Part I: With the nature and value of work in harmony, dignity in work no longer an ignominy. Part I by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Part II: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part II by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Apprenticeship is implicit in the scientific enterprise but the elephant in the room is that it's insular and parochial. The purview of the initiated, it excludes more than includes. The latter are the select few, post-graduates, doctoral students, post-docs and junior faculty. The former, the more numerous support staff, the technicians, animal caretakers, core facility staff.
Most basic biomedical research involves use of experimental animal models. Mouse is the most popular. How are research animal facilities organized? Usually physically separate from the labs where scientists spend most of their working hours, they operate as if in a parallel world. Here's yet another hierarchy to explain. In animal facilities, the pyramid consists of veterinarians, technicians, floor leaders and near the bottom of the rung, the animal caretakers, the ones who actually handle the animals day in and day out, change their cages, food and water, observe them for signs of ill-health, every single day, holidays included be it Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving. Bottom of the rung? Those who don't even come near live animals. Those who spend all their day in the back, cleaning and sterilizing the cages and sundry, and handling the daily numerous dead.
The years I spent at the US NIH were the surfeit of its gravy train. The NIH budget was increasing year on year and yet it didn't make a whit of difference in the lives of those toiling on the bottom rung. The most obvious sign of something different? I first observed how the animal care staff tended to be largely black or immigrant, usually from South America or Africa. Plenty from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal. This at a time when post-docs at NIH from sub-Saharan Africa were at an all-time low. Apparently no room or applicants among the included, the apprentices and above. Plenty among the excluded.
By no means the only exclusion. I'll never forget my first glimpse behind another obscene curtain of exclusion. A young woman animal caretaker doubled over upon herself in pain in the changing room of the animal facility. Black, an immigrant from some North African country.
Research animal facilities have a similar design edict. Enter and one is forced to go through into the changing rooms to don the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) before one can proceed through into the main facility where the research animals are housed in individual rooms. This young woman writhing in pain. What to do?
Another caretaker steps into the changing room. I ask her if there's anything we could do to help this young woman in pain. She shrugs and says no. The woman in pain had given birth the previous week. A difficult delivery. She was suffering from the consequences. Aghast, I asked what she was doing back at work so soon? What else to do? She needed the money. What? No paid maternity leave? No, only unpaid and she needed the money. How could that be? Easy, we three may have been working at the NIH, a US federal government agency that provides at least a few weeks of paid maternity leave but they and their ilk weren't federal government employees. They were employees of a contractor who had the contract for running that research animal facility. Paid a relative pittance, physically demanding jobs, and that's not all. Their numbers are now legion. That reduction in government jobs? Simply expansion of contractors. In every agency, at all levels. As well, in the case of science, excluded from scientific recognition.
Scientific recognition. Another Rabelesian joke of an exclusion. Scientists and their apprentices spend a fraction of their work time among the research animals that have become the bread and butter of so much of their research. Support staff, in particular animal caretakers spend almost all their work time among them. Yet, the data and knowledge ensuing from such science consists solely of the input of scientists and their apprentices. How could this be right?
We know from observations across all human endeavor that practice makes perfect. Someone who actually plays the piano knows more about playing the piano than one who reads about it or just imagines it. How could I, a scientist, be presumed to know more about research mice when I spent at most a few hours per week among them compared to those caretakers who spent all their work hours among them?
In fact I know I learned a lot more about research mice from veterinary technicians and caretakers than from my PI or colleagues. The ones who practice more know more. As simple as that. And yet that inevitable value judgment that accompanies work stratification negates the value of the contribution of those at the lowest rung of the scientific enterprise, debases it and even renders it invisible and worthless. I often wonder how knowledge that ensues from such a grotesque system be merit worthy. It just can't since it excludes the most holistically obtained knowledge. These animal caretakers observe the research animals every single day and know so much more about the nuances of their health and behavior, and yet their knowledge is neither sought nor documented nor recognized. A system of work organization that is not only seriously flawed in its design but also in its intent. The structure of the biomedical research enterprise. A hierarchy that proscribes more than welcomes. Encoded in its very structure with exclusion in its very marrow.
I still remember the little gift bags I used to prepare so carefully for each staff member I worked with in all those animal facilities. Every Christmas. So trite and pathetic. I wanted to change an obscene status quo but I was only one person. Myself an immigrant with my own problems. How could I change an entire system? Yet I felt compelled to do something. So those little gift bags, each costing less than $10. Just a box of candy from CVS and a card. My way of saying I recognize you and your contributions to my research work.
If only the systems within which we find ourselves operating were self-aware enough to be more equitable. If only we each have the political will to make it so. Only then will we have ourselves a world where dignity lies in work, not in the nature of the work.
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Dignity-is-in-work-not-in-the-nature-of-the-work-1
Part II: Dignity is in work, not in the nature of the work. Part II by Tirumalai Kamala on TK Talk
Apprenticeship is implicit in the scientific enterprise but the elephant in the room is that it's insular and parochial. The purview of the initiated, it excludes more than includes. The latter are the select few, post-graduates, doctoral students, post-docs and junior faculty. The former, the more numerous support staff, the technicians, animal caretakers, core facility staff.
Most basic biomedical research involves use of experimental animal models. Mouse is the most popular. How are research animal facilities organized? Usually physically separate from the labs where scientists spend most of their working hours, they operate as if in a parallel world. Here's yet another hierarchy to explain. In animal facilities, the pyramid consists of veterinarians, technicians, floor leaders and near the bottom of the rung, the animal caretakers, the ones who actually handle the animals day in and day out, change their cages, food and water, observe them for signs of ill-health, every single day, holidays included be it Christmas, New Year or Thanksgiving. Bottom of the rung? Those who don't even come near live animals. Those who spend all their day in the back, cleaning and sterilizing the cages and sundry, and handling the daily numerous dead.
The years I spent at the US NIH were the surfeit of its gravy train. The NIH budget was increasing year on year and yet it didn't make a whit of difference in the lives of those toiling on the bottom rung. The most obvious sign of something different? I first observed how the animal care staff tended to be largely black or immigrant, usually from South America or Africa. Plenty from Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal. This at a time when post-docs at NIH from sub-Saharan Africa were at an all-time low. Apparently no room or applicants among the included, the apprentices and above. Plenty among the excluded.
By no means the only exclusion. I'll never forget my first glimpse behind another obscene curtain of exclusion. A young woman animal caretaker doubled over upon herself in pain in the changing room of the animal facility. Black, an immigrant from some North African country.
Research animal facilities have a similar design edict. Enter and one is forced to go through into the changing rooms to don the PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) before one can proceed through into the main facility where the research animals are housed in individual rooms. This young woman writhing in pain. What to do?
Another caretaker steps into the changing room. I ask her if there's anything we could do to help this young woman in pain. She shrugs and says no. The woman in pain had given birth the previous week. A difficult delivery. She was suffering from the consequences. Aghast, I asked what she was doing back at work so soon? What else to do? She needed the money. What? No paid maternity leave? No, only unpaid and she needed the money. How could that be? Easy, we three may have been working at the NIH, a US federal government agency that provides at least a few weeks of paid maternity leave but they and their ilk weren't federal government employees. They were employees of a contractor who had the contract for running that research animal facility. Paid a relative pittance, physically demanding jobs, and that's not all. Their numbers are now legion. That reduction in government jobs? Simply expansion of contractors. In every agency, at all levels. As well, in the case of science, excluded from scientific recognition.
Scientific recognition. Another Rabelesian joke of an exclusion. Scientists and their apprentices spend a fraction of their work time among the research animals that have become the bread and butter of so much of their research. Support staff, in particular animal caretakers spend almost all their work time among them. Yet, the data and knowledge ensuing from such science consists solely of the input of scientists and their apprentices. How could this be right?
We know from observations across all human endeavor that practice makes perfect. Someone who actually plays the piano knows more about playing the piano than one who reads about it or just imagines it. How could I, a scientist, be presumed to know more about research mice when I spent at most a few hours per week among them compared to those caretakers who spent all their work hours among them?
In fact I know I learned a lot more about research mice from veterinary technicians and caretakers than from my PI or colleagues. The ones who practice more know more. As simple as that. And yet that inevitable value judgment that accompanies work stratification negates the value of the contribution of those at the lowest rung of the scientific enterprise, debases it and even renders it invisible and worthless. I often wonder how knowledge that ensues from such a grotesque system be merit worthy. It just can't since it excludes the most holistically obtained knowledge. These animal caretakers observe the research animals every single day and know so much more about the nuances of their health and behavior, and yet their knowledge is neither sought nor documented nor recognized. A system of work organization that is not only seriously flawed in its design but also in its intent. The structure of the biomedical research enterprise. A hierarchy that proscribes more than welcomes. Encoded in its very structure with exclusion in its very marrow.
I still remember the little gift bags I used to prepare so carefully for each staff member I worked with in all those animal facilities. Every Christmas. So trite and pathetic. I wanted to change an obscene status quo but I was only one person. Myself an immigrant with my own problems. How could I change an entire system? Yet I felt compelled to do something. So those little gift bags, each costing less than $10. Just a box of candy from CVS and a card. My way of saying I recognize you and your contributions to my research work.
If only the systems within which we find ourselves operating were self-aware enough to be more equitable. If only we each have the political will to make it so. Only then will we have ourselves a world where dignity lies in work, not in the nature of the work.
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Dignity-is-in-work-not-in-the-nature-of-the-work-1
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