5 Reasons it Sucks to be a Scientist: Part 4, Show Me the Funding!

If you're just reading this post, part 4 of a 5 part series, you might want to start at the beginning, where I rant about Skepticism, the dangers of knowing too much, and of course, politics. 
Those can be found at the links below:
Part 1, Skepticism
Part 2, Science Ruins Everything
Part 3, Science Doesn't Belong in Politics

So let's get to part 4: Show Me the Funding. 

This is something most people don't think about when they're not in science, and frankly, it's something you ALWAYS have to think about when you're actually in science:  WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM, AND WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU GETTING PAID TO DO WITH IT?

Let's break this down for a minute: If you have a job, you are paid for your goods, services, and times.  Perhaps you're a cook, and they buy the food and pay for your time to cook.  The customer gets the delicious food.  Win-win.  Perhaps you're a doctor, and they're paying you for your expertise, time, and information. You're not necessarily exchanging a product, but someone walks out of the office with a clean bill of health, or at least a plan on how to get BACK to a clean bill of health.  Again, you're giving something useful to the consumer.

It's business 101:  You give a good or service in exchange for your compensation.  You complete a task of some sort, and you get paid.  It works for the bank (Where they keep your money and give you interest and security in exchange for the ability to lend your money out and such), it works for any actual shop, where you buy something, it even works for performers, who get paid for the pleasure of the audience.  Everyone walks away with something:  Compensation for your work, and a clear idea of WHO the customer is.

SCIENCE DOESN'T ALWAYS DO OR HAVE THAT!

In fact, a lot of science doesn't even have a real customer, in a traditional sense.  Do you really think that many well-to-do businessmen are going to give up their considerable fortune to learn more about insect health, or why a certain weather pattern seems to be cyclical over 20 years?  No, because no one really cares, or at least, very few people do. If you're thinking, "The government" as the consumer, you're still wrong...because a lot of the science that's being done isn't something that the government controls or even benefits from.  Heck, if it's research into climate change, or pollution, or ecology, it can cost the government MORE money, in exchange for...what? Seriously, what the HELL are most scientists supposed to do for money?  Beg?  Because, that's what grants basically are.  We're begging someone to pay for our time, and we're trying to show off that we deserve it.  We're the really nice looking bum on the street with the extremely comical sign.  We're trying to show the happy people that we're not alcoholic bums without meaning, we have SKILLS and PLANS and we can TOTALLY do scientific research, right?  Please?  CHANGE? 

The whole issue of 'science begs for money and can't even guarantee success' is probably why many people think of scientists as outsiders, or unhelpful.  I imagine that if you're watching tax dollars, funneled through the NSF(National Science Foundation) or NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association) pour into some research, you want to see meaningful answers to your daily problems.  You're probably not concerned about the mating behavior of narwhals, or the ongoing management of the California sea lion populations off the coast of California...but NOAA, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act gets to spend money on those sorts of things, and it's got to be paid for by someone.  Which is why you have scientists who petition for money for specific projects, or departments, in order to do the scientific research that we believe is so important.

So, why does it suck to be a scientist? 

Because outside of R&D jobs, where you're specifically looking for a product to sell, you mightn't really be DOING anything clear cut for your 'customer', the investor.  Sure, if you're making a new drug, your work creates a new drug.  If you're working for Wayne Enterprises, your research makes the goddamned BATMAN, so you, as a scientist (played by the incredible and impressive Morgan Freeman) are actually giving something back. 

Most scientists don't have that luck, and so from the day they enter their field, they're not out to just do their work, they have to find someone to pay them to do their work.  It's as if you got a job as a lawyer, but the majority of your time you weren't actually practicing law or working on legal issues, but were instead writing carefully worded grants and research statements to your potential clients, in order to impress them, so that they would hire you to actually DO YOUR JOB! Then, when you're hired, you try to do your job, and constantly have to prove you're doing your job properly, even though there's always a substantial chance your job just WON'T WORK like you expected, and you might need more money, or might fail even with infinite money, and there might be nothing you can do. 

There aren't too many other fields where you don't do your job unless you've convinced someone else outside of your job of how important your job is so that they pay you to do your job! 
THAT IS A CONFUSING AND OFTEN STRESS-FILLED STATEMENT OF HOW LIFE IS FOR A SCIENTIST. 

And, God Forbid, what if you don't have meaningful results?  You can't give the money you spent back, and you can't undo the years of your time you invested....but scientists, who've fought for a grant, might not even get useful results! 

Imagine if you went to a restaurant, and demanded they feed you.  They agreed, you had to pay up front for the food, and after waiting for well over an hour, they came to your table with sheepish grins and said, 'TURNS OUT WE NEED MORE MONEY OR WE CAN'T FEED YOU!"  Do you pay?  Do you insult them?  If you were at McDonalds and ordered a delicious Rolo McFlurry, and were told, "Another 2.50 will drastically increase the odds of you getting your McFlurry...in a few more minutes...maybe an hour.  Not really sure.  Also, it might be 2.50 now and 24.50 later, if this doesn't work out right.  And there's about a 5% chance you'll never get the McFlurry no matter what you pay.  ENJOY YOUR MEAL SIR," would you pay?  I wouldn't.  I admit it, and we're lucky that I'm not a good representation of the government, or a lot of important science wouldn't ever get finished, and we'd never make progress in advancing medicine, computer science, and physics. 

Back to the metaphor of the delicious ice cream snack at McDonalds, you wouldn't nod and agree, you'd be PISSED.  And the next time you went to a restaurant, you'd want proof of the existence of a McFlurry, or similar thing.  And if you failed again, maybe then you'd just refuse to go to specific restaurants, or order specific foods altogether.  Which, in the metaphor, is saying that you STOPPED FUNDING CANCER RESEARCH BECAUSE IT WAS HARDER THAN EXPECTED. 
YEAH, WHO'S THE BAD GUY NOW?  MCDONALDS?  OR YOU?

One of the hardest parts of being a scientist isn't the science, the people, or how it changes you, but simply trying to find a way to pay your way and DO science.  After years of expensive college, and working your way (usually poorly paid and highly worked) through graduate school, sometimes for the better part of a decade, you get into the job world and STILL AREN'T DONE PLEADING FOR MONEY.

Why does it suck to be a scientist?  Because you're a highly educated beggar, whose fortune and success depend on luck as much as skill, and even if you jump every hurdle to getting a job, getting funding, and getting ready, you still have no guarantee the funding will get you over the hurdles necessary to complete your research.

So, though it's a bit of a shorter post, and perhaps less filled with sarcasm than usual, I wanted to make sure I finally admitted something that not everyone knows:

It sucks to be a scientist because unlike most jobs, you've got no guarantee of payment, you have an amorphous customer, and you rarely if ever can confidently say you're SURE to get results.  So scientists are left in the lurch, desperate for ways to pay for their work, their lives, and still have time left over to apply for the NEXT research grant, because this one can't last forever.

As they taught me in College, when a scientist looks for work, they don't just look for a job, they look for what funding comes with it.  Show me, as they recommended I demand, the funding.

Part 5 soon!  Links to parts 1-3 up top, and check out the older posts on the side bar, and archive!