"I see this in so many of my older colleagues. I tell them about my recent publication and they tell me about their family or their golf game. As if it's the same thing."
Has it occurred to you, ambitious douche bag that you are, that for them, it IS the same thing? That they consider their families -- GASP -- as important, achievement-wise, as you think your publication on Einstein's Theory of Booger Dimensions, or Hegel's Fart Assonances? I know this may come as a shock to you, but not everyone is a publication-grubbing toady who would put gaining another CV entry or a citation in someone else's pissant little paper as more important than a round of golf with an elderly parent, or making their eight-year-olds school performance of "The Three Piggy Opera.""But teaching is so low on my list of priorities, and was instilled upon me by my mentors all through grad school."
It sounds as if you're the one with priorities out of whack, and it sounds as if your mentors have the same issues. Let's be realistic, Researchflake. How many people are really going to read your article? Maybe two dozen will pay close attention -- and half of those will be reading with their knives out, looking to carve out a piece of publication turf by proving that you're an idiot who doesn't know she s/he's talking about. Maybe a few dozen more will skim through your article out of idle curiosity. Your spouse or partner will read it, stifling yawns and feigning enthusiasm because you're so chuffed, and your parents will probably read it, as it's the only way they can make any connection with you at all, as you've been so busy -- "Cats in the Cradle-style" to actually interact with them. That might make you "mediocre."
I'll bet you that Mike -- teacher that he is, and that you contemptibly call a loser -- has more of an impact and more influence on those who filter through his classrooms than your piddling publications.
Success as a teacher is not mediocrity. It's those teachers that toil in the classroom that make it possible for you to ruminate on your fungus-addled toes in your Ivory Tower, pondering your latest publication praising Plato's puckered prepuce. Success as a teacher does not equal mediocrity. It means his priorities are different -- I'd argue more realistic and more noble -- than yours. Certainly more worthwhile than "publication whore bingo" game which you seem to think is the pinnacle of success.
