I hate it because I feel like such a pawn. I put on my tap shoes and have to dance for a bunch of higher-ups that think of me as just another chess piece they can replace. I've never felt so unappreciated. And I hate talking sales all day, when we SHOULD be making these products to save lives. This week we worked 2x our usual hours to get ready for the visit. We tested every last project, and wowed the executives.
We got a crazy amount of money for two projects specifically and they want these in people by December. Considering we haven't done a single animal study we're a little on-edge. Except me. I don't feel anything. I feel like a kid that just worked overtime for my parents' praise, got it, but realized that life will go on and I can be happy without it. I'm glad we got the money since it will go a long ways to save lives. I just hate having to do this show every year. I feel like I'm whoring my science out to a bunch of rich businessmen...
Added to this are the talks by the executives. I was the representative from my division for a meeting attended by a bunch of board members and presidents of sister companies, and I heard "forward-thinking", "synergize", "vertical integration", and "value added" enough times to drive someone mad. I went nuts. These same people came by to look at my group's new technology and they kept asking "what's the market?" and "what kind of sales would you expect?". These are different ways of asking "what's the disease target?" and "how many lives will this save?". The difference is that business-types think of sales numbers. This is something I can't wait to get away from. In my bio I say I'm a PhD in the medical device field trying to cleanse the soul and get into academia. This is the soul-cleansing I'm talking about. I understand that we always have to fight for more money, but I hate being trotted in front of the executives like I'm at Westminster.
On the plus side, my boss took my group out for one hell of a nice dinner.
