Pros
Great co-workers Flexible hours (somewhat) Discretionary Leave (No more counting days to see if I have enough time on the books to take vacation) Airline, hotel and rental car benefits from all the site visit travel
Cons
- Minimal work life balance (Some travel on Sundays for Monday site visits leads to having one day off for the week.) - It sometimes feels like metrics are more valued than the employees - Extremely heavy workload (Over 35 sites across four protocols) - Pay is ridiculous for the amount of work required (Heavy travel +9 to 13 (or more) days on site in a month + working until after 2am and on weekends to finish site visit reports + admin work/trainings) - Aetna health insurance is making me bankrupt! An E.R. visit a few months ago costed $1,200. I'm STILL paying on the bill! And why do I currently have a doctor bill for over $8,000 where Aetna paid a little over $900 and my patient responsibility was over $7,000?!? I almost fell out when I saw my bill! Whose idea was it to switch from Cigna to Aetna? - Quintiles' benefits like computer purchase reimbursements and the 3-month paid sabbatical (after 15 years of service) are gone. I've LITERALLY turned down recruiters (yes, plural) because I was looking forward to the brain break of that sabbatical. If this perk is not going to be replaced with anything comparable and all I have to look forward to in the next few years is more hard work, then I may have to start saying yes to the people I've been turning down. I really love what I do, but I feel like I'm being run into the ground.