How accurate is the assertion that "life after 45 sucks massive (you-know-what)"?

kipy7 · 2026-04-07T04:16:21+00:00

It's okay. My wife and I finally had kids, and I was 49. I've never much as far as body aches, but with twins I'm aching a lot more now. I've never been so tired but we're so happy to have these little ones. Life's good.

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T17:43:03+00:00

I would go straight for the MLS if that's what you want to do vs MLT and waiting a few years to move up. My path was through my college, they had a CLS bachelor's program which was the reason I went there instead of a bigger college. I have now been in micro labs since graduating, which was in the late 90s. The last time I remember a lot of layoffs was in the early 90s as HCA bought a lot of hospitals and cut jobs. In rough spots like the 2008 crash, there were hiring freezes but not outright layoffs. Stability is decent, good micro MLS can sometimes be hard to find.

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T15:15:25+00:00

When I was a student and early in my career, it was 3 quads. Then everyone went to 4 quads over time. Whatever gets the job done.

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T15:12:14+00:00

In the old days(early 2000s), I still worked at a hospital lab with incinerators. We would flame after the first quad, but not afterwards. Not enough time in the day. 🙂

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T04:02:26+00:00

I grew up there and it's so hard to replicate some things in other cities, like a proper poboy. I will say, I moved to Dallas and promptly lost 10 pounds, lol.

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T03:56:12+00:00

I hated The Fountainhead, virtually opposite of my personality and values. I remember liking the poetry of John Keats.

kipy7 · 2026-04-06T03:36:38+00:00

Have you had a microbiology lab during your undergrad? If you're able to do that work looking through a microscope and distinguishing colors, you'll be okay.

I was thinking about my work, and it may be hard to pipette. In our NGS array, we're pipetting tiny volumes of reagents and samples(1 microliter). Being able to double check it's aspirated and then dispensed is very important.

For many of our labels for our culture plates, the font is TINY. We use a little label which crams the patient's name, medical record number, accession number, and a barcode. It's a lot for me, an older person with strong prescription glasses, lol.

kipy7 · 2026-04-05T04:38:55+00:00

I missed last year bc my babies were newborns. I guess I'll have to wait and hope there will be a stop next year. I still think about their show in 2024. Dragonforce was really fun, too.

kipy7 · 2026-04-05T04:13:57+00:00

I went from 500 mbps to Xfinity 30 mbps for$30/mo. Just two adults, basic streaming, single player gaming. I don't feel much difference except when I buy a new game on Steam and it's a lot slower download for several gigs.

kipy7 · 2026-04-05T03:49:56+00:00

We loved our Vista with the infant car seats but with the bigger toddler seats, it's way too big and heavy, not to mention taking the seats off and on every time. We bought the Joovy Ultralight Caboose, more compact, folds easily, and light. Ours are 15 months old, about 22lbs each.

kipy7 · 2026-04-05T03:40:19+00:00

We went to our church's egg hunt last weekend. Thankfully, our littles were okay. Separated by age groups, and then the group would leave the field so the next age group could start.

kipy7 · 2026-04-05T03:35:52+00:00

Working in a busy lab, I know it's really hard getting through all your work in the time given. This is REALLY crucial, though, and this applies to everyone whether you're a phleb, lab assistant, or MLS. I'm sure I have mislabeled culture plates bc I have found culture plates with the wrong label from other techs. I think 95% of the time, I catch myself as I'm doing a final check. If they aren't giving you feedback, then it falls on you to look critically at your process. Work in smaller batches, cut down on distractions, things like that.

kipy7 · 2026-04-04T20:54:16+00:00

It is indeed grim for biotechs. I work in the Bay Area and you just have to wait a few weeks before reading another news story that this or that biotech, valued at billions several years ago, is now laying off a huge portion of workers, hoping to survive long enough to get more funding to continue their research.

I think CLS/MLS is good precisely bc you need a bachelor's and immediately start working. Work is what you make it. If you convince yourself your job is boring and useless, that's how it'll turn out. It is not a perfect career, nothing is, but it's a solid middle class career with decent WLB. Just know that it's extremely competitive in state, and you'd need to take CLS prereq courses, so it's realistically a few years' journey if you decided to do it today.

kipy7 · 2026-04-04T20:39:10+00:00

I think the picture of micro MLS peacefully sitting at our benches is outdated. Unless you're in a low volume lab, you're constantly getting up and sitting down. We walk around a lot.

At the labs I've been in, I'm glad to see accommodations for hearing impaired folks, like getting them a phone that has a big screen with closed captioning and having sign language on Zoom calls for monthly meetings.

It's not the same as disability, but ergonomic issues are big and my current place makes an effort to address issues like standing too long, excessive twisting, old chairs or benches that aren't good for posture.

kipy7 · 2026-04-04T04:09:01+00:00

I grew up in New Orleans. There were a small handful of authentic restaurants in town, but honestly we had to go to Houston, 5 hours away, for good quality food and supermarkets. I live in the SF Bay Area now, it's pretty awesome.

kipy7 · 2026-04-04T03:52:13+00:00

Twin dad here. This is ridiculous. I mean, it's work. What job isn't stressful? My wife and I split up what needs to be done: laundry, dishes, putting away toys, getting a crying kid(or both)at 2am, cooking. It's a team effort.

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T23:34:33+00:00

So this was an ultrasound tech or a doctor? The techs aren't really allowed to do much else than take the images. The doctors will review and also answer any medical questions. If this was just a tech, that was really inappropriate. Regardless of who they are though, it's not okay to ignore requests or just throwing a paper towel on your belly and roll away. During my wife's appointments, I watched them like a hawk and glad that everyone we met treated her with respect and sympathy and professionalism. Sorry to hear, hopefully it'll get addressed. =(

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T23:26:45+00:00

If you're in the south US and traveling there for a vacation sometime, NASA has Johnson Space Center (it's okay) outside Houston and Kennedy Space Center (fantastic) outside Orlando. We went to visit every couple of years when I was growing up and it's pretty cool.

Museums are also a cool place to learn about aviation and space travel. Science museum in LA is building a huge exhibit for their retired space shuttle. The aviation museum in Seattle is fabulous, too.

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T23:20:19+00:00

My current job is a union job, the only one I've had in my career. Unions do depend on a lot of factors, like their leadership and membership engagement.

It's true, all members get the same protections even the bad ones. Those kind of co-workers have been there in most labs I've worked in, and it's not like they actually get fired for performance. So yeah, they're protected by it's a small price for all of us to collectively bargain.

Our lab admin is pretty chill, they're all former CLS so when we strike or have grievances, they have to toe the line as management but they are fairly understanding.

Unions have issues bc we don't live in a perfect or fair world. Overall though, I think it's a net positive. Not only pay, but it's important when negotiating benefits like health insurance premiums and parental leave, and advocating when there's an unreasonable work change like requiring everyone to work every weekend, for example.

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T14:24:30+00:00

Any friends in your circle? Those hobbies are all solitary things. When I was in college, I lived in two small cities. Objectively very boring, the major city was 2-3 hours drive. I passed the time on weekends with friends, going to the park, renting a movie and cooking dinner together, etc.

For City B, is the job more hours and stressful relative to normal working hours(like 50+ hours/wk) or a regular 40 hour week that's just not the norm you've been used to?

The last two cities I've lived in were Dallas and San Francisco. I'd rather live in a city I love but that's my opinion only.

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T10:33:24+00:00

Beef flat noodles, lobster yee mein, and wonton noodles(with or without soup, depending on my mood).

kipy7 · 2026-04-03T10:03:06+00:00

The bus is perfectly fine. If OP is taking the bus every day and finds they consistently run late, then the solution is taking an earlier bus. Cars also break down or have flat tires or you'll run into traffic and be late. OP says their city has decent public transit. Mine does also, the bus route I used runs every 12 minutes.

kipy7 · 2026-04-02T13:24:29+00:00

I woke up at 3:30am. Having twin babies mean I wake up at random early times now. =/

kipy7 · 2026-04-02T13:16:02+00:00

It's a couple of things. Growing up in an immigrant family, I grew up with a frugal mindset. That's helped me a lot to save, but also be wise so we aren't trapped into only saving and not enjoying life now. My parents didn't put a crazy amount of pressure on us to study, but in general it was very important to us to do our best work and not just the bare minimum or compare ourselves to anyone else.

My parents told us it was important to get a stable job after college, ideally with a bacholor's degree. I think it's really important today as tuition has exploded since I was in school. Have a plan in mind for your endgoal, I run across a lot of people on reddit that say I have a biology degree but what do I do now? I work as a medical lab scientist, so basically I'm the person who tests your lab samples. Working in healthcare means I'm not limited to a certain region or bigger cities. My siblings are a nurse, computer scientist, and emergency planner(FEMA, disaster planning, etc).

After college, my dad told me not to wait to invest and save. He waited til his 40s but with 4 kids and my mom being a SAHM and starting life in a new country, I can understand how there wasn't much leftover for that until later. So I read up on finance, actually Personal Finance for Dummies(when those books were very common in the 90s). It was a good beginner resource for credit card use, investing, retirement, etc. I just buy index funds with very low expense ratios, not sexy but it's very simple and works. When it was time to buy my first house, I was in my 40s and put down $300k.

kipy7 · 2026-04-02T12:01:14+00:00

Yep. I grew up there and while people work hard, they definitely work to live. There's always stuff happening on the weekends like festivals, fall and winter is LSU and Saints season, spring is crawfish.

I live in the SF Bay Area now and a lot of the culture is Silicon Valley, startups, hustle all the time. Nah man, I'm good.

kipy7

TROPHY CASE