Larry Piper's Slothoughts

Musings of a guy in the choir

Retirement Party · 1 December 2007

We had a retirement party last night for the guy who was my company’s CEO. When I joined the company, he was a senior scientist (not sure of correct title) and I was a junior one. We worked together some in the early days.

His career continued an upward swing, eventually getting him to be CEO. The company has done well under him.

I, on the other hand, took a different track. My career showed somewhat of an upward climb for a time. I brought in some programs, but more importantly did some nice science and published some fairly decent papers. Then things fell apart, and for the last ten years or so, I’ve just been trying to hold myself together.

So last night was a somewhat bitter sweet. I agree that the guy of the moment deserved to be fetted. No problem there. But I felt weird given how I had managed to become more-or-less a nonentity at the company, after once having shown some promise.

It doesn’t help that the new CEO is a guy who joined the company at the same time I did. He continued to grow, and as I said, I flamed out. I’m not jealous. I don’t want to be a wheel, but I did enjoy having once been able to do some good science. No more.

When you’re reflecting on someone else’s career, it’s difficult not to reflect on your own. So am I a failure because my career went down in flames? Or was I a success because at one time, at least, I did do good work that was recognized world ‘round?

— lgpiper

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