It appears to me that Dr. King has developed a very interesting research
project and has managed to raise X amount of money.  Folks can choose to
apply for the positions, or not.



On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 9:13 AM, Conrad Bladey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> It saddens me as a professional to see minimalist presence or absence
> archeology dominating the field- in the future it will be viewed as only
> minimally better than pot hunting- availability of funding has not brought
> more science but less-I can't count the number of crm style report
> presentations which were totally devoid of anthropology.  It is all just
> look what we found. And as pointed out here crew pay does not qualify as
> real employment-at this point reset calls for less money rather than
> more-there is no way money can ever be found to do adequate work-archeology
> needs to be a public life way -not just a profession-we have not made the
> same progress as the ecological movement -largely due to professional
> snobbery-I have already posted out the waste of funds by professionals-a
> significant problem exists with the exploitation of volunteers for profit
> taking-the entire field needs rebuilding-
>
> Conrad Bladey
>
> Thank you in advance for your prompt response!
>
>
> On Sep 15, 2013, at 7:58 AM, Jim <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >
> > For what it is worth, I have occasional recourse to a quip when my
> clients try pressuring me: archaeology is like dentistry; rushing it could
> prove painful.
> > That said, I've found most of the postings on this subject to be
> client-focused. It's a little like writing about generals and generalship
> without regard for the people who actually fight the battles.
> > Is it possible that a well-paid crew, loyal to employers they know put
> their health, welfare, and future first, perform better and help produce
> products that are good, fast, and cheap? Certainly that has been my
> experience, but I dare not extrapolate from a sample of one, and an
> admittedly biased sample at that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > James G. Gibb
> >
> > Gibb Archaeological Consulting
> >
> > 2554 Carrollton Road
> >
> > Annapolis, Maryland USA ?? 21403
> >
> > 443.482.9593 (Land) 410.693.3847 (Cell)
> >
> > www.gibbarchaeology.net ? www.porttobacco.blogspot.com
> >
> > On 09/14/13, Boyer, Jeffrey, DCA<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > Many years ago, a colleague and friend taught me the basic equation of
> contracting: "Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two."
> > This holds whether one is getting a house built or a site dug in front
> of the bulldozers. I have to say, with sincere apologies to Chico Escuela,
> "Archaeology been berry berry good to me," but "berry berry good" has not
> always included a salary equivalent in value (in my mind) to knowledge and
> experience. I know very few archaeologists who are not or have not been
> willing to start at the bottom and work up but we all know we'd like to get
> paid up as we work up.
> > What most of us run into over and over and over with private and public
> sector clients is their apparent desire to get all three and, if not, to
> get cheap and fast. Looking at it from the client side, as that same
> colleague and friend showed me, what they need and, therefore, want from us
> is a document or set of documents confirming that their planning and
> development process met the relevant, necessary legal requirements. As all
> CRMers know, or better figure out, our branch of
> archaeology-as-a-profession is a branch created by laws and regulations,
> without which client-driven archaeology would not be full of grads and
> post-grads looking for work. An industry created and maintained by laws and
> regulations has the feeling of being pretty wobbly and justifiably so given
> the see-saw fluctuations in public political will. We work, those of us on
> the client-driven side of archaeology, in an industry required by law and
> regulation and for our clients the ultimate product are thos
>  e
> >
> >
> > legal documents that allow them to proceed with whatever they have
> planned. In that environment, is it any wonder that the primary
> requirements for selecting some of us over others of us are cheap and fast?
> Good is great until it impacts cheap and fast in ways that lead to more
> expensive and slower.
> > My son, a born entrepreneur if ever there was one, contends that
> contractors -- he is one, in an entirely different profession, one that I
> would think would wax and wane a lot with financial vicissitudes but which
> actually keeps him not only very busy but doing quite well at it -- must
> set for themselves and for their clients the difference between cost and
> value. Admittedly, in his profession, good is the primary goal of most
> clients but cheap and fast are highly desirable. His challenge, then, is to
> help his clients see that good is not a matter of cheap or fast or a matter
> separate from cheap and fast, but a matter of value, that there is
> considerably more value in the expertise and, therefore, the product of
> someone who is good, and that value is sacrificed when buried beneath cheap
> and fast. As he tells me frequently (paraphrasing), "Almost anyone can do
> what I do. Hardly anyone can do it the way I do it. That's my value in the
> situation. Are potential clients concerne
>  d
> >
> >
> > with the value of my experience and expertise? If so, then they become
> clients. If not, then they don't. I'm not interested in having clients who
> aren't interested in the value of my experience and expertise and can't or
> won't see that value reflected in how good my work is." His mother and I
> have been very concerned about what appears to be an elitist business model
> -- "Can you afford to turn down clients?" we have often asked in fear for
> the security of his business -- but, we have to admit, it works well for
> him.
> > The other side of that model is epitomized by those situations, with
> which we are all familiar, in which contractors underbid all competition
> and either 1) produce results that are not good, to their own detriment and
> that of the rest of us, and end up blackballed (and hopefully go out of
> business or change their ways) because their work is so shoddy, or 2) go
> out of business trying to do good, cheap, and fast all at once and ending
> up taking financially impossible losses on contract fees.
> > Since one can only select two of the three aspects of contracting, and
> since, with precious few exceptions, pretty much all of us want to do good
> work, work that contributes to understanding the human past as well as work
> that provides our clients with their necessary legal documentation, I
> suspect that my son is right and we must, ourselves, identify value in our
> experience, our expertise, and our capability, helping our clients
> understand that value -- contrary to discount-store advertising -- is not
> found exclusively in cheap and fast, that they get value when we are
> allowed to work with them to identify what is good and find appropriate,
> relevant ways to balance that with cost and speed. After all, who knows
> more about what is good work than the people who do good work? The client
> might well identify the scope of work but we can and should identify the
> value of work: we know what it takes, how long it takes, and how much it
> should cost to generate a consistently good pr
>  od
> >
> >
> > uct and that is our value. If we don't, then it's time to find another
> profession.
> >
> >
>