I was recently speaking to an entrepeneurial fellow, and he made a comment that stuck in my mind: “people like you and I are unemployable.”
It didn’t take me long to realize that he was right.
He was referring, overall, to the entrepeneur personality.
The “problem” with entrepreneurs is that they can’t just accept the way things are – they have to go around always trying to make things “better”.
That’s great if you’re starting a new business, or running a certain kind of science lab.
It’s not so great if you find yourself embedded in a stiff bureaucracy that is reticent to any kind of change.
The reference to being unemployable is that people like he – and myself – would drive most traditional managers/bosses crazy. Because we can’t leave well enough alone. We can’t let tradition stand. We can’t do something just because someone told us to do it – we have to understand “why” we are doing it – and then try to improve upon it.
It’s a sad statement about the stultification of most jobs.
Maybe that’s why I know of so many people who are giving up regular jobs to venture out on their own in business or consulting. It seems that more than just a few people realize that they can no longer stifle themselves enough to be “employable”.
One of my long-term goals is to figure out how to do science without having to do the bureaucracy. You may think it is wishful thinking, but I have a plan (kind of like the Cylons).
Maybe I’ll start an interdisciplinary research institute that is strucutred to be size and bureaucracy limited. Wouldn’t that be nice?
consulting, and
