graduate researcher

graduate assistant

research assistant

student worker

assistant professor

University of Nevada, Reno

Typical Day: I ran the Warehouse all by myself from 1999-2011. The days were spent entering and printing customer's orders (including Amazon, Ingram, and Baker & Taylor's e-mails), verified customer's credit cards through ICVERIFY, delivery books to various vendors in an University Van, doing financial business for the Press at Cashier Office, drive 13 miles North to the warehouse, separate orders according to priority and shipping method (UPS WorldShip, FEDEX, USPS). Books were pulled from picking shelves or bulk warehouse then boxed for shipping. I keep location codes on all the books through CATS PAJAMAS software as well as Excel. I scheduled deliveries/pickups and keep an inventory on all warehouse supples. Shipments of books would come in from Thompson-Shore then the pallets would be hand-stacked onto a shelf in the large bulk warehouse. I dealt with Office requests from either Lotus Notes or phone. I would respond to customer's e-mails or phone calls throughout the day. I usually put in a lot of over-time with no pay at all (so did another state co-worker) as we were a small press. I would also be in charge of software crashes, computer crashes, as well as update software on people's computers as I know how to repair computers (some of the IT people are not very good with computers).

What I've learned: I already had learned skills in warehousing before I came on-board and I applied those skills to this warehouse that was losing in terms of functionability and monies and I streamlined it.

Management: Don't call in sick if your supervisor is a health nut (I had over 800 hours sick time). The new supervisor was a health nut and normal - I liked her. Expect to be threaten to be fired for doing your job - one co-worker of 27 years experienced this. Expect to do the work of others including your boss. Typical mismanagement that exist at alot of jobs.

Co-workers: Good co-workers to work with but don't trust them or be friends with them. There's a total disregard for taxpayer's monies and how it is spent. This cause some clashes with some of them. Communication between Office and Warehouse was extremely poor except for one co-worker.

The hardest part: Seeing the warehouse I built for almost 12 years be destroyed. I had a hard time saying good-bye. I treated those books as if they were my books and every customer as if they were my customer. The last year there, the Press made sure you felt unwanted. When they lay you off, they are out to shove you out the door as fast as they can so others can have your salary. They tried to take compensation away from me that I had a right to as a state worker. Their behavior is unexcusable.

The enjoyable part: Running a warehouse all by myself. Getting all the work done at the end of the day (various things would reduce available time). It was MY warehouse that I put my blood and sweat into. It was totally disfunctional and losing $3000 every mid-year inventory before I came on-board: Books with the same title was scattered at various locations and the location codes were all done by hand and updated "once-in-a-while". The thrill of having a functional warehouse and all the compliments from our customers was great. We even made $100,000 for the month of December the first year I was there. Normally, it was $36,000-40,000 on a good month. Although we never had such high sells before, that was not bad for a small university press!

What is the best part of working at the company?
Working with good people in the college of science and school of public health. The campus is beautiful and there are many ways to enjoy - arts, music, sports, lecture series, and many classes are available in all kinds of subjects (professional or personal development).  I went on geology field trips, attended music concerts, art exhibits and theatre, basketball, baseball, football, and lots of lecturers from scientists all around the world. It’s an R1 research facility with lots of funding for research. I loved my 13 years at UNR. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Being a staff person had little support from administrators. As a state funded position, it was low paying and always understaffed. During financial hardship the university would cut staff resources first, while still expecting high performance. Definitely a double standard compared to faculty and administration. Most staff members I knew left after COVID or retired early. Myself included. Their education benefits were pretty bad for staff, too. It barely covered the majority of tuition, while faculty and their dependents enjoyed far more benefits. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It depends on your field as well as your position. For faculty there were always new resources and incentives; staff not so much. We all have to pay for parking though, which was a ridiculous expectation on employees in Reno, NV. Football and basketball are king and has outrageous funding and support. R1 in STEM is given priority, too. The arts and music community was strong but underfunded. The medical school is very community friendly and there is always collaboration opportunities between researchers in different disciplines. Overall it’s a great place to work if you’re faculty. Especially if you love the outdoors… the best hiking, biking, skiing nearby. Reno is an increasingly popular but expensive place to live. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
As a staffer, early in and late out. Remote work wasn’t offered unless we were on lockdown for COVID or dangerous road conditions from weather. There were lots of supervisory expectations for employees to meet merit pay. Most of my time was learning new ways to track employee productivity. New applications to improve job performance and diversity were constantly introduced; some would last, others not so much. Retention for staff really wasn’t considered often. More emphasis was given for a recruitment search to replace them. I participated in countless recruitment searches for staff, faculty, and administration, but primarily staff with the high turnover.

The general day of work can be a real slog involving standard checks and cage changes and cleaning so much that I feel like I'm a robot wasting away. Some researchers treat the animal care staff and myself with respect while others see me as their custodial worker.

I learned a great deal on the tremendous amount of regulations involved with using animals for research purposes and how strictly enforced everything is. I got to learn how to handle and work with the research animals, primarily rodents. 

Management is generally okay. Workers are allowed to do their daily work in peace without micromanaging going on. Unfortunately management tends to play favorites and not supervise coworkers so much that it allows a toxic and hostile work environment to develop and become the norm. Some coworkers are allowed to get away with being lazy or completely lie to get out of doing certain aspects of the job they don't like and pile on their work on the honest hard working coworkers. If you're not liked, you're in a sense sent out to the pasture to be excluded enough until you retire or quit. 

The workplace culture in a few instances is friendly. Most of the time, it's toxic and hostile towards other workers. Coworkers will say demeaning and derogatory language about other coworkers. They exclude and isolate other coworkers. Some will get threateningly aggressive towards other coworkers. Coworkers will lie to get out of work. Coworkers will abuse other coworkers they don't like. There is a gang mentality like a high school playground. Coworkers will lie to get others in trouble. Coworkers will gossip about others between other coworkers and research staff. Some coworkers will be prevented from expanding skills and taking on more important and meaningful tasks.

The hardest part of the job is coming in to deal with certain coworkers and do the extremely mundane tasks that never change working hard on my feet all day constantly moving to rush to get my work done as fast as possible so I don't fall behind due to the great deal of tasks I need to do on my own within a short period of time.

The most enjoyable part of my job is learning about the awesome research taking place and conversing with the researchers I work with. Getting to provide basic animal care to lab animals.

I have been a student worker for this department since November 2011. A lot has happened in this 4 years. During the school year, I work 20-25 hours / week and during the summer and winter breaks, I work full time. The management has been very flexible with me taking time off and working more if needed. Currently, I have all the job responsibilities of an administrative assistant III. Purchasing cards are a big part of my day because many of my other job responsibilities come back to the P-Card (i.e. travel and hosting expenses). Every month I am responsible for giving the professors the balances of their accounts (i.e. grants, self supporting budgets, salary savings accounts, indirect accounts, etc...). I reconcile their accounts monthly so that the PIs constantly know how much money they have to budget for the rest of the grant year / fiscal year. I am also responsible for creating payroll action forms (PAFs) for the personnel in my part of the department. PAFs include making sure that accounts have enough to pay salary, positions are linked, etc... I will preform budget revisions on accounts throughout the month for numerous reasons (i.e. to provide money for salary, fringe benefits, travel expenses, operating costs, equipment, etc...). I also monitor / update the our COBRE website within the department. This requires some programing knowledge and how to work with the website software that is provided. I also prepare contracts during contract season which requires budget meetings with the PIs and knowledge of the budget module provided by the school of medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno. Similarly, I process budgets once / year in the same budget module so that we can predict funds / expenses for the upcoming fiscal / grant year. All accounts are reconciled using Microsoft excel. Excel is also used to track salary and where all of our money is going throughout the year. 

The management in our department is great. I have plenty of independence to complete my work without too many internal distractions. This also has is consequences because I could submit a document incorrectly which puts all the responsibility on me. My boss is a professor, M.D. and he has full trust in me that I am completing my work in an effective manner.

This place doesn't care about you one iota.  The pay is ridiculous.  Maybe it's okay for someone starting out with 4 roommates, but there's no way that a mid-career professional can live or thrive with the pay given.  Benefits are terrible.  You can't afford to use your benefits because you don't make enough money to use them.  You also can't use your insurance anywhere in Reno because NSHE chose the worst possible plan they could.  You have to pay for parking.  They make you take a mandatory 17.5% out of each paycheck.  For people struggling to live in Nevada, they need to make a decision for themselves whether to save that money for a retirement that may never happen, or for rent that keeps going up and up and up.  On top of all that, it's just not a great place to work.  I made sure to inquire about culture before taking the job and everyone raved about how great the culture is.  I haven't seen it.  The leaders of the part of the school I work for are terrible.  They think they can treat you however they like, whether it's being mentally manipulative or completely ignoring that you exist.  Seriously, one person never smiles, always complains and if you try to say hello to them they act like they didn't hear you.  One of them goes into a manic attack every day and screams at anyone in their path.  It makes me sick thinking about working with these people every day.  On top of that, the president doesn't care about any of our lives.  The students, the staff, the faculty.  We all need to be on campus risking our lives every day because enrollment is down.  But if he had kept us remote, there could be more students taking online classes.  

I worked here as a graduate assistant. The pay was absolutely horrible, 1,400$ per month. You only get paid for ten months of the year however, which comes to 14,000 $ per year - and you still must pay federal taxes on this salary. Graduate students have been receiving this salary for many years. Unless you have some backup funds, it is very hard to live on this salary: paying rent, food, and life's other hardships.

You are only supposed to work 20 hours per week, but by the end of the semester you are working 30 hours per week through grading hundreds of tests and papers. Some graduate students never finish their programs and become unemployable ABDs, All But Dissertations, due to the demands of the terrible paying job. 

The only good thing about this job is that you get cheap access to the university health clinic. 

Once you graduate however, you are immediately fired, and then there is a Nevada state law that denies you unemployment benefits if you can't find a job. Leave it to corrupt Nevada politics that slipped that little law into the statutes. 

The worst part of this job is that you still must pay as a student - even though you are teaching courses and doing major research for the university. This is a nickel and diming strategy on the graduate assistants. 

Finally, as a graduate assistant you must share a dingy, small and dark office with other graduate assistants, meaning sharing dirty desks, drawers with garbage, and the one computer - with ten other badly paid assistants. This is not a fun working situation.

Student jobs will vary in hours and typically pay on the lower end. My first one paid $9/hour. People working there for 2 years were barely making $10-$10.50/hour. The hours varied widely between 5-15 hours a week. Not consistent, but very flexible and understanding. My second job was very stable and also flexible within reason of course. It paid more than the average for students, but still low unfortunately. Student hours are capped at 25/week unless given special permission. In terms of pay, that limitation hurt, but it allowed me to focus on school. There was a moderate turnover at my second job, but that was often due to class schedules or other campus jobs wanting more from their student employees. I learned something new every day related to my job due to changing policies. That made it more interesting for me. The most difficult part was probably aggressive students and faculty wanting to bypass policies. Other times it was faculty treating some students poorly, but I wasn't able to help due to my position as a student. Overall, I enjoyed my time a lot. I was constantly learning and forming connections with other staff. However, I do recognize that most positions are very low pay, with some only making minimum. It wasn't uncommon to see students working 2-3 jobs while going to school. Had I become full time, my yearly salary would be about $25,000 before taxes. 

Shuttle drivers usually work a consistent schedule during normal semesters and previously kept drivers working during Summer and Winter semesters. Shuttle service was cancelled for Winter and Summer semesters starting in 2018-19 and offered janitorial and landscaping positions during those times. How many lawn mowing toilet scrubbing bus drivers are there?  Supervisors are great but don't stick around more than around one year or two, average. Old and unreliable buses with uncomfortable driver seats with inevitable joint problems. Offices have new ergonomic seating but no budget to support equipment upgrades for the drivers. No chance for advancement / growth mindset. Middle/upper management maintains invisibility and utilized lower management to shield drivers from meaningful connections with decision makers. Far too many meetings were held without meaningful results. The folks working outside never saw most of the folks working inside. Too much disconnect and isolation. 

OK for retirees and part timers. Not a place to dedicate much of your life.

This is not a reflection on UNR- this review is solely based on the Nevada State Public Health Lab. UNR is wonderful and provides excellent education and opportunity. Unfortunately the State Health Lab is a disaster. There is not much positive to say here as the management try’s to push anyone out that is not like them. One manager in particular is very controlling and passive aggressive. This manager and the leadership of the lab promote a culture of fear and hostility. The majority of staff in the Lab are unhappy. The staff was directed “not to socialize” and are told by their management that they “are being watched” In order to scare the staff from socializing. Many of the people in the Lab live in a constant state of fear and are terrified daily of loosing their job. I have seen many people forced out of the Lab over the years. A few quit from health issues that were related to their hostile environment. If you value your quality of life, your health and yourself, please do not work for Nevada State Public Health Lab.

Fulfilling being a part of grad students, beginning their program and becoming  a Dr.  

Budgets, HR paperwork, grants and coordinating budget, accreditation, event planning, admissions into grad school.

How much work, time and money it takes to get a Ph.D. Accreditation of a  academic program is very difficult record keeping, The protocol is demanding but it works.

I was lucky to have helpful, bright and committed managers.

The academia culture, events, speakers, graduations, success for students. Collaboration between departments was very planned out and helpful.

Workday, a software program that was implemented recently. 
 It was supposed to do all of our multiple jobs. HR, budgets, grants, journal entries, purchasing and faculty overload contracts.  The program worked well for some aspects but not everything an admin. asst. does for their program.

Being a part of a students success knowing I helped them though the journey the the challenging journey of getting the Ph.D.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Graduate researcher 3 salaries reported	$2,067 per month
Graduate assistant 6 salaries reported	$1,687 per month
Research assistant 2 salaries reported	$40.00 per hour
Student worker 22 salaries reported	$15.14 per hour
Assistant professor 18 salaries reported	$87,492 per year

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