In the fabulous world of industry there are many, many job descriptions held by many, many people. The practical consequence of this is that there are a great number of channels in which the river of your career can flow. Opportunities come and go like eddies in the stream. We advance and sometimes retreat. Our enthusiasms can reach flood stage or can reduce to a trickle in draught. Our intentions can be muddy or clear.
In the end, though, all rivers run into the sea. Careers can flow narrow and fast or broad and slow. But the unique social status and circle we enjoy in this stream of time is eventually lost into the brackish waters of retirement.
For academicians and industrialists alike, a PhD buys a seat as a lower level dignitary- a prince. For the academic prince, with hard work and luck, one rises through rank and tenure to become a lord or cardinal living the courtly life of intellectual privilege under the glow of eternal admiration. A prince of academe has but to walk into a classroom to gather the attention and fear of post-pubescent underlings. Through midterms, they hang on your every word. You are golden, and every year brings a new crop of young admirers.
In industry, the fierce hydraulic pressure of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately constantly tips the crown from your head. An industrial prince or princess can be expected to labor in a more diverse variety of capacities. Negotiating raw material prices, feasting with customers, or building a corporate trebuchet. Ominously, an industrial prince may find him/herself in oversight of activities that might one day be filmed by helicopters from a safe distance up wind.
An industrial prince can find himself suddenly in full battle dress swinging an axe from a wounded horse. The Viking warlords of mergers and aquisitions will storm the palace with their corporate siege engines and announce a restructuring of the kingdom. Programs throughout the principality will be halted. Serfs will lay down their scythes in the field and let the barley rot where it stands. Lesser princes will be sacrificed to Odin and upper middle-age cardinals will be sent to the moors in the north to live in sanctuary with the Brothers of Eternal Consternation.
What remains will be a thinner core of chastened cubicle-courtiers huddling behind the organizational battlements. Survivors of the siege. One day the new archbishops and cardinals will arrive in their red silk vestments during the antiphon, bearing their strange implements and unfamiliar liturgy. Thus begins a new age.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
“What remains will be a thinner core of chastened cubicle-courtiers huddling behind the organizational battlements”
I think you wanted to grow up to be an English poet of days of old. I hear something trying to get out.
But, back in the pits with the rest of the unenlightened chemical trolls I noticed the following article. Crude, but effective.
http://tinyurl.com/5v553c
Thanks for the link. I read the article in the latest C&EN. No doubt somebody is trying at this very moment to weaponize it for use in space or against terrorists.
Hey Gaussling:
While I can never dispute your sound wisdom, I will reveal that those of us in catalyst development and catalyst expertise knew that being the only ones with the slightest clue of how those magical molecules worked their charm to make those dollars, we were secure. Take away merlin and the magic would not work anymore – at least in polyolefins. And we were needed – to go to Houston to find out ” why isn’t the process working” – a question that did require a very special knowledge.
Golly Mr. Bill, I think you know that I agree about there being some security as a keeper of the secrets. Catalyst technology is like the carotid artery- it is buried deep and supplies energy to the brain. Gotta protect that. I think you also know that I have lots to say about this area, but sadly, I cannot.
Dear Dr. Gaussling,
I am writing to you with heart-felt greetings and exothermic regards regarding the recent customer-focused-market-driven event that brought you near our happy family here at Green-Tetra-Nitro-Chemco, Inc.
As I get to know more of your former team, I am amazed daily by the similarity, or should I say “the analog” and the potential for bonding of our corporate cultures. Like you, we strive to provide the best possible tetra-win outcome for our top-management, our shareholders, the local HAZMAT team and of course, for our customers.
Should you feel that you have any question, no matter how unimportant it really is, please know that my door is always open.
Severindoud Lordou
Managing Director
M&A New Employee Restructuring Group
Green-Tetra-Nitro-Chemco, Inc.
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“A prince of academe has but to walk into a classroom to gather the attention and fear of post-pubescent underlings. Through midterms, they hang on your every word. You are golden, and every year brings a new crop of young admirers.”
alas, were it but so…