Playground politics

The end of the work week, and not a moment too soon—thank God it’s Friday. I found myself wishing for the end of the work day already around 12 noon, after a particularly ineffective and confusing meeting, but of course I couldn’t leave for home at that time, even though I wanted to. The woman who never played hooky in her entire scholastic career has suddenly learned what that temptation means. I want to run away from most forms for stress. The more uncomfortable the situation, the more I want to exit it. I don’t want to get embroiled in any work-related conflicts after twenty years in Norway because they never get resolved—all people seem to want to do is to hear themselves talk about them ad nauseum) and I see no point in rehashing a lot of situations that have already been discussed and buried. I cannot believe the amount of inefficiency that exists and that people tolerate as part of their work life. Meetings account for much of that wasted time.

The day was a bust because of the ineffective meeting, but also because of a phone call I received from a man who is the leader for an organization that I belong to. He was upset because he felt that another woman whom we both know had been rude to him in a public setting and he wanted me to side with him. It was not a suggestion but more of an order, and I do not take kindly to being told how I should feel or what I should do in most situations. Those who know me know that this is a dead-end approach with me, to try and order me about. His next tactic was to try to make me feel uncertain about another work-related situation that I have asked both him and this other woman for advice about. He kept insisting that I talk only to him about this situation and not to her since he was the leader, and that also does nothing for me. We live in a free country, as I was often wont to hear from my peers in arguments when I was growing up. I absorbed that way of thinking, thankfully. So in the back of my mind, when someone is telling me what to do or trying to bully me into changing my mind, my inner voice is telling me something else--I’m free to decide for myself. We’re not in grade school anymore, where playground politics dictated who you could and couldn’t talk to and who you could play with or ignore. I won’t be bullied into taking sides, and in this particular situation I actually have decided already to side with the woman involved because all she ‘did to him’ was to voice her opinion, and he seems to have a problem with women who do that. I don’t have that problem. I prefer people who state their opinions and who allow others to do the same. I am suspicious of people who always have to be right, always have to dominate, always have to have the last word, always have to drown others out by talking over them, always have to be king of the playground. I often discuss playground politics with one of my co-workers who has done a lot of politically-related committee work in my workplace. She often comments on the childish behavior she sees and has experienced around her. I have to agree. I haven’t seen much to impress me in the way of conflict negotiation/resolution in the twenty years I’ve worked here. It might just be my workplace, but I doubt it. The playground kings dominate and are always trying to push people about and to get them to do what they want them to do. It has never worked particularly well with either her or me.

The most efficient thing I did all day was to clean and organize our laboratory work area together with Aasa, one of my co-workers who shares my dislike of clutter. It took us a couple of hours to get it in order again. We threw away a lot of old boxes, papers, and plastic items, and by the time we were finished, the lab benches were suddenly attractive work areas again. They have looked like a mess for quite a while now. Once again, the elimination of clutter helps to free us mentally. I swear I might start a business to help people organize their daily lives—either at home or at work or both. I think it might even be reasonably successful and that I might enjoy the work—or at least that feeling of efficiency that one gets after finishing up. And best of all, I would not have to deal with the kings of the sandboxes and their playground behavior.

'Trickle down' economics--my version

When I talk to my friends and family in the USA these days, what they say confirms my suspicions that are only heightened each time I read a newspaper or watch the TV news. The American economy is not really getting any better. The economic crisis persists and is becoming chronic. The gap between rich and poor continues to widen. Small businesses are not making it, and middle-level managers in numerous generic corporations are having a hard time finding a new job if they’re laid off. Average people are paying a fortune for health insurance. I don’t care about the Wall Street numbers—the Dow is up today and down the next—who really cares? Where is its connection to reality? It doesn’t seem to me that there is any correlation between stock market numbers and how people and the economy are really doing, at least not a correlation I particularly care about.

When I was online looking at real-estate offerings in upstate NY recently, I was shocked by the number of foreclosures. And when I was visiting a friend in Albany this past August, we drove around her neighborhood and I got a chance to see all of the houses that were for sale. We’re not talking one or two houses within a block or two of where she lives. We’re talking up to ten houses in the space of a block or two. It is a strange sight to see. I wondered what happened to all those unfortunate people who have lost their homes or were forced to sell. I can’t help but wonder if many of them just had the rug pulled out from under them. I think of all the people who lost their pensions in recent years at the hands of greedy and corrupt corporate leaders. The middle class is having a tough time of it. I don’t see an end in sight, especially if talented intelligent people are unable to find a job within two years of being laid off. I know three people who fit this description, all of whom have reached middle-age. Is that the reason they’re not being considered for new positions? Is there age discrimination at work? It reminds me of the nearly two-year period in the late 1970s when my father was unemployed. He was in his early fifties then. He finally did get a job, but that period of unemployment cost him the little health he had left by that time. I remember talking to him about it all, and I know that the stress of being unemployed and his loss of self-esteem were often overwhelming. He was always grateful to the last company he worked for, but he never had much good to say about corporate America in general.

I don’t really understand how it got to the point it’s reached at present. I do know that greed has played a role in creating the current economic crisis. Bad loans that have been prettily-packaged and marketed globally haven’t helped things. Overspending hasn’t helped, either at the personal, corporate or governmental level. I don’t know how the problems will be solved. I don’t think the solution will have anything to do with a political party shift in the White House. The Republicans don’t have any better answers than the Democrats. They just think they do. They keep pushing the idea of rugged individualism as the trait that made America the great nation it once was. And they’re right, it did help, early on, but that trait isn’t enough anymore to make it. There are no rewards for rugged individualism anymore and there are very few rewards for the strong work ethic that used to characterize the generation of Americans I knew and know. I am not sure what happened, but there has been a global shift toward not rewarding hard work and loyalty to a company. What have gotten rewarded in the last thirty years are greed and more greed, dishonest dealings, and unethical behavior—at least that’s how it seems to me. Companies who fire hard-working loyal employees to save money but who keep their CEOs and CFOs who are making multi-million dollar salaries are not my idea of what is good about America. You can give me all the arguments you want—that their leadership is good for the company and that they made their companies successful, etc. But still I ask--what do they need with a 50 million dollar annual salary when there are talented intelligent people who are earning very little on the unemployment line? These unemployed individuals are possibly the same people who helped make those companies successful, because we all know that a leader or leaders can never become successful in a vacuum. So if they reduced their salaries to a million dollars a year, think how many people they could employ with the remaining 49 million dollars. Wouldn’t it be great if some of that wealth could ‘trickle down’ to the middle- and lower classes in the form of jobs or salary increases for the underpaid? I’ve got to applaud Oprah Winfrey for recently giving all of her employees a 10 thousand dollar raise and an iPad http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/16/oprah-doles-out-thousands-to-magazine-staff/?hpt=Sbin. She is a wealthy woman who at least made an attempt to reward her employees. There should be more like her.

I know that there are workers who are lazy, disloyal, uninterested, who feel ‘entitled’ and who have done little or nothing to deem them worthy of a reward. But I personally don’t know these types of people. I do personally know unemployed people who have worked long hours for their companies, traveled for them, given up time with their family for them, who haven’t been there to say goodnight to their children because they had to work. I also know people who are struggling to keep their small businesses afloat while they watch the large companies that they try to compete with, outsource manufacturing of the same types of products to China. The idea that they can compete with these companies and with this type of betrayal is a joke. The small businesses lose. I don’t think it takes an MBA from a prestigious college to figure that out.

I spend a lot of time observing what goes on around me and in the lives of the people I know in the USA and here in Norway. I listen to what people tell me. I look at my own work life and workplace. I see the discrepancies, the hypocrisy, the dishonesty, as well as the positive things--the faith that the younger people have in their futures—that things will be better for their generation. I hope that is true. I also hope that society finds its way back to an appreciation and reward of traits like loyalty and a strong work ethic, as well as fair treatment of loyal employees by company leaders and fair treatment of small businesses by their respective governments.

On Retiring Early

Vacation time is here. Four blessed weeks of freedom. I filled out an online survey recently that had to do with how people felt about their work, and many of the questions had to do with what one preferred, e.g. a salary increase accompanied by more hours at work, or more free time. I answered-- more free time. Ten years ago I would have answered--salary increase, which is more evidence that I have definitely changed over the years. Free time is worth gold to me now.

I am not the only person who likes free time. Many people I have talked to recently say the same thing. They are tired of working and they love their free time. I listen to what they have to say and I weigh it all against my own feelings. I think what we’re all tired of is the push to produce, compete, produce more and compete more. It never ends, and enough is never enough. And against the backdrop of business corruption, the global financial crisis, layoffs and unemployment, outrageous salaries and retirement benefits for company leaders, and outsourcing of jobs, it seems strange to me that more people don’t want to quit their jobs, just out of pure anger at the unfairness of it all. But I’m guessing that many do and just don’t say it because to say it rubs more salt into the wound. They know they have to work to keep adding to their pensions, and some people have lost their pensions due to the corruption and bad investments that we’ve all read about. This hasn’t happened to me, thank God, because I don’t know what I would do with the amount of anger I would feel if my company had betrayed me like that. I get irritated enough with other types of unfairness at work. I want to take early retirement and I will spend the next ten years of my work life saving as much money as I can, living simply and effectively, and not spending extravagantly. My husband and I have lived like this most of our adult lives already because working as scientists has never been about making a lot of money. We have lived non-extravagantly for many years now. The word ‘budget’ has always been part of our vocabulary and will likely remain so for the rest of our lives.

I was talking to my good friend in NY recently about working and being tired, and was probably complaining a bit, and she just said to me, you want to retire now. It took me all of about two seconds to realize that what she said was true. But of course I cannot retire now. I think it is strange to consider that I want to retire now because I have been a near-workaholic for years. Perhaps that is why I am tired. The long hours have caught up with me. Or perhaps I just need a change--maybe a different type of job would be the answer. It is worth considering. Another good friend said to me that what I feel now has more to do with that I have achieved what I want to achieve in my current profession, that I have reached a plateau and now feel like a drone. Also a very interesting idea to consider and it may be true. What I do know is that retirement for me will be a time of adventure, new challenges and creativity. I have no plans to sit around doing nothing. I want to use my free time well—write (and hopefully publish what I write), read all the books that are on my list, take language courses, travel, do photography, do some consulting work, do volunteer work at my church, and who knows what else. Time will tell. It will be the next phase of life and I think it will be a very interesting phase. I hope so at least.

Women in Science

I read a very interesting article this past week in The Scientist. It was entitled ‘A Transforming Field’ (http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/5/1/80/1/) and presented the stories of two transgender scientists: the first was about a woman who became a man, and the second about a man who became a woman. While their stories are remarkable in and of themselves, what struck me most was how they experienced their daily scientific lives afterwards. Both of them praised their colleagues and bosses for being supportive of their decisions. What bothered me most was what both had to say about how women are discriminated against in academic science. The woman who became a man experienced a boost in his career evolution and opportunities, while the man who became a woman experienced poor treatment that she had never experienced as a man. I thought, my God, this is so interesting. Having felt some of that discrimination myself, I thought that these two scientists are actually living proof that this discrimination exists, because they have experienced both sides of the coin so to speak.

The problem of discrimination against women in science is difficult to prove, because those women (and men) who try will always be told that the reason they are doing so is because they are themselves not good enough and are thus envious of those who are. Even if this was true for a few women scientists, most of the women scientists I know walk around with that feeling of not being good enough anyway on a daily basis, so hearing it said to you puts you in your place. The questions then become, why is it this way for women and how do they deal with it? Most of the women scientists I know in Norway have simply resigned themselves to the discrimination. It can take the following forms: they are ‘overlooked’ for a higher (leadership) position, their opinions are dissed during planning meetings, they are told that they are difficult and unwilling to collaborate or not good at collaborating, they are expected to do the menial work in projects that are being planned and if they protest against this are told that they are not being cooperative, they are denied technical help while male scientists with the same competence get that help, they experience being ‘talked down to’ or ‘talked over’ while they are expressing an opinion, and then when they actually express irritation at being treated in this way are told that they are ‘out of balance’ or that they have misinterpreted the situation. I can only speak for academic scientific environments in this country, but know that this behavior occurs in the private sector as well. I know women scientists who have hit the wall and gone out on sick leave several times for different reasons, but when pressed will tell you it was because they have been treated poorly. All of them have left those jobs and moved on. These women are not slouches. In fact, the opposite is true for nearly all of them. They have an incredible work ethic, they are innovative, and they are smart. Perhaps they are too smart for the people for whom they work. I do not know. What I do know is that when you have experienced a work environment that treats women with respect (as I did in New York many years ago—working for three men who knew how to treat women well), you remember that for the rest of your life. And you hold it up as the example against which all other workplaces must measure up to. But unfortunately they don’t.

In this age of budget cuts, fiscal crises and corruption, no one really cares about whether women are discriminated against in science. I get that. I also get that women have a better overall work life in westernized countries than in other more repressed parts of the world, so that we shouldn’t really complain. We have a lot to be thankful for. Even the women who feel the discrimination have resigned themselves to it because they need their jobs. They chose and choose not to fight it. But what is happening now in my workplace is that some of these women are being bullied out of their jobs so that budgets can be ‘balanced’. Their bosses (who have been promoted to the level of their incompetence a la the Peter Principle—translated, have kissed a lot of ass on the way up) are finding all sorts of ways to make them feel incompetent and worthless. One woman scientist I know here who is experiencing that sort of bullying can retire in January when she turns 62 (early retirement). Unfortunately, there are no buyouts being offered these women such as would likely occur in the private sector. It might be worth considering if such were the case, although apparently if one accepts such a buyout then that affects one’s pension rights and retirement options. She might want to fight against her workplace now that things have become unbearable. Maybe she will. I don’t know. All I know is that I am and always have been more interested in fighting to prevent such behavior from taking root, but I stand alone in that fight in my own workplace, and deep down I know that it will be a pointless fight and that I am tilting at windmills. It’s better to call a spade a spade and to move on.

I have to say that I never much cared about the differences between men and women and how they approached science earlier in my life. What mattered were the science and the joy of doing science. I still love the science. I just think now that there are better ways to express that love than working for a workplace that discriminates against its female scientists.

Comments about the 'Evolution of Science*

I read a very interesting short article the other day, published in a magazine called The Scientist. The article is entitled ‘Evolution of Science’ and was written by Lauren Urban. You can read it here http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/57368/. Urban writes about a scientist named Alex Shneider who has attempted to describe the different types of research scientists by putting them into stages: stage 1, 2, 3, and 4, in essence, categorizing them, which is a scientific approach in and of itself. Shneider describes the characteristics and talents of scientists in these different stages, and makes the point that there can be an evolution, so to speak, from one stage to the other. It really is the first article of its kind that I have read, and it resonated with me. Shneider describes first-stage scientists as the great innovators and risk-takers. Of course, Craig Venter, whose company Celera Genomics competed with the publicly-funded Human Genome Project to sequence the human genome, comes to mind. He lives in another world than ‘us ordinary folks’, and listening to him talk about his ideas for the future and for the planet (via his new company--Synthetic Genomics which he co-founded) is awe-inspiring and exciting. It must also be said that he has the capital and the chutzpah to take the necessary risks to move science forward, and if he doesn’t have the money he isn’t afraid to ask private investors for it. I remember seeing photos of the sequencing labs at Celera, and they showed rooms full of DNA sequencers that operated around the clock. First-stagers move the world forward, but they are not necessarily the ones who translate their ideas into practice. This is where the stage two scientists come into the picture. Shneider describes them as having “ingenuity, inventiveness, and high risk tolerance”. Most scientists fall into the third-stage category, which Shneider describes as those scientists who “use those new tools to answer new questions, thereby coming up with new insights and more questions”. They are, in his words “more methodical, detail-oriented, and concerned with absolute correctness”. Fourth-stage scientists are those who write about and chronicle science in an attempt to organize scientific data, but they are not the discoverers and inventers.

It struck me while reading the article that I have had the privilege of working in two dynamic research laboratories during the past twenty years, both of them American. One was located in New York City and the other in San Francisco, California. If I could sum up my experiences in both laboratories, I would have to say that the laboratory leaders were a mixture of stage one and stage two scientists in their respective fields, and they managed to impart their ideas and enthusiasm to the third-stage scientists who worked for them. More importantly, these leaders functioned as a tight-knit team. They knew how to communicate and collaborate with each other and they respected each other’s ideas. If you have experienced the opposite--leaders who fight and compete among themselves and do not know how to collaborate--you will appreciate how necessary leader teamwork is to create a dynamic work environment where people feel like they are a part of something important, where they feel valued, and where they want to come to work. It is perhaps the best argument against having business administrators take over all aspects of research science. They have null understanding for the necessity of this type of dynamic work environment. They are only concerned with the fiscal bottom-line, which ultimately leads to workplace boredom and lethargy.

The laboratory in San Francisco was run by a man who was rumored to be a difficult personality when he was younger. I’m guessing that these rumors were spread by small-minded people who did not have his vision or his energy. In any case, he paid little attention to them and reached the top without them. He is still an innovator. He collaborated well with other innovators, both American and European, and his lab was truly an international lab, as was the New York lab I worked in. At the time I worked in New York, we had scientists from Poland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Germany working there as well. It felt like we were part of the ‘larger picture’, that what we did had meaning outside of our lab, and that we were contributing to making the world a better place. I believe these are necessary feelings if one is to do a good job.

Shneider states that all four stages of scientific discipline are valuable and that what characterizes each stage is a particular type of talent. The challenge therefore for each scientist becomes identifying your particular talent and finding your niche. The original article by Shneider upon which Urban based her article is worth reading. It is entitled ‘Four stages of a scientific discipline; four types of scientist’ and was published in the journal Trends in Biochemical Sciences, volume 34, issue 5, in 2009. It is probably best to contact the author directly by email in order to obtain a reprint: ashneider@curelab.com.

A Fairytale for Modern Times

Once upon a time there was a King, and he had a castle and a large kingdom to lord over. He enjoyed his power but was always looking for ways to increase it. The people working for him did the best jobs they could, whether they were soldiers, blacksmiths, farmers, merchants, medics or clerics. They did their work and were proud of their small contributions to keeping the kingdom and the castle running. The King’s court also had a court jester, a shrewd man who enjoyed his accessibility to the King and the fact that the King liked to be entertained. The King had his advisors who tried to be honest and forthright with the King, but he enjoyed the advice and the sycophancy that the court jester gave him, and rewarded him heartily with riches and advantages that the other workers in the kingdom did not enjoy. But the workers did not complain because the King was not unkind to them. However, the King’s advisors saw that it was best to become like the court jester and soon enough the King was surrounded with many sycophants.

There were several other smaller, well-functioning kingdoms in the surrounding area, and the court jester, knowing the King’s appetite for power, decided to encourage him to try to take power over these smaller kingdoms as well. The advisors agreed. These kingdoms also had their respective kings, but none of these kings were as powerful as the King. They were second-level kings. The court jester and advisors suggested to the King that he take over the other kingdoms not by attacking them but by forming alliances with them where all of them would discuss who would have the power positions after the King had become the lead King over the new and bigger alliance of the different dominions. He would be the lead King because he had the most wealth and the biggest army. The tricky part would be how to convince the other dominions to ally themselves with the King. The court jester suggested that the King emphasize that bigger was better and that there was strength and protection in numbers and that the second-level kings could decide who among them would have the most power as long as the lead King retained his privileges and his wealth. The advisors all nodded their heads in agreement and congratulated the jester and themselves on hatching a brilliant plan. Amazingly enough, the King managed to persuade the other dominions of the advantages of allying themselves with him, and they set about redesigning the new and improved dominion. The workers in each of these dominions wondered a bit about what would happen to them but were told to go about their business and not to worry about the future. So they did just that.

The redesign of the new and improved dominion proceeded over several years. The workers would get periodic updates on how wonderful it all would be when it was finished. The advisors decided that it wasn’t necessary to have duplicate jobs in all the different dominions, so some of the blacksmiths were informed that their services were no longer needed. The same went for farmers and soldiers and merchants and medics and clerics. The displaced workers had nowhere to turn, so many of them became advisors to the advisors and in this way the number of advisors increased to dramatic levels in the space of a few years. But there were fewer soldiers to defend the realm, fewer blacksmiths to shoe the horses, fewer farmers to produce the crops, fewer merchants to sell the goods, and fewer medics and clerics to tend to the sick and dying. The remaining workers began to wonder what would happen to them. They were still told not to worry, but the reassuring messages became fewer and eventually ceased. Productivity and worker morale began to decrease and the King began to worry but the advisors reassured him that everything would be fine if they just continued on the same course. After a few years there were mostly only advisors in the new and improved kingdom and they began to fight for power among themselves over the few remaining blacksmiths, farmers, merchants, clerics and medics. In the meantime the King was warned by a shaman to prepare for an invasion but the King was too preoccupied with his worries to really pay attention. The day the invasion came, the new and improved realm was unprepared, the moat bridges in the respective castles stayed down because no one knew how to raise them anymore, there were no soldiers at their posts because there were no more soldiers or shoed horses to ride out into battle with, there were no medics to help the injured and the dying, and little food to sustain the survivors. The many advisors surrounded the King and begged for his help but the King could not help them, and the advisors could not defend themselves and were slaughtered in great numbers. And so the life of the new and improved realm crashed and burned and it was as though it had never existed.

Bye Bye Work Ethic

I’m always trying to make sense of my incredibly passive-aggressive workplace, a national hospital (which is a recent huge conglomerate of four Oslo hospitals) that has continually stated for the past several years that it wants to be the primo research hospital, but somehow never quite manages to get to that exalted position because it can never settle on one good philosophy for getting there. Trying to decipher the philosophies behind the decisions made over the past few years has preoccupied me for quite some time. The current philosophy is that in addition to being scientists, we should be accountants, bookkeepers, secretaries, technicians, group leaders, lecturers, teachers, inventors, patent holders and administrative geniuses. This should all be accomplished during the work day which consists of reading and answering a lot of useless emails describing the latest change or new regulation. Ok, before I hear the collective moan from my American friends who tell me how awful the job situation is in America right now, and I know it is, let me just say that the USA may be going through an economic crisis, but the ‘land of the oil money’ is also going through some kind of economic crisis as well. They are also going through a true existential crisis. I really don’t think the politicians know what they want anymore. And it really is no better here in social-democratic Norway than in the good ol’ USA, despite the NY Times articles that are always presenting Norway as such a wonderful country—the land of milk and honey. The milk and honey wells are drying up. There is major downsizing afoot here in the public sector, New Public Management (NPM) is taking over (even though there is ample data showing that this business philosophy does not work), and the emphasis is on efficiency, productivity and on marketing your work and yourself as a product. It’s all about the patents, baby—the more the better. It’s about competition and flying high over the radar. NPM is supposed to increase efficiency but as far as I can see the only thing that has increased is the number of bureaucrats needed to direct the few remaining workers who truly want to work, who still have their work ethic.

A good example of the new complexity associated with NPM is the division of leadership into administrative and professional leadership. A worker now reports to an administrative leader and a professional leader (in essence your real boss because this is the person who has the professional competence to function as a mentor for you). If one is lucky there are just two leaders to report to these days. Some workers now have four administrative bosses (who again all report up-over in the system to each other) whereas one year ago it was sufficient with one leader who tackled the administrative and professional tasks. The logistical problems associated with this are huge and the practical consequences are just confusing. Here’s a good example—a researcher talks to one administrative leader about his or her future and is advised to proceed in one way, however the other administrative leaders each have their takes on the situation and have not talked to the others, so the result is a huge mess. You can get told that you should not seek a research group leader position by one leader, whereas the other one comes into your office asking you if you want to be a group leader. And yet another one is advising you to build up your group this month but half a year ago the same person was telling you to wait a few years to do so and to rather focus on collaboration and teamwork with your current group leader. Is this crazy-making behavior? Yes, it is. Are these leaders aware of their inconsistent behaviors? I don’t think that they are. That’s the tragedy.

Thus, the goals are always moving targets. A few years ago, it was easier to take aim and to hit the target than it is now. My question now is more along the lines of—what are the goals really? At least a few years ago it seemed as though the goals were still to work hard and to produce good research work. Now I don’t know anymore.

I think reality TV thinking has invaded the mindsets of the public sector. Everyone is expected to be a star and to perform on cue. The problem of course is that this way of thinking IS the problem. There can only be a few stars, and the rest of us simply have to make do with the meager talents we have. Unfortunately, the biggest proponents of NPM are researchers who were never very good at research but who got promoted to cushy administrative positions, learning economy and management along the way in their endless leadership courses, and directing the productive researchers on how research should be done, all the while cutting the number of research positions available. The problem is one of envy if you ask me—the non-productive researchers who are now the administrators are envious of the researchers who actually DO the job they were hired to do—research, guiding students, writing articles, and publishing. I have a small problem believing that you can be a research hospital without doing research. What’s next—research outsourcing? That’s going to cost the country a pretty penny.

Jimmy Carter once used the word malaise to describe the feeling in America at the time he was president, if I remember correctly. That is what is happening to many researchers I know here—they are experiencing a malaise that is leading to a lethargy that will eventually be impossible to reverse. The desire to work hard and to do your best is disintegrating at a rapid rate. I understand why.

May is not a merry month in academia

The merry month of May? Not if you work in academia and have to write research grants in order to run your laboratory. I don’t know what it’s like to write grants in America these days--it’s been over twenty years since I worked at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and watched my bosses scramble to get their grants finished before the deadline. I hear from some of my American friends and colleagues that the situation has become more difficult there. I DO know what it is like to write research grants in Norway; it has definitely become more difficult here. I have been writing them for the past ten years and sending them out to the Norwegian Cancer Society, the Norwegian Research Council and the Health Organization South-East each year. It’s no fun. It’s not just that it’s hard work; it’s often pointless work, because the grants either don’t get funded or they receive just enough of a good score so that you get some money to buy consumables to run your lab frugally for one year. But you don’t get support for students and without students you cannot build a research group. It’s a catch-22 situation—without students you cannot build a research group, and without a well-funded research group you cannot attract students because the students end up being recruited by the larger research groups which have the money to support the students.

The granting system here has changed dramatically since the 1990s, in part due to the major mergers between several hospitals that resulted in a huge increase in the amount of administrative personnel needed to run these conglomerates. That is the major trend these days here in the “country of oil money”—make all organizations bigger, increase the number of administrators, decrease the number of scientists who get funding, get rid of all technical positions, focus on Centers of Excellence, discourage private research donations, and look to the federal government for all forms of support. The focus is on supporting only the best scientists, which is not a bad philosophy generally. The only problem with it is that there are not many other options for those scientists who don’t quite make the grade. Norway is fast becoming a nation of scientific ‘advisors’ and ‘senior advisors’. In other words, if you cannot do research, you can advise the government on how research should be done. You can design research policies. You can strategize and attend meetings about strategizing. It all looks great on paper. Or if you don’t want to be an advisor, you can work for drug companies doing sales and marketing, because most of the drug companies do not invest in R&D, in other words, there are no research facilities on-site and thus no positions for bench scientists.

Why is this approach now a problem? Because Norway is turning out PhD students at a tremendous rate. There are very few academic and/or research jobs for all these highly-educated students. But that doesn’t seem to bother the politicians or even the university leaders, who are simply interested in pushing through a lot of students because that translates into more money for the university.

So back to the merry month of May. Not. May is always a reminder of how academic life is a crap shoot. You can write your grant, submit it and hope for the best. Nine times out of ten your grant won’t be funded. So next year you write another one and get the same response. Some people would call that banging your head against a wall. I have to say that after nearly ten years of writing grants to fund myself and to pay for some few laboratory consumables, I now agree.