sci.research.careers

On Fri, 5 Oct 2007, Beladi Nasralla wrote:

> My working time is now spread between several projects (each headed by
> a different project manager from different departments). Recently I
> was made a technical leader of a subproject in one of the projects.
> Surprisingly, the project manager (who appointed me a technical leader
> into his project) was from another department. The management of my
> current department (where I got the permanent position not long ago)
> still keeps me largely unengaged into any of their projects. In fact,
> my departmental head shared his vision of "making me grow" by putting
> through several technical roles of no responsibility. He also shared
> his vision (at the departmental meeting) in the name of efficiency to
> put me into a worst cubicle in the area where the low-level
> technicians reside (at the moment, I am occupying arguably one of the
> best cubicles in the building, which is the same place I was occupying
> when I was a "postdoc" in here).

When I became Research Professor at UMAB, all I got was a desk in the
cornier of the lab. When I transfered to another department, what I got
was to keep the desk in the corner of the lab of the previous department.
It was over one year later that I actually got a real office for myself
and it was very small and it had other problems, too.

> Meanwhile, the manager of the other department came into my office and
> invited me to participate in his project. This project is "core" for
> them and they have to deliver urgently. I believe they invited me only
> because I did this work during my "postdoc", and they have nobody in
> their team who has practical experience with this topic. Still, my
> colleague (younger than me) was charged formally with the leadership
> of the project, and my role is just to provide the information (I know
> what works and what does not work, in this experiment). The manager is
> carefully trying to avoid to define what is my exact role and what is
> my responsibility within the project. I guess they will use me and
> then throw me away :-(

You are the "flexible" temporary permanent staff.

> Anyway, I was at the meeting of the technical leaders of
> earliermentioned research program. I saw what I perceived as an Enron-
> like accounting made by our management. They have many projects to do
> (and lots of commercial funding), but not enough of permanent staff to
> do those jobs. So, I perceived that they introduced "creative
> accounting".

..only it is designed not to produce excess money on paper and where the
money so created really does not exist, but to produce data and output
that looks like it took a lot of people to produce, but actually took very
few people to produce.

> All this makes me think that I am probably growing along the managment
> and responsibility line, but this professional growth is (a) anaemic,
> (b) misdirected and (c) unsustainable.

Just wait a few more years. It will get worse, not better. But, look in
your paycheck for recognition.

>