PYRAMID Laboratories

For those of you currently seeking employment, please be wary of working for PYRAMID Laboratories in Costa Mesa, CA. This is a small CRO with under 50 employees, the organization of which is controlled to a fault by the CEO of the company. That which is "promised" during the interview is not the reality of the business, the business environment or staff expectations. Staff members are controlled to the point of either being willing to submit, nod their heads and put up with a strictly negative atmosphere or move on to something rewarding that values individual contributors and their input. The CEO imparts the organization and members of the management team with his hyper-negative commentaries and verbally abusive comments, so the unpleasant culture is perpetuated from the top-down. What might look good from the outside and from a sales pitch perspective does not paint an accurate picture of the business on a daily basis.

 

Yes, I have heard about this company from numerous people and staffing agencies. The CEO is well-known to be very unprofessional, inappropriate and rude. He has been known to talk about orthodox Christianity in interviews and hire people based on religious affiliations and ethicity. At least 50% of the company is Egyptian, which is the ethicity of the CEO. Company policy states that English only is to be spoken, however there have been many complaints that Arabic is still spoken when there's no direct oversight to enforce it. I've also heard that the CEO's wife is the lab manager, which poses an inevitable conflict of interests in terms of performance, salary and treatment, as well as constant interruptions which have nothing to do with work. The whole gig has a poor reputation, regardless of how things look on the outside. I concur that you should steer clear of this place.

 

Medhat Gorgy is a royal asshole.

 

to the person who wroe this post, and the comments about Pyramid. I need to contact you to ask some other question I have is it possible

 

Do not work at Pyramid Laboratories. This place is a nightmare. The CEO is extremely unprofessional, talking about religion and race during interviews. He bad mouths former employees and thinks that Pyramid is the best place ever to work. Please beware - it is the worst place to work.

The company is monitored with cameras everywhere, watching the break room, outside the bathrooms and in the clean rooms. You aren't allowed to use the internet even for work, telephone use is recorded and monitored and he is known to confisgate cell phones to make sure that you are not texting during work hours. Employee training sessions are turned into lectures about stealing company time and the CEO is such a nut that there is a picture of himself in virtually all conference rooms. Clients and staff alike make fun of this guy.

This guy is so crazy, he openly talks about muslims as being the devil and how orthodox christianity is the only "true" religion. He is known to blatantly tell employees that they aren't believers in the original religion. He doesn't hire Indians and Philipinos and tells candidates during interviews why!!

Salary employees, who are supposed to be exempt, have to clock in and clock out during the work day. He will gladly have you work over the weekend, yet dock you vacation hours when you need a day off. The company is closed on Christmas Eve, yet you are forced to use it as a vacation day!! This guy tries to screw his employees whenever possible.

Lewd and sexual jokes are common between the CEO and his staff. He is inappropriate and quite frankly it's disgusting hearing him talk about women. The whole thing is horrible!! Stay far far away and pat yourself on the back for doing so.

 

for the person who posted on jan/22/13 is there anyway to contact you, I've been working there and my career suffered because of Medhat bad mouthing I need help to prove it

 

Please provide an anonymous email address.

 

scientist12345@hotmail.com Thanks

 

I could not say enough, everyone is spot on, I left this company more than 5 years ago and still nothing changed, racist CEO, Cameras everywhere, Arabic is always spoken, Egyptians get higher pay raise, other employees are his informants, everything you say he hears it from someone else, work life balance is NEL, he makes promises he can not fulfil, treats everyone bad, disrespectful and uses derogatory language often, has a bad temper, does now allow managers to manage their staff, dishonest business and GMP practices, I would not use him to fill my food containers let alone my medications, manipulates data often, and women are disrespected and he hits on them and expects them to give him massages, basically harasses everyone his way, he thinks he is a godfather and everyone he pays is under his control.

Honest, he should be out of business for the way he operates his business and if I was the FDA I would look closely at his practices and if I was a company I would think twice using him to do anything for me!!!

Beware and careful do not work for this company, it was the worst 8 months of my life working there.

 

If you are thinking of contracting with Pyramid Laboratories, reconsider. First you are only given one day to audit the facility with the President & CEO monitoring the audit with close scrutiny. His tactic is to spend the entire day with the auditors so as not to leave them alone to inspect the data and do their job to ensure conformance. For pharmaceutical companies with highly valuable API - the risk is too high and doing business with this man is a nightmare. He will tell clients over and over that Pyramid has the "best batch records" and the best "Agreements" yet he stole all these from his past clients.

Pyramid employees are treated so poorly that the verbally abusive commentary coming from the President scares the wits out of them, forcing them to manipulate and falsify data when problems arise. Finding glass in vials during inspection is common because the machines are not used often. Cracked vials is common when using the commercial lines because they are inactive for practically the entire year. There are no companies that manufacture their products commercially there, although he will tell you there are and then when you ask who - he will claim confidentialiy.

Medhat Gorgy has owned and operated Pyramid for 25 years with a commercial line for 5 years and he can't break 7 million dollars in revenue or 45 employees. That should tell you something - he does not maintain clients or employees and no one comes back for repeat business. The only companies that manufacture at Pyramid are the new pharmas that are blinded by his cheap prices and available time slots for tox studies.

 

Pyramid Labs has every opportunity to do well as a contract pharmaceutical manufacturer and packager. They are well located in Orange County near John Wayne airport. They have spacious facilities in a good part of town (Costa Mesa). They can perform manufacturing and testing as well as toxicology studies. However, they are not well known or respected and it comes down to one common thread and that is the CEO himself.
While he fancies himself as the best CEO ever, he has no managerial or social skills whatsoever. He has a severely distorted self-image. As the CEO, he feels he has entitlement to politically incorrect behavior (although he is totally unaware that his behavior is politically incorrect at all). His ranting will regularly cross the boundaries of religion. He is Christian (Coptic) from Egypt, and while it is understandable that he might have issues with Muslims in his native land where his religion is strongly persecuted, he carries it way too far with his condemnation of all Muslims and his suggestions of what should be done with them will make even the strongest of souls cringe. His ranting will cross the boundaries of sexual orientation, people of different countries and cultures, people who smoke and people with body tattoos.
Yet, nothing compares to his ranting about former employees, former clients and former suppliers. That is a never-ending crusade for this CEO. His attitude and demeanor toward these poor unfortunate souls is relentless. He threatens to sue them (and in some cases has). He does whatever he can to destroy any credibility they might have. He has an obvious fixation for vengeance because he does not have the capacity to understand why people leave his employment or service.
As a result, he is paranoid to a chronic level. He has cameras everywhere monitoring the facility. He is frightened that employees are conspiring against him. He forbids socializing and “chatting”. He monitors email, faxes and internet usage. He conscripts employees to tattle on their colleagues (whether it is true or otherwise). It is really sad to watch him make good people do bad things.
Just ask anyone who works (or used to work) at Pyramid Laboratories what it is like to work there. If they care to discuss it (and many of them are too frightened to say anything), you will hear a common theme. They liken their employment to being in prison, dreaming of the day they can quietly be set free and hope that he doesn’t come after them in the same way he has with everyone else that has made the mistake of crossing his threshold.

 

Wow, the previous post was right on!

But, one more point needs to be made. Their facility is in an okay location and there is lots of space, but the equipment is used/second-hand and is far from the "state-of-the-art" like the CEO promises. That is why it sits dormant for months at a time.

 

All the previous posts are forgetting one thing. The CEO wants everyone around him to believe he is magic. So many times, he talks about his dreams he had the previous night and that many times they come true. He tells us that he can predict earthquakes. Wow, if that's true, you can tell Cal-Tech they can go home, because this guy knows when those earthquakes are coming! He tells all of us that he knows how we should all wear our hair, because he is so special at knowing all these wonderful things. And that list goes on and on. Next, he will start telling us he can walk on water!

 

I agree with everything said on this forum. The CEO has two campaigns. The first is to get everyone to believe he is god-like. He loves to post pictures of himself everywhere. He loves to tell his endless stories of how wonderful he and his business are, getting such "wonderful compliments" from everybody. The second is punishing anyone who does not fall under his spell.

 

He told me in 2011 the world was about to end on a particular conspiracy theory day and that he and his family "would be saved." I would not receive the same fate because I wasn't coptic. He is a nut who belongs in a loony bin and no where near a facility that manufactures pharmaceutical drugs.

 

sounds like this is one person who has an axe to grind posing here over and over

 

Sounds like Medhat can't take criticism from multiple former employees! Shocking! Excuses, excuses for bad behavior "must be one person." Learn how to spell Medhat "posing" is what you do in front of your cameras freak.

 

This is the worst place to work, ever.

 

Unbelievable. If the above is true, I can't believe they are still in business. If any bench chemists out there are looking for an ETHICAL lab to work for, send a resume to Exova in Santa Fe Springs. You'll work your butt off, but you'll be able to sleep at night.

 

God. What is it about CROs' and their bat shit crazy CEOs. First there is Health Decisions and the infamous Dr. Rosenberg then there is this loon. Makes you think about getting out of the business.