One of the great websites out there is JibJab. Their animation is hysterical.  The have a video of Lewis Black from the 2006 show on Comedy Central recently.  This guy is great.

Making the transition from grad school to industry is a big deal.  Most people dive into the embracing bosom of a large company. A few choose the riskier startups. 

Large organizations have something called infrastructure.  This is truly a fabulous concept. The hireling lands on an organizational sleep number mattress where all of the necessary bureaucratic mechanisms are in place. Job descriptions are etched in the finest Italian marble and loving administrative assistants sing their sweet, tender songs of service to you like the Sirens on the rocks of Scylla. Your company credit card arrives in the mail one day and you sit there imagining the possibilities.

And lo! For the first few years life is grand. You become accustomed to the benefits package and the commute. Your responsibilities become clear. You forge alliances and carefully note the treacherous characters. Your spouse finds work and you sign a mortgage. Your lunchtime conversations are discussions of local school districts and churches and mill levees. Older relatives will begin to die of old age and you’ll be attending funerals.

Then the economy stalls or your companies blockbuster drug is found to have unexpected mortalities. Management announces that there is a hiring freeze and restraints are placed on spending.  Then one friday morning it is announced that there will be downsizing.  They’ll say that they hope to accomplish it with early retirements and attrition.  A few months pass and then they’ll announce a restructuring or continued downsizing. You find yourself looking at the ads in C&EN with increased interest.

But it could just as easily go the other way. Your team could produce a new class of compounds that turn the business on its head.  You could find yourself on a horse giving you the ride of your life. Your group could find itself keeping teams of patent lawyers busy writing Markush claims covering thousands of molecular permutations.

On this ride, you could be involved in scaleup with engineers asking questions about space yields, calorimetry, side products, and all manner of process improvements.

There is a great deal of luck involved in any successful project. I know people who have participated in or lead actual paradigm shifts in chemical technology. I can’t mention their names. Believe me, they are very talented people. But they are talented participants in a field of talented people.  Their personal successful outcome also had a large dollop of luck in the making. They were at the right company in the right time interval.

At conferences they’ll strut around like roosters, and that is OK. They genuinely deserve their time in the spotlight. But they know, like you do, that you’re only as good as your last accomplishment.  In the end, few of us have much control of anything.  Whether you reach the highest achievement or you plod on in anonymity, your fate is largely woven into the web of commerce.

I had the bad judgement to visit the Texas Book Depository in Dallas a day after Christmas last year. What an incredible downer. Anyway, after paying the fee to go into what is now a museum, we made our way to the famous corner on the sixth floor by the window, behind stacks of boxes, and had a look down range to see the line of fire enjoyed by Oswald.  After a lifetime of watching programs on the JFK shooting and listening to endless drivel about it, there it was. It was evident to me that the distance from the window to the presidential limo, while not so short, isn’t really so long either. I would believe that a circle the size of a torso at that range could contain 90 % 0f the shots fired at the center of the circle. Randomness is a funny thing.  Oswald might have just been lucky that day. 

There are some pretty sick kids working over at News Corp.  They’re the ones behind the O.J. Simpson freakshow that will air on Fox over the thanksgiving holiday, Nov. 26 & 27.  There is supposedly a book as well. 

I refuse to waste many more heartbeats thinking about it so I’ll be  brief.  At some point, a genius at Rupert Murdoch’s shop decided it would be a good idea to get OJ Simpson to, in lieu of a confession, fabricate some morbid story describing how he would have (hypothetically) committed the infamous double homicide. 

There is almost nothing new to say about OJ Simpson so we’ll leave that alone.  The really twisted part is that somebody at Fox committed resources to put together this “show” to air over the holiday.  OJ’s sickness speaks for itself. And so does the pathological state that exists in the “newsroom” at Fox.  Some cynical producer imagined that among their viewers there is enough prurient, gawking, morbid interest in this that the market share in viewers would bring a handsome profit to them.

Fox will make some lame-ass statement that the pubic demands this crap and that they are just giving us what they want.  Fox and News Corp have just shown us who they really are and what they think of us. 

I’m used to being an oddball.  Well, perhaps I should rephrase that.  I’m accustomed to marching to a different drummer. I can actually hear the cosmic ratta-tat-tat snare drum beat over the cacophany of familiar voices in my head.  All of the history and justifications for this assertion will have to wait for another time.  Just assume for now that I am odd.

I love books and when an opportunity to write one came I took the bait.  A smooth editor plied her magic ways in recruiting me and I  agreed to consider the process.  Oh, this wasn’t to be some work of haute literature.  No, no, tsk. This was to be a chemistry book.  One of those “Advances in _____ Chemistry” type volumes.  It is with a respected publisher that the reader would recognize instantly.  I would serve as editor and write a few chapters.  My head was spinning with the thought of occupying library shelves along with the many familiar names of our science.  Heady thoughts. But to do this, I would need access to the literature.

So, at the recent ACS meeting in San Francisco, I happened by the CAS pavilion where I made an innocent query.  A question that would eventually bring down the whole house of cards.  You see, CAS- Chemicals Abstracts Service- is a type of business. They are in the business of abstracting every single chemically-related publication in the known universe.  Periodicals, patents, poster abstracts, toilet graffitti, symposium series, etc.  To do this requires an army of fastidious people with typing skills.  These people expect compensation commensurate with their skills, and so it costs real money to provide this service. 

So, the universe of customers for the services of CAS is broken into two domains- penurious Academia and fabulous Industry.  Academia, it turns out, pays approximately nothing. Industry pays through the nasal passages.  Now (camera zooms in on me) I’m standing there on the padded carpet in business casual attire with my badge screaming out my affiliation (INDUSTRY!!!).   A representative of CAS dutifully approaches me and politely asks “may I help you”?  By now I’m in full schmooze configuration and I explain my need to purchase SciFinder services for a book project. I explain that this project is my own and my employer has no obligation to fund it.

It was as though I had spoken in some archaic Portuguese dialect.  The CAS person listened to me respectfully and with patience. I can expect no more. I could tell that this story I put forth was considered unconventional or … odd.  But it was quickly determined that I was in the industrial bin and hitherto subjected to the full broadband blast of industrial charges.  I was DOA.

Point of clarification. If you have been on booth duty at a trade show, you know that the first thing you do with a contact is to qualify them.  If they have no potential for decent sales, you politely eject this spent round and load another cartridge.

The representative was done with me. In desparation, I pointed out the grim economics of writing a book.  I would make about $4500 over 5 years and the literature search could easily cost that much at industry prices.  But the door was shut. I was industrial and that was that (crickets in background).

So there I was. Standing there, rudder disabled by an errant torpedo.  Dreams slipping under the cold greasy waves of the north sea.  I needed the economics of academic SciFinder prices and it wasn’t to be.  Crap-a-matic.

The question I have is this.  How does a non-academic write a book summarizing the literature? I guess I have to forget SciFinder and camp out at the nearest unversity library. Interesting problem.

On occasion I am overcome with episodes of extreme clarity. It can happen anywhere- driving to work or standing in the 104 degree Fahrenheit shower water.  One such episode has recently come and gone. The realization was that for as much as I dearly love my chosen field of chemistry for the employment and multitude of Aha! moments it has given me, I am faced with the stark reality: Some of the most profound and pernicious a**h***s I have ever known have been fellow chemists. Shocking, isn’t it?

For the love of God, man, can it be true? Is this too dark of a subject to blog about? Can we talk about this? Maybe it is a dirty little professional secret that should be kept under wraps.  Maybe I am some sort of chaotic attractor that funnels these people into my local space?  Seems unlikely.  It’s probably just a proximity effect.  If I took up grocery bagging, the same realization would probably happen. 

How did people deal with a**h***s like this 40,000 years ago? If the troublesome Neanderthal who lived a few klicks up Olduvai Creek got out of control, we’d settle it the caveman way. With a club or that newfangled imported Folsom point. Today we are expected to use our words.  Well, here are some words- Damn and blast!

Some lab jerks are petulant turds who, if it weren’t for a wealthy grandmother, might be managing a Denny’s on the interstate. Others are true alpha males- tall, articulate, athletic, and sycophantic. These characters are especially loathesome.  It has been my experience that many sycophants have no immunity to the enchantments of other sycophants. Some cluster and form cells. Others collect clients or something like courtiers– grinning, pasty-faced trolls who lock onto the teat.  It is most distasteful.

(*End of Scorn Routine*)