laboratory technician

scientist

senior research associate

manufacturing associate

research associate

Wuxi-Apptec

Pay is 10-20% below industry average, raises are rare. Promotions are even more rare. Benefits are poor. 7 days PTO and expensive healthcare. Instead of properly paying employees, they dangle $25 Amazon gift cards in our face and act like that actually has value. 

There's a lot of overtime. 45 hour weeks are common 50 hour weeks not uncommon, and the company as a whole runs a skeleton crew by design. HR (from the comfort of their living room couch) will not even remotely entertain the idea of hiring new personnel if everyone in the department isn't already getting overtime. A single callout can mean your schedule has changed and now you're working a 12 hour day (sorry about those plans you made, "that's just the nature of this industry"). Low priority tasks go uncompleted or have extended turn around times because nobody has the time, energy, or motivation to do them. Weekend work is routine, and you'll likely be on call at least one weekend a month. 

Turnover is extremely high. Higher than any other company I've worked at by an order of magnitude. I've been working at Wuxi for almost 3 years and that is considered a long time. Most people only stay for a year or two because of the poor working conditions and low pay. Training new employees takes away attention from other tasks and makes people work even more overtime, which perpetuates the cycle as people usually quit soon after new employees are up to speed because of what they had to endure during the new employee's onboarding.

Managers are juggling too much at once, so things get forgotten often and there's always a scramble on Thursday or Friday to make sure things are done by the end of the week. Schedules are usually not made until Thursday, so it's difficult to plan ahead for events you might have.

Upper management is seemingly non-existent. Nobody has seen them in more than a year. They make decisions about our work and our pay from the comfort of their home. The decisions made are never in the workers' favor.

Finding the proper PPE or disinfectant is always a struggle. If there's sleeves, there's no BSC pads. If there's bleach, there's no IPA. If there's gloves, there's no masks, etc. Supply chain shortages can only account for so much. Often the materials are simply in the warehouse but no one restocked them because the people tasked with doing so were already tasked with an unrealistic amount of work and it didn't happen.

The most consistent part of the workplace culture is how much people dislike working here. "That's the Wuxi way!" is our informal motto, and it's used to sarcastically justify the status quo.

The only positive thing about working at Wuxi is that you'll learn a lot and you can use it as a stepping stone to go somewhere better. But that's not unique to Wuxi. You can say that about any company in this industry.

In closing, look for work elsewhere. This simply isn't a good company to work for. If you can't find anything else make sure you learn as much as possible as quickly as possible and then get out. 

If you're in manufacturing, it's first important to realize that the work culture will differ depending on which project you're assigned to, so I'll only be explaining from my area's perspective. However, I haven't noticed significant differences between projects, though I can be wrong.

After starting at WuXi, I began wondering which is worse: having a bad work culture, or having no 'real' work culture at all--I think the first is definitely worse, and the second certainly applies to WuXi. It's bad to have a bad work culture because that implies that there are already toxic rules and expectations placed on employees; whereas when you have no real work culture, that implies that there's a vacuum of leadership and an absence of any standards, which leads to a crisis of purpose and meaning amongst employees. The second describes my experiences at WuXi perfectly.

Because there is no real leadership or guidance, the ones who are most likely to succeed are going to be self-starters with a strong work ethic, which probably only describes between 10-20% of all people in general. However, because there is no real leadership, important roles/tasks are neither properly taught nor divvied up appropriately, and are thusly filled and desperately held onto by earlier hires, possibly as a means of competing and staying relevant in an environment where having a sense of purpose is a resource worth defending. Because these roles get filled, newer employees get left out in the cold and can literally go months without knowing even the most fundamental bits of information--and that goes even for hyper-conscientious self-starters. As a result, I've seen too many people get lost under the waves purposelessness and nepotism, and understandably become listless.

I personally like working at WuXi because I have a knack for creatively filling my time with things that still contribute to the group; however, I have no intention of remaining there much longer because the process for getting a promotion or pay increase is an absolute joke. But it's a really good place to get experience, just know that.

For the money I made there I was happy but there was no management for my position, and the interpersonal relationships between employees was toxic. I tried to be a beacon of positive light and energy and as a result I was slandered by a coworker, which caused them to end my contract and not hire me on full time, even though I was promised on more than one occasion that I would be hired on full time. The job put too much responsibility on the staff and as a result we often had to stay longer than eight hours to do our jobs, and we did not take our paid breaks because we were too busy.  10-12 hour days were common for Animal Care staff. I was a tried and true team player who would come early, stay late and always stop what I was doing to help my coworkers, and as a result one of them went to my bosses boss and lied about me. When they fired me I called the whistle-blowers and after THREE WEEKS of waiting for a response the operator told me "This line is for employees only, do NOT call here again." I was not given a chance to solve any "issues" that had arisen, although I don't see how I caused any problems and I have wracked my brain over it. I was thrown out like a soiled diaper, not given a chance to explain. Before all this happened I told my boss that the person who later slandered me actually pulled me into the empty locker room and yelled at me until I broke down crying. Because she found out I talked to him, she decided to lie about me until I was fired. I did everything I could to show this person that I was her friend but all it got me was an inability to pay my bills. I would tell people NOT to work for this company unless you enjoy working for a place where your boss is allowed to do nothing but check their facebook and ignore their crew. Working here has broken my heart and spirit.

A chaotic nightmare, the job description is worthless, you have no clue what you're getting yourself into. While working here I did everything from technical review, job applicant interviews, QA, team scheduling, assay troubleshooting, project management, document reconciliation, emotional counseling, the list goes on but just writing this out is triggering an anxiety attack.

Technicians, Scientists, QA, and Receiving are your friends and teammates. Management are only there to collect a paycheck and drive people away, and COVID demonstrated this beautifully when management were allowed to "work" from home, leaving the rest of us to schedule and cross train and manage our teams ourselves, resulting in the most profitable month ever.

"How often do you see employees crying in the parking lot?" This is a question I have to ask during interviews now. 

Technicians are the most important part of the company(They do all the real work), yet they're compensated poorly and treated worse, and because of this you'll never have even a remotely fully staffed and trained team, so if you're a scientist here, be ready for perpetually missed dates, updating those dates to new dates that you'll also be forced to miss(But you still must set them!), and essentially doing customer service for several hours a day. You'll also be repeating that customer service routine with management, because they're just as out of the loop as the client, so you'll be getting flak from internal and external sources.

At the end of the day, YOUR name is going on these reports. This makes YOU responsible for them. Don't sign anything you're unsure of. The company will throw you to the wolves, and throw those wolves to bigger wolves.

I liked doing technical review.

If I could score this company 0 stars I would. I have NEVER worked for a more disrespectful unprofessional company in all my life. I know most people applying for this job are recent college grads looking for a job in the science field. But I would HIGHLY advise to never take the job even if you have nothing lined up… KEEP looking. Don’t just take the job because you have no other prospects! 
things WILL come your way! The company is bleeding people and have an extremely high turnover rate and it is ALL the companies fault for that. The coworkers, at least in the molecular group, are the ONLY reason the company even has one employee. However, the management team is the worst one I’ve ever dealt with. They are extremely unorganized, unprofessional and act like they are in high school lunch period with all the gossiping you hear about others and yourself. The favoritism, at least in the molecular group, is constant and unfair. The batch records and SOPs you are required to run in the lab are on the level of a fifth graders…  language and scientific knowledge! The funniest part is when something goes wrong in the poorly written test method… it’s the technicians fault ALWAYS. Be prepared for the newly appointed “non conformance assistant/pseudo manager” to make up LIRs, DEV, NCEs out of no where, just because she has something to prove.. Not to mention once you get out of the company they might take over a month to pay you the money you earn. Basically this company is like a ship… unfortunately with the same fate as the titanic.

This job is pretty straightforward and not a bad job on the surface, the tasks themselves are laborious but not difficult. However, the severe understaffing problem leaves you doing 2-4x the amount of tasks that are reasonable for one person to complete. Rarely to Never do people get out at the scheduled time, when the job was pitched in the interview, management made it seem as if a half an hour late, once in a while, was to be expected--not multiple ten hour days every single week. Employees who are doing the job well and thoroughly, are left to pick up after, and keep track of employees who are cutting corners and putting animal welfare at risk. When management is confronted about these employees, they are hesitant to confront them so they don't "scare off" staff--leaving hard working staff to continue to pick up the slack. As a "reward" for being a diligent employee who cares deeply about animal welfare, you are stuck with extra work that you are expected to complete in the same amount of time as those with less than you. This company boasts profits quarterly to you via email, gushes about how important your role is--but can find no room for a raise or accountability for those who are not completing the role to standards. 

Only work here if you’re desperate, because they are too. This kind of job is soulless busywork (despite its impact) where you read a piece of paper that tells you which tubes to connect, connect the tubes, and then write down that you connected the tubes. The job title isn’t misleading, it’s blue collar manufacturing to its core, just in a science flavored environment so they can manipulate you into thinking you’re using your degree. It is also as awful as it sounds to work in a cleanroom. You are basically locked in a room in a hazmat suit and forced to ignore all basic human necessities for hours on end.

This company specifically pays much worse than it’s peers in the area (you will typically be offered $5-$10 less) and has alarming turnover due to incompetent management who are the only ones who manage to stick around.

 You will be burnt out by the repetitive work, awful environment, extremely frequent mandatory overtime and late hours (my record is a 24 hour shift), or by trying to work with higher ups who change what they want on an hourly basis and don’t understand how to lead a team. 

If you desperately need a job there are definitely worse ones to have and a lot of my problems with it just come from the industry, but if you have any other options I would avoid.

A typical day at work starts with having no idea what to do unless your manager is competent. Managers are commonly overworked and expected to do everything with no power or opportunity for those lower to assist or even demonstrate ability. If you think you can show initiative and ask for more work or to help the managers have so much to do they don't even have time to give you more tasks. I asked for help or extra work and it ended up driving my Managers to quit or transfer because they felt too overworked.

Pro
Pay start @ $13/hr great benefits (paid time off, sick time, MAJOR HOLIDAYS OFF, 401k, medical, dental, vision, hsa and much more) annual bonus & raise (depending on all 3 sites margin profit), company activities, Christmas party, many positions are entry-level

Con
Poor management. Favoritism shown to certain employee Heavy workload, high turnover (July 2018 about 20 ppl quit). I think some stay bc they are comfortable, location is convenient or bc they're older. No room for advancement in this department. If you get fired from here, you fired yourself because they give numerous chances. A guy had no call no show twice & still have a job. The ones with most responsibility gets least pay. New hires make more starting then others that was there 2+ years longer. The bad apples get rewarded while the great workers suffer/stress due to more responsibility or keep up the slack from the bad apples. They keep promising things will get better, 2yrs and better not here yet

I left this job and went to a new company and the quality of people from Wuxi is vastly superior to where I ended up. 

Wuxi is a stickler for rules and policy and every penny is pinched but that is not always a bad thing. There is structure and you know what to expect. You always know where you stand and they communicate regularly when you are both doing well and during times of trouble. They have a great human resources department at Wuxi and these staff are so helpful and kind. The director is inclusive towards all the people working here. New ideas are appreciated, heard and sometimes implemented. Everyone has a voice. Managers try to make the people reporting to them successful. The work can be a bit boring and repetitive at times and there is a bit of nepotism going on which makes it difficult to get ahead but if you stick it out you will get promoted eventually. I had a good experience here and would recommend the Chemistry Lab for new people trying to get experience in industry.

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