SIGN OF THE TIME: STANFORD PHD BECOMES TAXI DRIVER

10 September 2009

SIGN OF THE TIME: STANFORD PHD BECOMES TAXI DRIVER
Driven to driving a taxi despite having a PhD

Bio-chemist Dr Cai Minnjie who failed to land another research
position after losing his job last year now happily prowls the streets
as a cabbie.

Star, Malaysia
August 29, 2009

INSIGHT: BY SEAH CHIANG NEE

SINGAPORE'S fraternity of taxi drivers, with its fair share of
retrenched executives, has now an exalted new member – a PhD
bio-chemist from Stanford University.

Prowling the streets of Singapore today is 57-year-old unemployed
scientist Dr Cai Mingjie who lost his job at Singapore's premier
A-Star biomedical research institute last year.

The China-born naturalised citizen with 16 years of research
accomplishments said he began driving a taxi last October after failed
efforts to land another job.

The news shocked this nation, which holds an unshakable faith in the
power of an advanced university education.

One surprised white-collar worker said he had believed that such a
doctorate and experience was as good as life-long employment and
success.

"If he has to drive a taxi, what chances do ordinary people like us
have?" he asked.

I have met a number of highly qualified taxi drivers in recent years,
including former managers and a retrenched engineer.

One cheerful driver – a former stock-broker – surprised me one day in
giving me detailed reasons on what stocks to buy or avoid.

"At a time like this, the taxi business is probably the only business
in Singapore that still actively recruits people," said Dr Cai.

To me, his plight is taking Singapore into a new chapter.

"(I am) probably the only taxi driver in the world with a PhD from
Stanford and a proven track record of scientific accomplishments ...,"
blogged Dr Cai.

"I have been forced out of my research job at the height of my
scientific career" and was unable to find another job "for reasons I
can only describe as something uniquely Singapore".

The story quickly spread far and wide over the Internet. Most
Singaporeans expressed admiration for his ability to adapt so quickly
to his new life. Two young Singaporeans asked for his taxi number,
saying they would love to travel in his cab and talk to him.

"There's so much he can pass on to me," one said.

Others questioned why, despite his tremendous scientific experience,
he is unable to find a teaching job.

His unhappy exit is generally attributed to a personal cause (he has
alleged chaotic management by research heads) rather than any decline
in Singapore's bio-tech project, which appears to be surviving the
downturn.

The case highlights a general weakening of the R and D (research and
development) market in smallish Singapore.

"The bad economy means not many firms are hiring professional
scientists," one surfer said. "Academia isn't much of a help – there's
a long history of too many PhDs chasing too few jobs."

While the image of taxi drivers has received a tremendous boost, the
same cannot be said of Singapore's biomedical project – particularly
its efforts to nourish home-grown research talent.

"It may turn more Singaporeans away from Life Sciences as a career,"
said one blogger.

One writer said: "In my opinion, PhDs are useless, especially in
Singapore. It's just another certificate and doesn't mean much."

Another added: "The US is in a worse situation. Many are coming here
to look for jobs."

"I won't want my child to study for years to end up driving a taxi,"
said a housewife with a teenage daughter.

The naturalised Singaporean citizen underwent his PhD training at
Stanford University, the majority of his work revolving around the
study of yeast proteins.

His case is not unique. US research-scientist Douglas Prasher, who
isolated the gene that creates the green fluorescent protein (and just
missed the 2008 Chemistry Nobel Prize) faced similar straits.

Prasher moved from one research institution to another when his
funding dried up, and he eventually quit science – to drive a courtesy
shuttle in Alabama.

"Still, he remains humble and happy and seems content with his minivan
driver job," said a surfer.

With an evolving job market as more employers resort to multi-tasking
and short-term contracts, more Singaporeans are chasing after split
degrees, like accountancy and law or computer and business.

Others avoid post-graduate studies or specialised courses of a fixed
discipline in favour of general or multi-discipline studies.
"Experience is king" is the watchword; there has been a rush for
no-pay internships.

"The future favours graduates with multiple skills and career
flexibility, people who are able to adapt to different types of work,"
one business executive said.

During the past few years, as globalisation deepened, there has been a
growing disconnect between what Singaporeans studied in university and
their subsequent careers.

It follows the trend in the developed world where old businesses
disappear – almost overnight – and new ones spring up, which poses
problems for graduates with an inflexible job expectation.

I know of a young man who graduated from one of America's top civil
engineering universities abandoning the construction hard hat for a
teaching gown.

Another engineer I met is running his father's lucrative coffee shop.
Lawyers have become musicians or journalists, and so on.

Cases of people working in jobs unrelated to their university training
have become so common that interviewers have stopped asking candidates
questions like "Why should a trained scientist like you want to work
as a junior executive with us?"

In the past, parents would crack their heads pondering what their
children should study – accountancy or law or engineering, the
so-called secure careers – and see them move single-mindedly into
these professions.

A doctor was then a doctor, a biologist generally worked in the lab
and a lawyer argued cases in courts – square pegs in square holes, so
to speak.

Today the world is slowly moving away from this neat pattern.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the
information website littlespeck.com

Editor's Note: See Dr. Cai's blog here.