Beyond The Glass: A Deep Dive Into Meaningful Work at a Silicon Valley Biotech Company
Meaningful work isn’t only about what you are doing, it’s also about your relationship with what you are doing.
For the past month, I have been working at Cepheid, a biotech company in Silicon Valley. My role as a manufacturing operator takes place in an assembly line, I perform manual labor. We have three shifts as our operations run 24/7, and I work the morning shift. The majority of my fellow operators are middle aged or older adults who are first generation immigrants. Consequences related to COVID-19 led me to this temporary position, but for many of the people working here, this is their full-time job.
At Cepheid, manufacturing operators contribute directly to the production of test kits for medical conditions such as strep infections and sexually transmitted infections. More recently, the company has begun producing COVID-19 test kits and hiring more associates to meet immense demands. Since working at Cepheid, I’ve had insightful conversations and listened to several personal stories that led me to realize that I’ve entered an ordinary, yet special place. This precious space I’ve entered isn’t just a room where manufacturing operators place filters and caps onto syringes. This space could mean the world to someone, despite it seeming humble from the outside looking in.
Photo: A manufacturing operator prepares a workstation
Finding Refuge: Having said that many of my coworkers are immigrants, some were refugees of the Vietnam War who escaped to the United States when their country was torn apart by communism. The hiring of immigrants in Silicon Valley is ubiquitous because immigration into the Bay Area was propelled by an abundance of new blue-collar tech sector jobs such as hardware manufacturing roles during the Dot-Com Boom of 1995–2000. Aside from white-collar jobs, in which Silicon Valley was built upon having hired skilled professionals across the globe, companies also had technician-level roles to fill. Today, tech companies continue to hire a great number of lesser-skilled immigrants despite them lacking English speaking fluency and having no relevant work experience. Although it is uncommon for a student like myself to apply for this position, I’m grateful that I took the chance. I’m now able to empathize with my parents, who were both hired into Silicon Valley tech companies during the Dot-Com Boom and have been working in hardware manufacturing ever since.
Today, production rooms at Cepheid are places of refuge because for many of the new hires, they’ve taken shelter from unemployment amid an economic recession. In the past few months, millions of people lost their jobs, but Cepheid was one of the few essential businesses experiencing a hiring surge. In my case, I moved back to Silicon Valley from UC Irvine as my summer internship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I applied to Cepheid to escape restlessness at home and make extra money while taking advantage of the lenience of remote education. On the other hand, many Cepheid new hires from the past few months formerly held positions such as restaurant managers, hair stylists, and real estate agents whose careers were displaced as a result of the pandemic.
Looking Through the Window: In the production room where my fellow operators and I work, a clear glass window allows me to see into our building’s office space immediately on the other side of the wall. In that office space, engineers, HR representatives, and supervisors carry out their responsibilities within the 9 to 5 workday. Their office cubicles are adorned with colorful sticky notes, personal family photos, and potted plants. Office workers are styled business casual while a manufacturing operator’s work uniform isn’t complete without a face mask, hair net, and shoe covers. I became interested in this juxtaposition as I continued to look through that window from inside the sterile production room and imagine what conversations take place there, what decisions are made there, and what types of people work there. Yet, when I see people looking at my coworkers and I from the other side of the glass, I hope they focus on our commonalities rather than our differences.
I interviewed a coworker about what they think the purpose of that window is. In essence, the purpose of that window — or any window, is so that one may look through it and see the other side.
Glass windows and walls are not part of nature, they are built by humans. I think, If I could just be ten steps further towards that direction, I would be part of that world, instead of this one. Ten steps took me to the other side, but when I arrived, I realized there aren’t two worlds, there is only one.
Photo: The view of the window and the office space from inside Operating Room 405
At the beginning of my employment, I considered myself to be a worker who was only exchanging my time and effort for monetary compensation. I wasn’t passionate about the work, because I found it to be menial and repetitive. After all, performing manual labor on an assembly line isn’t a passion that someone has naturally. Despite my initial thoughts, I became immersed in the company culture and soon realized that this job, and jobs like this can be so much more than an exchange.
I used to endorse the belief that a person’s work is only meaningful if it brings them closer to their dreams or fulfills their career goals to some extent. Not everyone has the privilege to think this way. After my summer internship was cancelled, I chose to apply for a temporary job in which the skills I learn fall short of bringing me closer to my professional goal of becoming a psychologist. Then, to what end? As a manufacturing operator, I gain a unique experience in which I am doing work I never thought I would do; alongside people I otherwise wouldn’t work with. As a result, my mind has grown to encompass new ways of thinking about the world.
Conversations and Realizations: I participated in a conversation with a few of my coworkers about their need to work overtime. It is common for a manufacturing employee to work seven days a week in order to satisfy their needs and support their families. At the end of the conversation, one of them says,
“Sống vừa lòng khó lắm”.
This phrase in Vietnamese directly translates to “Living life in a way such that it fits my soul is difficult” or more simply, “It is difficult to live life the way I want to”.
I stop for a moment and think about how much hardship a person must go through in their life to say that, as this thought had never crossed my mind. I have always lived my life loosely in the way that I want to, or at least had the autonomy to change aspects of my life I wasn’t satisfied with. I’m studying and conducting research in areas I’m most passionate about at my first-choice university, and I have been blessed with wonderful people who make my life colorful. I think about how as a college student performing the same work, my paychecks go towards college expenses, investing in the stock market, and the occasional indulgence in fashion items. I imagine that the majority of my coworkers tend to spend their money on more immediate necessities such as groceries, paying for rent, and raising their family. For many people whose livelihoods are based in this type of work, their work is meaningful to them partly because it enables them to come closer to living life the way in which they want to live.
Photo: a manufacturing operator assembles parts
Our culture makes it easy for us to look at a person’s job and judge their character without an understanding of why they must do the work they do, or what that work means to them. When we open our circles of understanding to include the diverse perspectives of those whom we consider “the other”, meaning arises in different forms. Ultimately, meaning does not have to arise from the work itself, meaning can also arise from the relationship between a person and their work.
Moreover, not only can work be meaningful on an individual level, the impact of work transcends employees and companies. For example, manufacturing operators build individual parts, but rarely, if ever are they able to witness final products being used or meet the people whose lives they have changed for the better. It is easy to forget that each person is part of a bigger picture. With this in mind, Cepheid employees have contributed to efforts against the spread of COVID-19 as we have manufactured and distributed millions of test kits from our location in Sunnyvale, California this year.
I’m reminded of a famous encounter between former president John F. Kennedy and a janitor at the Kennedy Space Station in 1962. While visiting the space center, Kennedy approaches a janitor and asks him what he is doing. The janitor replies,
“I’m helping put a man on the moon!”.
As we navigate through a culture of glorified job titles and company names turned into buzz words, it is easy to lose sight of what truly matters: the relationships and context in which these jobs and companies are meaningful to each individual. I’ve been inspired as I looked beyond the glass, and thus encourage you to look with me. Just for a moment, to shift your focus away from where the culture tells you to look, and towards those relationships instead.
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I would like to thank my coworkers at Cepheid for touching my heart and sharing their stories with me. Extra special thanks to NJO, HQN, MDT, CNL, ACB, RVM, HTT, THT, ACL, and EAV.
The statements and opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily represent the position, strategies, or opinions of my employer.
