I know it is hard to fathom, but as an undergrad the Gaussling wasn’t automatically the favorite of all the faculty in the chemistry department.  I had been independent for 4 years prior to my matriculation into the fabulous world of chemistry. With independence comes a strong dash of unruliness, an attribute that irritates those around me to this day. 

One faculty member who was especially irritated by a precocious bugger like me was a particular analytical professor.  He was and is to this day a bit of a fuss budget. But, he was and is a pretty smart guy too. One day in an unusually tedious analytical lab he was expounding on what an analyst could expect to be doing out in the world. As a part of an attempt to clue us in to the “real world”, he pointed out that one day in the not-so-distant future we would be writing procedures for others to follow.  His prophetic allusion to job descriptions struck me as an interesting comment.

Increasingly, I find myself synthesizing work structure and writing lab procedures for others to follow, just as this analyst had predicted. 

Which brings up another point.  One road rage trigger out in career space is the nimrod manager who himself cannot synthesize ideas or plans, but somehow has been blessed with veto power over those who do.  Sometimes the only realistic solution is to leave the company. 

It is possible to be so compliant in the corporate world that you labor against you own best interests.  On the windward side we have HR ever turning the screws by more tightly narrowing job descriptions, freezing out degrees of freedom. Eventually they have the option of discontinuing narrow positions by eliminating specialists.    

If you have ever taken a personality test battery as part of career advancement, you’ll see what psychologists have been up to since they collectively got bored with rat mazes and Skinner boxes and discovered marketing.  In many corporations certain profiles are culled and steered up the ladder. There is logic to this, obviously, but I retain a conceit that merit is demonstrated by deeds.  Organizations who apply scientific Human Resource management now presume to remove growth opportunity with psychological instruments that are sold to them by sales people. I have been told by straight-faced practitioners that they themselves do not understand the test theory or methodologies, much less profess a clue as to the statistical limitations.

Unfortunately, my dear old professor didn’t warn us about this aspect of career space.