They came for the chemists, but I said nothing

because I was not a chemist.  And why would I want to stick up for pharma chemists anyway?

Right?

We came behind the steelworkers, computer programmers and factory workers.  How many of us said anything?

This evening, I ran into a former colleague of mine in the grocery store.  She’s a chemist and one of the lucky few who has a job in Massachusetts.  She’s also Chinese but has been here for a long time.  Even though she has a job, she knows it could be temporary.  The lab she is moving to is much smaller and dingier than the one she is leaving.  She says she feels like a grad student again.

She told me that Astra-Zeneca just closed a new lab facility.  Beautiful new labs, closed, and everyone laid off.  The CEO is walking away with $65,000,000.  She’s beyond disgusted.  But there was something even worse on the horizon.  She says that the industry is adopting the work habits of the Chinese.  In China, employees live away from their kids.  The grandparents look after them.  They might live halfway across the country.  It is expected.  In fact, there are a lot of things that the Chinese put up with that Americans are now going to have to put up with.

This is the way it is.  We’re going to have the lifestyle of the Chinese with none of the benefits.

And when I say we, I mean YOU too.  We are the high tech, educated, cutting edge life scientists and this is the way the new business model is going to treat us.  You’re next.

If you don’t say anything, they win.