As a PhD student, I get criticism for taking on tasks that are short, useful and possibly clever, but not novel. If it can't go into a published paper, it's a w

As a PhD student, I get criticism for taking on tasks that are short, useful and possibly clever, but not novel. If it can't go into a published paper, it's a waste of time, apparently. And really, there are so many minor improvements that can be made in academic life -- like maintaining the public web server for an app or database you published a paper about, or getting source code documented and ready for release -- that if you take all of them on as they appear, you'll have almost no time for writing papers, grants and a dissertation. PhD students are trained to neglect the simple stuff in order to get through school. So I can see how a PhD dropout could be positive. The best coworkers are the ones that can either prioritize and take care of the simple stuff so quickly that it's not a problem, or can switch back into "get things done" mode when it's needed.