research assistant

technician

senior mechanic

postdoctoral fellow

laborer

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

A typical day at work involved applying myself to a large number of ongoing assignments: briefing notes, creating a database of major stakeholders, managing the overall stakeholder engagement database, writing a major stakeholder feedback report - the As It Was Heard Report (Phase 2) which is published to the AAFC website, writing statistical reports on stakeholder feedback, researching and writing backgrounders on various policy topics, providing support to the administrative team, writing a major report on the co-operative sector, and taking detailed notes and minutes at stakeholder engagement sessions.

I learned to manage my time effectively, and to use initiative and my analytical skills to work on projects independently.

I have profound appreciation for my supervisors' willingness to charging me with the responsibility to be a major contributor on important assignments, such as the As It Was Heard Report. My manager was willing to provide lots of useful feedback about my work, which I greatly appreciated.

The hardest part of the job was learning to prioritize assignments during busy parts of the work cycle.

The most enjoyable part of my job was getting to see the stakeholder engagement process in action, and getting to write a report on stakeholder feedback after seeing that feedback provided firsthand.

My co-workers were considerate, collaborative, and passionate about their work. Getting to work in that kind of environment was a delight, and motivated me to work harder and to provide support to my colleagues whenever they needed it.

If you are iT, the clients love you. They treat you with warmth and kindness.  Everyday is fun because you feel like you're making a difference. 

Management isn't great. They discourage out of the box thinking, there is very little support, not enough techs and very little opportunity for advancement.  

All of the budget goes to science with nowhere near enough budget for technical support staffing. If you need help, management ignores you. If you have an idea on how to be more efficient, management says things like "That's not your job. The next time you have a good idea, keep it to yourself."

I'd have stayed there in spite of management if they could have provided me a permanent position. But for a 40+ building campus plus work at several other sites in the region, they only have one permanent IT02 staff and an IT01 on a non-guaranteed term. 

When I moved on, it took the person who got my job after me years of working on 90 day terms before he got a permanent position. And that was only because the IT02 had a stroke from al the stress he was under. 

Like I said, the clients are wonderful. Managent is a problem though. 

All my review is based on the Agassiz research center. 

Ag Canada is an extremely fun workplace (especially for student workers) and a challenging one depending on your passion/abilities and who you work for. I was fortunate enough to work under a researcher that helped me grow exponentially, but I have seen other students do mostly physical labour work. Work culture is relaxed and professional at the same time. The management encourages lots of communication between all of the employees, and a social committee holds lots of sports and social events. The most enjoyable and hardest part of the job is that it is challenging. Most scientists working there are world-class scientists in their respective fields, and thus expects the highest quality work at all times. This is no easy feat, but also comes with a rewarding feeling. 

The only problem I found working at the Agassiz research center is that it is too remote.

I worked as a part-time student research assistant on a 4-month FSWEP contract. I worked 15 hours/week and the PI I was working under was very generous about me keeping my schedule flexible, especially when exam season rolled around. The lab environment was always collaborative and exciting, and sometimes a little stressful when managing several experiments simultaneously. On special occasions such as the Chinese New Year, the facility staff put on a special lunch celebration for all employees to enjoy and learn more about the culture. These special lunches really helped maintain the work-life balance, as sometimes staying late at work was inevitable due to the experiment for the day. Overall, my position at AAFC has been the most valuable work and research opportunity I have experienced thus far. I would highly recommend working here!

At the start of the day projects are prioritized, with time sensitive material for elected officials/ministers taking priority.  These items are often required on a restricted time frame and require several levels of approvals. 

The work is national in scope but yet when designing and developing programs data is available for specific areas or industries.  This kind of work has taught me to be able to look at the bigger picture but still have the ability to touch base with individual producers. 

The most difficult task is adjusting to the changing priorities through out the day.  Often what is required in the morning is no longer required by 10:00 am the same day.  This has taught me to be flexible and adjust to the changing requirements of management.

ELIFA (Enzyme Linked Immunofiltration Assay)
ELISA for diagnosis of Epizootic Haemorrhage Disease virus (EHD 1 & 2) Bluetongue; Pseudo-rabies and Vascular Stomatitis virus (New Jersey & Indiana) infection. Identification of campylobacter

SN (Serum Neutralisation Assay) for diagnosis of Epizootic Haemorrhage Disease virus (EHD 1 & 2) Bluetongue; Pseudo-rabies and Vascular Stomatitis virus (New Jersey & Indiana) infection.

AGID (Agar-gel immunodiffusion test).

NPLA (Neutralization Peroxidase-Linked Assay) for the detection of antibodies against hog cholera virus and BVDV.

Isolation of Avian Influenza virus by inoculation of embryonated chicken eggs; hemagglutination inhibition (HI) assay.

IPA (Indirect Immunoperoxidase Assay) for the detection of Bluetongue virus (BTV) and Epizootic Haemorrhage Disease virus (EHD 1 & 2).

Typical Day would consist of getting to work at 7 am, setting up my work area and working through a back log of mite containing ethanol samples. I would screen each sample and separated mites based on species. Some days would include DNA extraction from mites followed by PCR and gels. I learned more about mites then i ever could of imagined.

Most difficult part of the job was repetition, many samples had mites within, however I would get stretched of 4-5 samples with nothing in them. With each sample taking 15-20 minutes to scan, near to two hours of finding nothing can test ones resolve to continue on.

My Co-worker that was generally in the same lab helped make the job quite entertaining, banter and back and forth kept things interesting. He was also very knowledgeable and was very good at answering my questions when they arose.

Sharing personal ideas, to become stronger people and education oriented comes from own core values and experiences gained through my life journey.The purpose of existence is to achieve a good balance using advantage project life-cycle as one of tools within teamwork. Teamwork means sharing constraints about scope, time and budget and how to complete the project successfully. Never give up even the initial attempt fails to get there as teamwork, trust needs to be earned over time.Trust, dedication and self-confidence are key success factors that involve fundamental changes in the way of life accountability and how team proceeds together through entire value chain. Thus, it is only worth doing business if the benefits are shared.

This was a general office job which included anything from filing, receiving accounts, paying accounts; verifying purchased orders; applying applicable discounts on purchased goods. Had control of the petty cash and had to do weekly expenses and payments from petty cash.
The management and co-workers were great, and helpful...often giving guidance, suggestions etc.

There was really no hard part of the job...verifying took extra work

Loved learning and working with the accounts receivable and payable

What is the best part of working at the company?
The environment is a pleasant and safe place to work.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
It can stressful if some unforseen things happen like machines break down and weather effects production.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
It feel like part of a family working hard to produce quality research in farming that will be a valuable asset to our future grain farms.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
We start the day doing a thorough inspection of the field and crops, to assess the priorities of the day and which fields need attention first.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Research assistant 4 salaries reported	$66,743 per year
Technician 3 salaries reported	$23.41 per hour
Senior mechanic 1 salary reported	$37.98 per hour
Postdoctoral fellow 2 salaries reported	$47,234 per year
Laborer 2 salaries reported	$25.00 per hour

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