|
|
1981—Whither my Career? |
|
|
This was about the time that Clark made the impeccably-intentioned mistake of putting me in charge of this brand-new sub-enterprise, Abt Microcomputer Software. I already knew I wasn’t cut out to run a cost center to push conventional statistical products. He was about to find out. Neither my skills nor my ambitions ran in that direction, as would shortly become apparent.
For better or for worse, I was still at heart an unreconstructed, proselytizing Forresterian. I could get behind an organization or a campaign to teach and implement his thinking for the benefit of policy decision-making. I came to Abt Associates in 1968 in the explicit hope that I could move its enthusiasm for computer simulations in that direction, not because I had any faith in the ultimate value of statistically-oriented research to the same or other worthy objectives. Nearly half a century later, I’m still not sure why all my efforts in that direction never ignited a corresponding flame in any of my associates. Maybe I was fundamentally wrong, although I still don’t think so. It gives me no comfort at all to observe that nobody else has infused Forresterian thinking into the conduct of public policy, in America or elsewhere. I’d gladly have joined forces with somebody who, apparently unlike me, could make it happen. For the purposes of my “career,” the bottom line was that I found myself highly disinclined to invest heart and soul in an enterprise in which I didn’t really believe, especially while it effectively diverted me from a parallel pursuit in which I cherished real faith. So I muddled around at Abt Associates for a couple of years, neither giving nor receiving any great degree of satisfaction. Another large project, this time in the area of health policy, paid the bills through much of this time and provided, once again, a wildly-mixed diversity of rewards and punishments. More about that project (even whose in-house handle I’ve repressed) in next year’s episode. |
|
Back a Page (More SampleCalc) |
Such a Life Contents |
Chapter 3 (1958-1971) |
Chapter 4 (1972-2002) |
1980 1981 1982 |
Chapter 5 (2003-?) |
Next Page (Grandma’s Ninetieth) |
| Welcome | Stories | Sections | Such a Life | People | Places | Site Search | Do You Know? |
| Updated Apr 2019 | [1972p0c.htm] | Page 481-03 |