 Behold kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing objects with gold, so as to draw attention to the uniqueness of the repaired object. Hopefully, the significance of this will become apparent when I'm done typing up this story. I'd like to relay a story from one of my evolutionary biology professors (liberal arts degree, anyone?). Although this occured around 18 years ago (and my retelling is undoubtedly affected by the vagaries of human memory multiplied by the ravages of time) this one stuck with me, and I think I've got the gist of it down here. Although it's hard to be certain, I THINK that the biologist I'm speaking about is Geerat Vermeij (now at UC Davis).
The story discusses how lessons from seashell evolution helped America win World War 2.
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 Ahh, sweet, hard data. People rarely discuss money. It makes them uncomfortable, for a number of reasons I won't go into. Logically, this makes no sense; by not discussing compensation openly, we - the worker bees of the world - give the advantage to our employers. As such, I have long resolved to talk about money right up to the point where it becomes unbearably boorish. To that end, I will now bloviate on comparisons of compensation between academia and industry.
 For the record, I'm not a Brony. I was sitting in an airport a couple of weeks ago, waiting for my flight. The gate attendant had just called for people with children and the disabled. I was in Zone 4. Not long enough to read a book, not soon enough to get up to stand impatiently. I compromised by delving into the normal pool of random thoughts that slosh around my head. Somehow, I settled on pondering the meaning of a tiny population of working society, which resulted in the ensuing vignette:
 Searched for "scientist stock images" - about right. Imagine the photographer coaching the model: "Now hold up the tube and act like you're receiving a sexual charge from the color of the liquid. Yesssss......" Part One of my (very) occasional series on life in academia versus industry.
This is the second part of a comparison (MY comparison) between life in universities vs the private sector. I thought I'd tackle what makes you "good" at either job, as the metrics are surprisingly different. |
Noah's Inner MonologueScribblings of a man who can barely operate an idiotproof website. Archives
August 2018
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