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A Real Life Can Be Yours!
*************** GREAT OPPORTUNITY! ***********************
**************** EARN BIG BUCKS! *************************
***************** GET A LIFE! ****************************
At Lightner Associates we make these dreams a reality for
thousands of post-doctoral researchers every year through a
patented process known as Ph.D. expungement.
For a limited time Lightner Associates is offering our
exclusive PH.D. EXPUNGING SERVICE for a special LOW LOW PRICE
only to members of Leftist Leaning Underground Electronic
Networks of Whiners, Pulers, and others who should be spending
more time at the lab bench (L.L.U.E.N.o.W.P.&O. aka YSN, NES).
Our BASIC PH.D. EXPUNGING SERVICE includes:
-creation of a false employment history at a now defunct
biotech or defense contracting firm.
-fabrication of business cards for said firm.
-our special total"CV" ---> "Resume" re-engineering...
** INCLUDING ***
-descriptive job responsibilities which
bear some rational relationship to your
expertise.
-plausible training and professional experiences
which explain your computer fluency with MAC,
WINDOWS, PCs, UNIX, and your ownership of an RPN
calculator.
-Our specially trained staff of Human Resource
Administrator Impersonators and a 3 month
subscription to our "refusal to provide
references due to liability" service (Most real
employers no longer give references of any
meaning because they are afraid to get sued).
AND FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS OF
L.L.U.E.N.o.W.P.&O. ::
FREE POWER WORDS !!!!
All for the low, low price of $1500.00 US / PH.D. (+
$500 US / year for post-doctoral experience > 3 years. (While
this may seem a bit high we've observed that only people who
truly want to have their Ph.D. (s) expunged are finally
successful and this small token of financial commitment weeds out
those who secretly wish to be tenured research professors)
Lightner Associates also has a trained staff of
psychologists and psychiatrists who for a small additional fee
can provide intensive therapeutic services to treat problems
like...
1. Independent thinking.
2. Problem Solving and Analytical Skills.
3. Nervousness around beautiful people.
4. Inability to work and play well with others.
5. Pointing out the flaws in others reasoning.
6. Uncontrollable outbursts of laughter when
hearing others use POWER WORDS.
Our staff can also provide help with problems related to
wardrobe and hair-styling (or lack thereof).
A REAL LIFE CAN STILL BE YOURS !!!
Call Today for a free consultation:
1-555-12NoPHD
***************************************************************
FOR ALL YOUR PH.D. EXPUNGING NEEDS REMEMBER...
LIGHTNER ASSOCIATES...
serving the overqualified since 1996.
***************************************************************
Disclaimer:
Lightner Associates is a satirical piece intended as a
bit of "gallows humor". I believe that the supply/demand
equation is badly out of balance in many areas of contemporary
science and that serious action ought to be taken to address this
problem. Rather than try to make an intellectual argument to
demonstrate this belief I use humor as a form of both
entertainment and argument. If you see the humor in this piece
it's because my assertion is, at least in part, true.
Lightner Associates was inspired by a number of ideas and
observations over a period of years. Young scientists are often
implored to "start a business", "get into the marketplace", and
basically be entrepreneurial. Not a bad suggestion, although the
failure rate for start up business is probably only slightly less
than the failure rate of aspiring research professors. Young
scientists are also implored to use their marketable skills in
problem solving, critical thinking and the like to get positions
in the business world. Unfortunately, many scientists aspiring
to new, non-scientific, careers run into stereotypes and
misconceptions. Few employers are willing to accept the notion
that a Ph.D. would be happy working for meager salaries like
$35,000 / year. Employers are also hesitant to accept people
who, by definition, are looking to change careers because they
have "FAILED" in their first career choice. "Should they really
expect ________ to be any easier?" And finally, the myth (that
there is a substantial shortage of Ph.D. scientists) is all
pervading. "If scientists are in such short supply, what is
wrong with this person that they want to become a __________?"
Ph.D. training imparts many valuable, even highly sought after
skills, but it comes with a label that evokes many stereotypes
and false impressions.
Thus the obvious need for a firm like "Lightner
Associates" that offer's to Expunge the Ph.D., and all it's
associated negative stereotypes, while leaving the expunged with
all their valuable skills intact. Finally, Lightner Associates
creates a history that explains the expungees skills and erases
any suspicion that he or she was once an aspiring researcher.
It is, to me, bitterly ironic that at a time, in my own
field (loosely Plant Biotechnology) when we are faced with
greater potential than we have ever had and tremendous advances
in the technologies available to us, that the practitioners of
science face the worst career prospects they have faced in over a
decade. I have witnessed a steady exodus of the very best people
I have worked with to fields like business and law. I believe
it's tragic that the practitioners of science, those actually
laboring at the planning, conduct and interpretation of
experiments, are rarely paid a wage that supports a family, or
offered even the semblance of job security. I fear that at the
end of a long post-doctoral road many are simply leaving science,
having never found a permanent position worthy of their training.
Their simple willingness to carry on in the face of daunting odds
is testament enough to their devotion to their work, ask for no
more.
My own road, I hope, may still end where my dreams
intended, leading a research group, working long hours for a
modest salary in a profession that I love, and hopefully making
the world just a slightly better place. I hope that in this
capacity I'll find a better balance between driving my research
agenda and meeting the needs of the young minds and bodies so
essential to the progress of that agenda.
Or my road may simply end in the despair that is so
evident in sci.reserach.careers, and these concerns will be of
little consequence.
To my colleagues, the young and emergent pre-tenured
scientists of the world, I offer my most sincere hope for
success. To their professors, I hope you have the vision to look
critically at the scientific establishment that you've somehow
produced, and I hope you have the courage to do more than offer
platitudes and regrets. There'll be no beauty in your science if
it's rests on a foundation of ruined post-docs.
Take care,
Jonathan Lightner
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