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Having tenure affords opportunity. Can't get the golden parachute unless you play the game long enough (i.e., waste prime years).
by timrpeterson 11y ago
Having tenure affords opportunity. Can't get the golden parachute unless you play the game long enough (i.e., waste prime years).
- danieltillett 11y agoI certainly missed the golden parachute. Even if I hung around until I was deadwood I would not have made anything financially. No academic in Australia gets rich just out of being an academic. I don’t regret my time as an academic other than my last two years. I should have left earlier, but the security the job afforded my family kept me there longer than I really should have stayed. This is a mistake many people make when in a secure job when they have kids so I am not too angry at myself. It is an experience few people get to have so I am grateful to have had it.
- daleroberts 11y agoI beg to differ. You can make a significant amount of money as an academic in Australia if you are in the right discipline to get a market loading and be able to do consulting on the side. AU$200-300K a year is easy to achieve for these academics some are even pulling in $500K+ by the end of their career. Plus the 17% superannuation means you'll retire with a nice big pot of retirement money at the end. Very hard to find a comparable position in industry...
- 1stop 11y agoWhich discipline are you speaking of? That kind of money I've only heard of in finance land (for academics)... and that kind of dried up after 2008.
- daleroberts 11y agoYes, Finance is the biggest and the money still flows. Look at all the recent hires in Finance at UNSW and UMelb who have been appointed at the Senior Lecturer level straight after PhD. Market loadings are paid in Medecine too. Probably Law as well... I've also heard that Statistics and doing Machine Learning consulting on side is good too. What surprised me the most is all the arts/sociology academics doing big consulting contracts connected to "foreign aid" work.
- sillygeese 11y agoAh yes, fat salaries on other people's money, and a fat pension on other people's money! Sweet deal!
- 1stop 11y ago... That describes every job... ever. Unless you are the one stealing the resources directly from the land... in which case: Fat salaries on other peoples' property. But hey, hate on the academics, they are the WORST! right?
- loup-vaillant 11y ago> That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
- saalweachter 11y agoIf you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
- chucksmash 11y agoWhat alternative are you suggesting? salesman who sells $100,000 in product a year should get paid $150,000 a year? Unless you are part of a cost center, it seems to me the assumption is that you are producing more value than you cost to employ.
- 1stop 11y agoOr people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).
- danieltillett 11y agoWell those of us in the natural sciences don’t bring in that sort of money. Given how much work and poor pay is required to get a tenured position the pay is not good.
- i000 11y agoA well established principal investigator said this to his lab during a crisis "we are out of money" meeting: "We are all in the same boat, but only I have a parachute"
- rhodri 11y agoI can't imagine a parachute is that useful on a sinking ship
- danieltillett 11y agoThe rope would be very useful to strangle the PI who said this.
- danieltillett 11y agoI can’t imagine ever saying something like this.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jschwartzi 11y agoIf somebody said this to me at my current job I'd start using up all the paid vacation time I have to look for another job.
- robotresearcher 11y ago> No academic in Australia gets rich just out of being an academic. Nobody ever expected to, in any country. Did they?
- ild 11y agoIn the USSR of 60s - 70s senior scientists/profs were upper middle class, and had high social status.