Work Uncertainty

I mentioned in one of my posts last week that the drug submission I had been involved with at work had not been approved by the FDA.  Judging by the number of “encouraging” e-mails sent out by the higher-ups at our company and the various all-hands meetings set up since the news to discuss the FDA response, this is a bigger deal than I thought and might be the first time I have some genuine concerns about job security.  I probably shouldn’t be worried too much – I think contractors will be the first ones to go, besides the fact that there should still be plenty of work out there if our goal (or, more precisely, the new CEO’s goal) is to have at least 10 new drugs approved over the next 10 years.  I am somewhat fortunate that my job role allows me to switch between different areas (I’ve worked in inflammation, respiratory, oncology and virology just at this company).  But based on my workload over the last few months, and based on the kind of response like “we need to determine what this means for our employees working on this program and the path forward” and overuse of words like “uncertainty” and “disappointment” - then I do worry.  When our company says they are “committed” to this therapeutic area, I hope they prove it rather than it being a precursor to dumping it.  And I hope they are also “committed” to all the people that worked hard on this program, and continue to work hard on this, rather than laying a load of people off.  The news certainly didn’t do any favors to our stock price, which is when people really start to panic.