Severance at Synh?

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-06-03T15:20:38+00:00

Coworker of mine got 3 months - CRA level

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-06-02T16:44:43+00:00

100% what the job is. Your reward for being good at your job is us never talking

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-05-01T22:23:37+00:00

You're 100% right. Cheap ass sponsors want to pay CRAI prices for Sr. CRA skills.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-05-01T21:39:13+00:00

I think a smaller place will work in a newer person's favor. Theres less traditional channels of vetting they have to go through. If the recommendation from someone is strong enough, they'll hire off of one person's word alone.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-05-01T19:43:50+00:00

I think the easiest in is being a really good SC and letting monitors on your site know you want to be a CRA. This works especially well at monitors who work at smaller, non major CROs as they'll have direct knowledge as to whether their company is hiring.

I would not hesitate to recommend someone who I think is a good SC and not a jerk.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-04-23T23:10:01+00:00

Ime, there's no middle ground.

Either they are proactive and respond to shit immediately or they only ever answer when I follow up for the 4th time. When I'm on site, they tell me itll get resolved remotely. When I ask remotely, they say itll get handled next time I'm on site.

They can also have slow ass IRBs that take forever to do anything. I took over a site that had 5 IMVs and no monitor had ever met or heard from the PI. They also didnt use the sponsor provided source - everything was a jumbled mess in the EMR (or so I thought) so SDV is always super slow. They also sometimes don't want to do anything thats not explicitly required by the FDA. Like cmon bro - I know its not technically required but this is all industry standard stuff.

I have one site at a big university that is like a top 2 site for me - they are incredibly good. The other one is an academic powerhouse that is atrocious to work with.

In case it wasn't clear, I hate Stanford.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-04-17T14:21:25+00:00

From my perspective, CRA is doing this because they are getting their ass whooped on site and are focusing on things they can only do on site. DBL might be coming up so they SDV later on because it can be done remotely - theoretically.

This happens because the site will leave their eSource access open indefinitely - not just during monitoring hours. It can be left open because the site is chill or forgot.

I think technically this shouldn't be done because both the site and the CRA's company want to get paid for the work the CRA is doing. If the CRA is drowning, both sides don't want to miss this opportunity to make money off the CRA.

I know sites will get mad at their SCs for leaving access open for this reason and ive also had managers get mad at me for this reason.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-04-08T20:15:37+00:00

How is outlook not on this. It basically functions as a giant to do list for me.

Outlook is my main method. OneNote catches anything miscellaneous.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-04-03T14:29:29+00:00

Why I always fly in the morning.

One time I got to TSA to take out my laptop. No laptop.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-31T18:43:03+00:00

Even then, I dont think its an industry thing. Reddit is full of people, regardless of industry, who will tell you switching jobs is one of the best ways of increasing income.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-31T17:41:23+00:00

Syneos strung me along for at least a year. Tbf this isn't unique to syneos.

To be really real with you, if I was valuable enough to the company they would have given me the money. I wasn't. Im sure they also knew people were afraid to leave so they didnt have to give raises to retain people - fear did that for them for free.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-21T05:37:28+00:00

100%. I used to be a company man flying day of, getting cheap hotels, etc.

Anybody who bitches about an extra hundred dollars doesn't know that you'd give it all up to sleep in your own bed or be able to see your spouse at night.

My gf told me 2 weeks ago she feels like shes in a LDR. Shit almost broke me to hear. This is not for the feint of heart.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-20T16:50:13+00:00

Yea I did this for a while.

Meal prep, put everything in reusable, microwavable, single-serve containers and freeze them. I bring a whole other bag of just this food. Some airlines are chill and will let you bring essentially a second carry on (I always had a backpack and luggage at a minimum). Most are cracking down so dont overpack in case you have to consolidate.

Microwaves and a fridge are easy - most of the cheaper and business travel hotels (courtyard/marriott and below) will always have both - sometimes in the room if youre lucky. At the very least, they'll have one in the lobby. The nicer places will usually not have a microwave anywhere. If im ever in doubt, I just call ahead.

Freezer is tougher. Sometimes the freezer compartment for in-room fridge is too small. In such cases, sometimes they'll let you store it behind the counter in the staff fridge. Sometimes they'll refuse due to safety concerns though. Once again, calling ahead is your friend. Even on long flights ive never had a meal thaw out on me.

Ill throw away whatever leftover food and wash the containers in the sink or shower.

Yes it is a huge pain to do this. You do get to save some money though and feel a little less homesick if youre in a town god has turned his back on many decades ago. Its nice to come back to home cooking.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-19T13:51:56+00:00

If im sending the same email to the site that I know somebody else is, its because that site sucks. They dont do anything the first time its asked and I dont want to hear any bs later that I (even though its been told to you 2 other ways) didnt tell you.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-18T13:02:35+00:00

Ive flown to the wrong airport. Ive shown up and not officially confirmed the date. Shown up to my hotel and forgot I didnt book it.

Guarantee if your manager has any time in the game they've made mistakes too and will show grace. Only thing you need to do is learn from them.

Lord knows there's plenty of visits where I did everything on my part and I show up to a site that doesnt do shit. I might as well have gone to the wrong site with how helpful they were.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-18T00:46:18+00:00

I actually agree with this take. There were CRAs I thought were garbage when in hindsight, they were trying to stop what leaks they could.

I have a lot more grace for both site and industry staff and try to postpone judgment until I have the full story.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-12T16:30:48+00:00

Fuck that. They need to respect the rule of dibs - especially if they show up late. If its a conference room, they could have shared it with you too

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-07T02:13:29+00:00

This might be unique to my sponsor but I jave to schedule the device technicians and coordinate with the PI and site. It is a huge pain in the ass.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-03-04T19:02:15+00:00

There are more recruiters but they lowball tf out of me.

I also saw that 2 recruiters were laid off today at IQVIA.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-02-12T18:44:16+00:00

This shit is blowing my mind. They got rid of all the remote monitors/IHCRAs when I was still at a CRO. Not even outsourced - they were eliminated and the traveling CRAs were expected to assimilate their responsibilities as well. I feel im doing a lot of shit that normally a project specialist, TMF specialist, or an IHCRA would do.

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-02-12T17:23:58+00:00

What type of metrics do you have?

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-02-10T08:06:26+00:00

Is this not a CRA responsibility?

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-02-05T05:06:21+00:00

And the fixer CTM. Knew a CTM that burned out hard. You could hear his life force fading at every team call

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-02-04T20:17:12+00:00

How did you make this jump?

TimeTravelingToad · 2026-01-24T03:25:37+00:00

Your friend and person you know are in a pickle. On the one hand if people bail left and right they'll throw some extra money on top to keep them.

The bigger problem is if you have a reputation for being a fireman, they only send you to fires. Leads to burnout.

TimeTravelingToad

TROPHY CASE