There seems to be some sort of corollary here to the Peter principle (that people rise to the level of incompetence). >From an article by Richard Sclove, > People sometimes ask why I founded Loka. In a sense I > had little choice. In 1987 I was fresh from years of > university training. I had received my bachelor's degree in > environmental studies from newly founded, experimental > Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. I held a > master's degree in nuclear engineering from the > Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) -- earned so > that I could be an effective critic of nuclear power -- and > a Ph.D. from MIT in political science. And I had just > completed a postdoctoral fellowship in economics at the > University of California-Berkeley (so that I could be a > constructive critic of conventional economic theory and > practice). > > These credentials and allied moral commitments > virtually assured that, in the socioeconomically and > technologically complacent U.S. political context, no one > would hire me to do anything that I wanted to do. So > declaring myself the director of an institute seemed like > the natural alternative to languishing in some mismatched > job or other that would have made me miserable. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
