X Division had an all-hands meeting today. The new division leader was giving a talk about his views of the future of the division and how he sees us fitting into the lab as a whole, etc. The talk was, for the most part, full of standard Dilbertian drivel that was exceedingly dull. At one point, he put up a draft of the X Division "Vision Statement" [puke] that they were working on. Note: As the general staff of X Division labors on to develop cutting edge computational physics packages with direct impact on the strategic security of our nation, the management appears to have retreats wherein they come up with unfinished "Mission Statements." It must have something to do with adding value or being goal-oriented. I don't know.

Anyway, so after showing us this vision statement, he went through it word for word and talked about how each word in the statement was important. I kid you not, the first word was "The" and he had a bullet for "The" that talked about the significane of the word in the statement. He talked about it for two minutes.

I never ever ever ever want to be a manager. These people stop doing science so that they can manage people who are still doing the real work. Management just seems so unbearably bland! The giant salary must be to keep them from being overcome with ennui. Wait, on second thought, maybe I will be a manager.