Staying Out of Work

After being downsized, I did go through the process of creating a resume and I’ve kept my presence on LinkedIn. Even though I didn’t need to go back to work, it seemed sensible to keep my options open because situations change and you never know what the future will bring. Now, I’m wondering if it is just time to shut that off.

I do get messages every now and then from recruiters and I’ve got one sitting there in my inbox right now. I see it probably came through a friend of mine which is fine. It is a short term assignment and totally remote so it checks a few of my boxes.

I spent many years in a pharma company although I was in the medical device division. But the longer I’ve been out and the more I’ve watched what has been going on, the less I want to go back to that world.

Because the thing is that for all the supposed advances in medicine, pharma companies don’t seem to invent things that actually cure diseases. At best, they create medicines to manage symptoms and once you start, it is hard to stop taking the pills.

Now, I’ll freely admit that managing the symptoms is better than nothing at all. With my arthritis, I’m glad that I can continue dancing and that there is minimal pain on most days. Still, wouldn’t it be better if you could actually figure out a way to reverse the damage that doesn’t involve taking out your knee and replacing it with metal parts.

I get that this may be impossible but it sometimes seems like the pharma companies aren’t even trying. It is just better to create a new “blockbuster” drug that you can keep on patent for many years and rake in the money even though it doesn’t offer a cure.

Some of this cynicism is likely because of the Covid vaccines which have proven to be far less effective than originally advertised. Plus, they also don’t seem to be as safe as we first thought. But the big company behind them has made a fortune off of them.

And would I want to be a part of that? No. I did take pride in knowing that the devices we made were highly effective at what they were supposed to do. No, they didn’t offer a cure but they did offer people a way to life their lives better. That’s a good thing.

But at the end of the day, pharma companies exist to make money. Every company exists to make money so you have to deal with that. It just seems like pharma companies pump themselves up when it is really just about pushing pills and not really providing a true cure. It just isn’t something I want to be associated with anymore.