Chromatography Forum

As far as I can tell the deer urine that the hunters use is just that; deer urine, collected from captive animals...

That doesn't sounds science-y at all! I'm with you, I think synthetic is the way to go. I guess you can tell I'm not a real sporty kind of lady...

I'm relatively new as an analyst, but I work in an Environmental Laboratory in the svoc dept. I primarily perform 525.2/507, 610/8310, 632, and 8330 analyses...

Environmental analysis lab, officially doing method development but also doing a lot of "The GC and/or GC-MS is broken please fix it".

Good points: Getting involved in most of the things that go wrong.

Downside: Getting involved in most of the things that go wrong.

Rich

At the moment I'm in chemical manufacturing. I have worked in environmental analysis and medical.
Best part: I have my own instruments to play with and the time to play with them.
Worst part: Trying to be a GMP lab when management won't spend the money on the equipment and building upgrades to truly be GMP.

I analyse African wild dog territorial scent marks

Wow, that is one heck of a speciality. I don't think anyone can top "wild dog pee"...

...when i was a student... I did spend a depressing month performing Liquid/liquid extractions on homogenized dog vomit samples...

This brings up a number of practical questions (how and why) - but I'm sure it is better to not know

This reminds me of some career advice my father gave: In a *very* serious tone, he instructed me to "Never work with monkeys". Of course I asked why... But, It must have been too traumatic/embarrasing to revisit - because he never said. He just said "Dont.Work.with.Monkeys...Ever."

Chemist in a Forensic Toxicology Laboratory...I do the oddball analyses in the lab

Chemist in a Forensic Toxicology Laboratory...I do the oddball analyses in the lab

That sounds like an interesting line of work. How did you get into that? Do you have to be a Police Officer/ Federal Agent, or is it more like a Pathologist career?

Worst part: Trying to be a GMP lab when management won't spend the money ... to truly be GMP.

Ouch, that doesn't sounds fun. Let me know how the problem reports go

Up until a couple months ago I was working as an analytical chemist developing methods and performing stability studies on small molecules for a big pharma recently in the news with alot of bad press (They were known as ultra ethical/anal company with a near spotless record)...

I'm now doing similar work as a contract employee for a privately owned OTC company on topical and patch formulations with some small and some not-so-small molecules. Much happier with the small company setting, even though I miss some of the little benefits like a discount at the local burger joint...

There was an article a couple of years ago in the journal "Metabolomics" explaining how, with the aid of sophisticated multivariate statistics and good NMR spectrometer, you can tell the difference between a Labrador and a Miniature Schnauzer. Dogs are where it's at.

It's good to have a job at this point, cheer up.

News came out today Pfizer is laying off up to 800 scientists, not sales or clerk jobs, in this year.

If my industry (food related) begins massive layoffs, a second "great depression" is around the corner.

Up until a couple months ago I was working as an analytical chemist developing methods and performing stability studies on small molecules for a big pharma recently in the news with alot of bad press (They were known as ultra ethical/anal company with a near spotless record)...

I'm now doing similar work as a contract employee for a privately owned OTC company on topical and patch formulations with some small and some not-so-small molecules. Much happier with the small company setting, even though I miss some of the little benefits like a discount at the local burger joint...

It's good to have a job at this point, cheer up.

Beleive me I'm very happy to be working so soon after being laid off (almost one month to the day in fact). I just can't help being a little bitter when I've seen them reposting my job split into a PhD and entry level positions...(Have a BS with 8 years exp)

Nice to see that I was performing above my station, but anoyed they couldn't see it or reward me for my efforts.

Oh well, I hope they do well again as I still have stock, and stock options, with the comapny.

...big pharma recently in the news with alot of bad press (They were known as ultra ethical/anal company with a near spotless record)

I took an Empower2 training class this summer, the trainer has worked with a number of "big Pharma" clients, so I asked her which brand of asprin I should buy, but she was being coy... So I asked her which brand of asprin *she* buys... after a few minutes of back and forth I was able to widdle her down to: "None, I've seen what goes on inside..."

Ouch! Now I'm scared to need anything.

I can still take aspirin, but I used to do troubleshooting in the food industry, so there is a list of foods that I'd rather not eat

Peter

So I asked her which brand of asprin *she* buys... after a few minutes of back and forth I was able to widdle her down to: "None, I've seen what goes on inside..."

Ouch! Now I'm scared to need anything.

I'm not, but I have learned that you need to read the labels and acknowledge the warnings in the black boxes. It's just all part of being an adult and taking responsibility for what you put in/on your body... (Unlike most of the United States these days. )