centrifuge them, then set them up to run on the machines. Run them on the machines, deal with error codes, send out results as necessary. Then scan samples into our library. Now this is the normal procedure, but we don't receive the last samples until about 7:30. Which means I had to stay overtime to run these samples as well. I was lucky if I got off of work before 9:30. The work culture is that it's frowned upon to leave before your work is done. And if one person calls out, the lab manager is supposed to figure out how to help. However, you likely won't get someone to come in, because management doesn't hire very often in the Chemistry department. Also if you're understaffed for the night, expect to stay even later. You'll have 2 paid breaks and a half-hour unpaid meal break per workday. Also, your days off will likely not be next to each other, so you'll feel like you never have time off. The machine(s) used to clock in to work are broken more than half the time, and you're required to use it 4x per day in order for it to show up properly on your pay.

Management had favorites. If you were not Asian they did not talk to you. If you talked during the shift you were considered a troublemaker. If we have a complaint, we are consistently gaslighted. Supervisors treated us as if we did not matter. We have consistent meetings about what they will write us up for. Leads are passive-aggressive in emails. HR workers do not know how to help besides addressing us to the supervisors, who tell us we are wrong. Having a degree does not mean anything here, there is never room to grow; and they will pick their favorite over someone who is qualified. Training is the worst part of Antech, they will train you for ten minutes and then leave you with a bunch of questions, once you ask questions they start getting annoyed. A typical day is forcing everyone to follow the rules but let their favorites look up funny pictures on their free time. Then leads will make fun of people in the open, making the work environment hostile and impossible to to feel comfortable. Leads even managed to stalk some of the workers on breaks and lunches. One of the leads even openly joked about sleeping in the office while on the clock. The leads even sat comfortably at their desks, for hours, making sweater ideas for their children while on the clock, on a website. The only part I enjoyed, out of my day, was getting the free water, and sometimes tea. The stress they give you will take a toll on your mental and physical health.

Not Recommended.  I didn't like it over there.  The hiring lab manager was sneaky, gossipy and never made eye contact.  They were a clique over there with the lab manager encouraging this, and if you didn't fit in you were harassed by the Leads and given the hardest workload.The Leads were horrible and immature using profanity in the workplace. 


They allow people to read on the microscope and run urinalysis tests who are not qualified just to save money from hiring certified ppl. 
 
You were worked every Saturday with a Wed./or Thurs. off, and you did not get a full 8 hrs on Saturday when others were racking up OT and/or not working Sat. at all. 

 People from different departments ran in and out of your department when they had no reason to be there.  Workers were allowed to come to work with Do-rags on blasting rap music.  

Supervisors sat on microscopes 12 to 14 hrs a day and never communicated when they reset your password or went on vacation.  

They give you one 30 minute lunch and two 10 minute breaks.  Processing averages $15 and Parasitology about $14.  People who have been there for years make the same as new ppl coming onboard. 

 The lab and jobs are very boring with little room for advancement.  No overnight shift premium.  People were always quitting in droves.  



Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Technician 3 salaries reported	$23.33 per hour
Histology technician 4 salaries reported	$25.13 per hour
Specimen processor 3 salaries reported	$20.72 per hour
Laboratory technician 3 salaries reported	$29.33 per hour
Chemist 3 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour

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