``One of the (many) reasons I stay technical, resisting all nudges from bosses and encouraging co-workers to become managerial, is that I have the opportunity to apply knowledge to problems, a basic human need I think...'' .d.
Yeah well, try to keep it that way for as long as possible. Two guys I know in science were both put under this kind of pressure. One guy in bio-science (works for a drug company) finally gave in and became a product development manager and hates it. He tells himself the increased money late in his career is probably worth it. He also thinks that if he didn't moved up, he would have been moved on out at some point.
The other guy is in astronomy and works at the Cal Tech radio array in Owens Valley so maybe your JPL buddy and Dave W have run into each other at some point. It is academic science research, but very similar pressures go on there too. He was pushed to become one of the managers for one of their grants.
I've known Dave for a long time, since his grad school days. He was from a working class background, and is definitely hands on. His thesis project was working on the super cooled chips use for picking up the cosmic micro-wave background radiation (CMB). I used to go visit him in his group lab. The place was a mess. Junk everywhere. Very expensive high tech junk, but junk. It was mad-physicist, scifi dream come true. He would come over to the shop where I worked that also a mess, but very low tech mess.
``...Yeah, I know people, his work doesn't add value in a strictly material sense and I think at least a few folks on the list would interpret it as being a 'distraction' from pressing problems and a waste of resources...''
Didn't hear it from me. But I've certainly heard plenty of this kind of talk before.
I've always had mixed feelings about the idea that pressing social problems demand all available attention and resources. Part of the trouble is the argument itself has that anal neoliberal ring to it. Given limited resources do we do X or Y? Fuck that. Go back to the `given limited resources' part. What limited resources? You mean given that Capital hogs all resources and attention, and we the People only have access to a few crumbs, so we have to be extra special careful how we spend our time and money? Since when did all the needs of society have to serve the capitalist economy, and not the other way around---make the economy serve the people. Look at how Capital `invests' our valuable trillions, our time and money...shit like Enron, a supercharged money incinerator if there ever was one.
I have some history with this `given limited funds' business. Back in the day when I was working in a social service context under an OE grant, we used to have these sorts of debates about allocating funds for this and that group of disabled students. There was always an argument that one group had some special reason for more money and attention than another. This got to be a joke we used to call the `given limited resources let's steal from the blind' argument.
I once made the serious mistake of yelling at a vocational rehabilitation counselor who was playing one of those `concerned' games of questioning whether or not an older black disabled student in his late fifties who wanted to go to a city college was `worth the investment'. More of this limited resources crap.
Anyway, the counselor and I were going around and around about it and she was picking away at each decent reason I gave for their limited support with books and fees. I finally I got disgusted with her mincing around and said, `Oh, who cares? You've got the money. Just write the damned check!' That was the end of Tim's future with voc rehab support.
I decided well fuck voc rehab. So I picked Tim up the next the morning and we went over to register at Contra Costa Community College. I figured I would get the UCB project to pay for the books and fees somehow---none of which was technically allowed. I wasn't even supposed to be `recruiting' students first of all, and second I wasn't supposed to be using UCB time and equipment (the van) on potential students in North Richmond, and so on and so forth. Registration day at CCCC in the auditorium had a OE Special Services table (similar to our project at UCB), so we went over to them. I introduced Tim and explained no money for books and fees and told them about my encounter with Voc Rehab. The guy manning the table laughed. He said, no problem we can cover all that. They got Tim registered, helped him enroll in a couple of easy and interesting classes, etc, etc. I stayed around a little to make sure they didn't load him up with a bunch of killer courses. They didn't. So, I disappeared out to the van and let Tim carry on. Later, in parking lot, we met up again and there is no describing how thrilled Tim was to finally to get into school after almost forty years. He was in the world again.
Give me a purchase order and I'll show you the hopeful view...
I suspect it was that kind of attitude that kept me safely away from administration and management promotion pressures.
I think the moral is, if you want to stay out of management, just start spending money...
CG