I am a researcher at a national lab. I am pretty smart myself, and have worked with some exceptional people during my PhD and even now. Thing is, we have become

I am a researcher at a national lab. I am pretty smart myself, and have worked with some exceptional people during my PhD and even now. Thing is, we have become so metrics and busy work obsessed that it's insane. Fully 75% of my time is spent chasing money. Which means writing grants that have a 25% success rate (and I am told to be proud of that number, others have it worse), filling out monthly, quarterly and yearly reports for my grants and chasing the next grant. The science that I do is honestly now a break from all that bullshit. And then the stupid obsession with metrics. I have technically more peer-reviewed journal papers than Einstein, and I am not even fit to touch that man's shoelaces - let alone tie them. If h-index is the only measure of scientific success, then don't be surprised if fools are what you get. The system, all the way down from Congress is designed to fail - and we are acting surprised?