The Best Way to Not Get Tenure • Hacker News Board

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#181

Post by oldmanjay » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #125

sametmax wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know it seems obvious to you but I spend the last 10 years on the job knowing absolutely nothing about this. I'm a programmer and I have good social skills. As a trainer, talking in public comes naturally, as a team leader, I'm also quite good in conducting meetings and driving the team efforts. But I have ZERO political skills, and I couldn't understand why. Reading your comment is like finally getting the missi…

Agreed. Being political is a ton of work. I find doing what OP suggests, which amounts to silently taking responsibility for other people's feelings instead of openly communicating about them, to be taxing as hell. Putting on an emotional mask usually is. Being "political" in this sense is a codependent behavior. Instead of operating out of fear of others' reactions, I prefer to give people the space they need to fee…

Or do what I do, express yourself like a human instead of a business machine, leave, go do the rejected right thing for a competitor, and send the product brochure to the people who cared more about their feelings than the work.

You have to be willing to do a lot of walking away, but the inevitable "you were right" has been satisfying so far.

Or I guess another way to say it is if you can, do, and if you can't, by all means, coddle. Just hope I don't end up across the table from you.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#182

Post by adrianratnapala » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

simonster wrote: post #134

kevhito wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are right, I was perhaps too harsh. But it takes some modesty and humility to pause and consider why the system ended up the way it has, and why the elder's are resistant to change. The author shows no sign of modesty or humility, so it isn't at all clear to me that the elders were snitty or tutting and hissing. In fact, it sounds like there were other issues the author was deliberately ignoring. Finite resou…

As a student who has participated in some decisions regarding changing courses at my institution, I think classes here are usually bad because no one really cares. It requires tact to say "this course is garbage and you don't care about it anyway; let me handle it" without bruising egos. But I think it's bullshit to say that not bruising egos is an important skill, especially in science. The kinds of scientists whose…

Actualy I see the big egos as a benefit. They just say "No, you are wrong, thanks for our input." And they really mean both sentences.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#183

Post by rdtsc » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

dronemallone wrote: post #95

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with that. He set out to improve things, which is a good goal. Improving means criticizing the status quo at some level. In case of academia, with tenured people lingering there for life, status quo is probably the result of their work (for better or for worse). Wanting to "improve" that was probably perceived as an insult something like "what you did before sucks, I'll make it better". Unless he was dealing wi…

multiple NSF grants and multiple papers in top conferences - his research IS good, innovative and interesting. Also, a majority of the external letter writers had positive things to say.

Makes sense. So it does seem like backstabbing or personal issues got in the way.

It is good this blog post got written. Can't imagine it would reflect well on the department overall in the future.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#184

Post by WhitneyLand » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

I don't know why he has significant supporters here, saying things like "stay true to principles".

Principles don't require a person to project bitterness and cynicism. He's indulging his frustrations which may feel satisfying, but does not strengthen his argument.

Many organizations would pass him over based on this post alone because they would worry he may be difficult to manage or not a team player.

It's true many people don't have political skills but there are workarounds. For example, always get a second opinion before posting something like this.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#185

Post by apathy » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #104

seibelj wrote: post #54

I work in industry, but the key to getting stuff done in a hierarchical organization is tact . I think he is a poor politician, and is clearly very unhappy about being denied tenure. I think putting out feelers and going about a new job more quietly would be more effective. Hypothetically, let's say you (the person reading this comment) want to make a big change in your organization. You identified a problem, and hon…

You know it seems obvious to you but I spend the last 10 years on the job knowing absolutely nothing about this. I'm a programmer and I have good social skills. As a trainer, talking in public comes naturally, as a team leader, I'm also quite good in conducting meetings and driving the team efforts. But I have ZERO political skills, and I couldn't understand why. Reading your comment is like finally getting the missi…

The highest-marginal-return skill to practice, in my experience, is to figure out where the mutual benefit in any arrangement is, and PRESENT THAT FIRST to each party involved. If it seems like things magically improve whenever you show up, most of the other issues go away.

Also, ensure that whatever you do makes your "superiors" look better, but make goddamned sure that it reflects their cleverness in choosing YOU for the job. If you're in academia and you write 99% of a grant that gets funded, put it on your CV. If you write a contract or a proposal that makes the company $5m, put it on your resume. Don't ever expect anyone to give you credit -- take it, and then thank whoever would logically be obligated to give it for their gracious acknowledgement. People seldom do what they know to be right -- they do what is convenient, then repent. So make it convenient for people to do the right thing for you.

Make it easy for people to appreciate your value and hard to fault your shortcomings. It goes a long, long way. If you can't do that, maybe look for a position where it will be easier for you to execute this task.

Good luck! You will be a happier person if you do this.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#186

Post by d23 » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #54

I work in industry, but the key to getting stuff done in a hierarchical organization is tact . I think he is a poor politician, and is clearly very unhappy about being denied tenure. I think putting out feelers and going about a new job more quietly would be more effective. Hypothetically, let's say you (the person reading this comment) want to make a big change in your organization. You identified a problem, and hon…

That's very good insight. Do you know of any good books or resources on this topic?

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#187

Post by Thriptic » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

adrianratnapala wrote: post #180

Thriptic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full disclosure: I'm coming up for tenure myself, and one lesson it has taken me 5 years to understand is that people who disagree with me on campus aren't doing so out of spite, stupidity, or carelessness, they often just have different priorities than I do In my experience, one problem is that the priorities are frequently rooted in the self-interest of powerful PIs or staff and are to the detriment of the depart…

I'm sorry but I suspect your deeply, deeply wrong and your work will damage your university. Everything you talk about is about centralising knowledge and control. In practice, this never helps in the business of getting experiments done. Students and postdocs just pend some time doing pointless training courses, overheads increase, lead-times for ordering equiment increase. And to what purpose?

> Everything you talk about is about centralising knowledge and control. In practice, this never helps in the business of getting experiments done

We have researchers that literally cannot get work done efficiently because they don't know that core labs exist on campus to serve them, and labs that spend tens of thousands to buy instruments that they seldom use for the same reasons. At a department level (let alone an institute level), we have no idea what instruments or services people need, and no usage statistics for instruments that we already have. This means that it is likely that shared facilities are sub-optimally serving the community as a whole, and labs are buying multiple copies of the same pieces of equipment when one unit could do if it were shared. The lack of central indexing also means that most labs have no idea what other labs are working on, which hinders collaboration.

For training, right now EACH core lab forces researchers to do similar training courses for the same instruments; there is no way to prove you know how to use an instrument without taking each course. Similarly, every core lab employs different billing software which financial admins / lab admins have to sign up for and deal with.

How is this at all productive or efficient for anyone? If you were to suggest a similar setup for interacting business units, you would literally be laughed out of the room at a company.

The reason people like this current system is precisely because it's inefficient and confusing. This makes it difficult to regulate at a high level and makes it ripe for abuse by powerful people.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#188

Post by nostrademons » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 6:32 PM UTC

adrianratnapala wrote: post #170

gaius wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also how Corbyn has an iron grip on the Labour Party without the support of most Labour MPs.

Indeed it looks like the Labour rank and file is intentionally doing to its own Party what Labour did to the Liberals a century ago. Historians please weigh in: Is there any evidence that the Whigs also volunteered in their own destruction?

It did. The situation in the 1850s was actually very similar (party-wise) to now. The Whigs fell apart over slavery; the Northern anti-slavery wing blocked the nomination of incumbent Millard Fillmore. Northern Whigs rallied to the newly-created Republican party (with an anti-slavery platform), while what was left of the Southern Whigs formed the Know-Nothing party (with an anti-immigration platform). The Know-Nothings ran Millard Fillmore again as their candidate in 1856, then joined with Southern Democrats who were against secession to form the Constitutional Union party in 1860.

The Democrats themselves fell apart in 1860, splitting into Northern and Southern Democrats (running Douglas and Breckinridge, respectively). The split in the Democratic vote meant that Douglas (who was the second-highest popular vote getter) got the electoral votes of only one state, Missouri. This in turn meant that Abraham Lincoln, who wasn't even on the ballot in most Southern states, was able to carry the election, despite a popular vote count < 40% and net favorability ratings that were probably lower than Trump. This led directly to the Civil War.

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#189

Post by wolfgke » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 7:07 PM UTC

RobertoG wrote: post #150

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Being political is a ton of work. I find doing what OP suggests, which amounts to silently taking responsibility for other people's feelings instead of openly communicating about them, to be taxing as hell. Putting on an emotional mask usually is. Being "political" in this sense is a codependent behavior. Instead of operating out of fear of others' reactions, I prefer to give people the space they need to fee…

"Agreed. Being political is a ton of work" Being political it's so much work that most people, in high places, in big organizations, barely do anything else.

> Being political it's so much work that most people, in high places, in big organizations, barely do anything else.

Time for disruption. Dear hackers: Find a way how one can automate at least large parts of this by a computer program. :-)

Re: The Best Way to Not Get Tenure

#190

Post by wolfgke » Sun, Oct 23, 2016, 7:21 PM UTC

austinjp wrote: post #142

Fordrus wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely correct. The fact and reality that you are absolutely correct is a HUGE PART of the ENTIRE REASON why software startups so frequently outperform large incumbent companies with greater resources, support, investment, and time. Because while the software startup is messily, irritatingly, often horribly dealing with its people issues, it creates pods of productivity, small, coherent groups that work w…

You're aware of "forming, storming, norming..." etc? It's a well-recognised problem. Smaller "abrasive" teams are very off-putting to some people; larger bureaucratic organisation are equally off-putting to others. I suspect no one structure is optimal for all contexts. Have a look at the design of the new Crick Institute in London, designed for serendipity. Or Facebook's attempt at an open plan office (probably not…

> I suspect no one structure is optimal for all contexts.

I would rather assume "no one structure is optimal for all people".