Too bad that it makes my skinny body way too cold and shivery, but I've already made a cup of (Brazilian) lemon-grass tea to warm me up/calm me down.
I just thought I'd let you know that the discussion with anonymous commenter is continuing over here in the comment section. Just in case you want to come and add your two cents. I may, or may not, close anonymous commenting after this. After all, it's important to be forced to weather criticism in order to build a thicker skin, since mine is way too thin. I want that overly sensitive girl to be a thing of the past.
Adrenaline can be very useful to me too! It propels me to clean, clean, clean, which is not my normal mode (understatement :-) -- so it's just what I needed today to get me going. I have to go sweep and mop the kitchen now, so I'll see you later.
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6 comments:
I have to say that your comments about industrial scientists not knowing anything really rubbed me the wrong way. My father had to give up on getting his Ph.d because my grandfather got sick and someone in the family needed to earn income. To date he has 80-something patents and holds 75% of the patents in his industry, basically making his company billions and keeping people employed. He was so good at what he did that before he retired his company basically made a special allowance to let him work off-site out of our home because he got tired of moving us around the world.
His main complaint about academics trying to make it in his industry has been that they don't understand the requirement of factoring cost into their proposals, not that they're stupid and don't know much. Maybe your husband wanted to deal with more theoretical research-there's certainly good value in that and I think that's what universities are there for. That's a far cry from industrial inventors being unintelligent.
I know my dad wanted to become a professor himself but he's singularly non-bitter in how his life turned out. He retired recently and now gets to consult. I try to model my own life on his generally cheerful perspective.
Best of luck to you both.
Incidentally, that work-at-home/fly out to the labs/plants deal his company extended him was for 20 years before he retired. He was so good they basically let him be a WAHD.
Hi, nice to "meet" you, MMWC (sorry, it's a really long, if interesting alias ;-). First of all, a (stupid) question, you're not you "anonymous commenter," right? 'Cause you sure don't sound like him!
Thanks for your comment, I really do appreciate constructive, fair, well founded criticism. And I can recognize I'm wrong when I am or may be. I concede that what I wrote was a gross generalization and might have been quite inappropriate.
Being merely a humanities academic, I am in no way the best person to try to explain what it is that academics in the pure sciences have against people in the industry and vice-versa.
I certainly never meant to imply that "industrial inventors [are] unintelligent" -- not at all! And I don't think really I wanted to say that "industrial scientists [do] not knowing anything." I just meant to say that "pure" academic folks in the sciences tend to think that often folks working in the big pharma industry -- on the very same specialty that the academic folks work with (say, drug delivery, powder technology, whatever) -- aren't really knowledgeable about the science behind it.
Now, K's evaluation that this commonly held belief was "true" was based on only his TWO MONTHS of employment before he was laid off. I concede that that's an awfully short period of time to make any fair and knowledgeable judgments about something, and K may as well be wrong, as he's been slowly been realizing this past year.
I think you're absolutely right when you talk about the cost of production, etc. What K was absurdly shocked to learn visiting the overseas headquarters of the company is how slowly the technology of production changes and how hard it is for cutting edge science to reach the core of a HUMONGOUS ever-merging big pharma company.
K never really worked for big pharma, that's the heart of the matter. He barely even even had a chance to learn what it was all about, when he was laid off the first time. Then, the when he was re-hired temporarily, his boss was scrambling to find work for the group and the projects kept changing. He didn't get to work on any projects.
The story of why in the world they hired an academic scientist in the first place (it's NOT common) is interesting, but this comment is getting too long already.
I hope that helps. In any case, I'll change the original post to reflect on this lovely, civil discussion that we're having here and I'm sorry that my post rubbed you the wrong way! It was meant to be about our situation, not about other people. Oh, and thanks for sharing your point of view. It's always appreciated.
Why in the world did you end up reading my blog anyway?
Of course you think capitalism is bad. You would rather have someone else subsidize you.
Hi Lilian,
I am not your anonymous commenter. I got here from She Started It's blog, I have been reading her a long time and thought your comment about breaking through as a blogger was right on.
Obviously I read through your last post and I'm sorry your commenter called out your ethnicity and background. FTR, there's no way it could be me because my parents are Indian immigrants to the west 30 years back and we've been subjected to more than one "go home [insert ethnic slur here]" moment. Sorry that you had to experience that, I've had years of hearing it and I still flinch on the (rare) occasions when it happens.
For the record, my father actually sympathizes greatly with Ph.ds, as I said, he's in/was in Product Development but he came from a heavily sciencey/academic background, not a managerial perspective. That said, he cottoned on very quickly to how to get his products developed and that was largely by pitching the cost perspective. Not everyone can or has to adapt to that perspective, it's rather mercenary. Again, it seems like your husband's interests lie more in purer research, and the place for that is in academia. Even my dad admits that some of the very best things we've discovered have been by "accident" in non-industry labs that weren't driven by pure profit.
I sincerely wish you guys the best in finding a TT job. My really good friend (who also has the lit Ph.d) is going through this pain right now and I know how hard and depressing it is-and not just for one year, but many.
Good luck.
Monkey
Thanks for all the encouragement! Soon after I asked the question in my comment I already realized that anonymous was someone else.
You know, it's almost funny, but I had never even thought of that nasty person's comment as being ethnically discriminatory in a way. I'm really not used to that because it never happens in person because I have a mostly European background and I blend in well. Sigh.
I'm glad you though my comment to Anjali's post was spot on (I, not very modestly, agree ;-). I happen to know her in person, we met briefly twice before she moved from the Philly area (and we'd lived so close for over three years and I only found out about her and her former blog as she was about to move :-(
I have a feeling that yesterday and today's interview will get K a job. Thanks for all your encouraging words.
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