Incredibly Stressful and Not Worth for the Pay
Pros
* Good place to start early in your career and leads to better opportunities. * No weekends. * Great coworkers and solid training. * Gave me an opportunity when I was unemployed.
Cons
* Scheduling could be challenging at times. QA worked either 6:30 AM–3:30 PM or 9:30 AM–6:30 PM shifts. While I understand these hours are driven by the needs of clinical research, staffing and scheduling practices did not always align with operational demands. For example, subjects would occasionally arrive late to their appointments near closing time, requiring QA staff to remain after their scheduled shift to review documentation. Because we were salaried, we were not paid for the extra time. * The biggest challenge was workload and staffing. Management continued to bring in new studies without adequately increasing staffing levels, particularly within QA. It was common for my coworkers and I to manage 10 or more studies simultaneously, creating a high-stress environment and making it difficult to maintain good work. It was a common occurrence for my coworkers to stay late to finish work which, again, they did not get compensated for. Concerns about staffing were raised repeatedly during my time with upper management but nothing changed. This contributed to low morale and employee frustration. * Subject management policies sometimes allowed excessive flexibility, which created additional challenges for CRCs and QA staff and increased administrative workload.
