Call it Whatever

You can call it whatever you want - post-graduation work blow-off; slacker; hatred of my job; legitimately broken car - and you would probably be right. I'm skipping work today, unapologetically and unabashedly.

Yesterday, I legitimately needed to be out of work to go to the doctor (for several hours) but today, while my car really won't start (Julie left the lights on in it the last time she drove it) and I probably should muster up the hutzpah to go to work, I just can't bring myself to do it. I had planned on going to Cincy this morning and in fact did get all the way to the bus stop with Julie's car (again, because Julie really and truly did kill the battery in my car) before I realized that I just couldn't do it today.

I'm not at some 'breaking point' or a belated quarterlife crisis here but nonetheless today is simply not a good day for me to schill for Big Pharma.

Though, honestly, I don't hate my job. It's not a bad job. There are probably a lot of people who would consider what I do, in a way, a dream job . . . but it doesn't suit me. I think you all would agree that this article contained nothing at all about how being a spreadsheet jockey for a research company would be ideal for me. So, the good news I guess is that I only have six months of indentured servitude left to the company before I can leave without punitive actions taken against me (repaying tuition reimbursements) and really six months isn't too much in the grander scheme of things.

But. . . .

26 more weekly meetings . . . 26 more sets of minutes . . . 26 more metrics workbook compilations . . . untold hundreds more spreadsheet reconciliations . . . sure seem like a mountain in front of me to climb.

I mean really, let's jive a bit here and just riff on this a little, can you dig it? Think back to OFFICE SPACE. Did Peter get it right? Wouldn't it be better really to just find a job in construction somewhere? Do something outside and physical instead of wasting paste-ily away in front of a computer screen doing work that is so non-essential to everday life, so "for marketing purposes only," so useful only to help a pharmaceutical company have a higher profit margin five or six years from now that it has no value whatsoever?

I mean, seriously here, I spent $30 for a month's supply of Nexium yesterday. Thirty dollars for thirty pills, and that was after I used the "Purple card" that my doctor gave me to knock off half the cost of my prescriptions for that drug. So, that equates out to $2 a day - for just me - to use Nexium. Now, consider that for a thousand users, that's a return of $30,000. 1000 patients. 30 days. Consider this: if only 1 percent of the U.S. population uses Nexium, that's a net yield of 30 million patients times $30/month works out equals out to 900,000,000 dollars a month. Now, assume that I'm only 1% right, that's $9 million dollars / month. No! Assume, that my numbers are only .5% accurate and that still gives Astra-Zeneca $4.5 million per month. For that one drug. That is a fairly conservative estimate, I think. It's easy to see why they're being so nice as to give vouchers for half off of their drugs.

I understand the petty logic of it. I understand that the drug company only has so many years to recoup their investments before the drug goes to generic. I get it. It makes sense and is profitable to a select few, but forcibly importing African labor to work on sugar, cotton and tobacco plantations made a certain sick sense too, if the only good that you are striving for is to make as much money as possible.

I know what you're thinking. I'm sure some of you may be saying right now, "Oh, come on. Get off it already! Just do your job!" Some of you are probably saying, "It's just a job. Just do what you're paid to do." Or maybe "Are you really comparing the pharmaceutical industry to slavery?!?"

Well, I agree. . . to an extent. You see, this thinking troubles me every time I sit down to my computer to do some of my work. It taints how I relate to my job. I feel that I'm contributing to a system that I passionately want to see end and I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the need to work and function in the world. I think probably academia is the best place for me to be.

I'm not saying I need to make the world a better place. I just don't want to make it any worse.

Thoughts?