Maybe he's not Retired in Place⁺. Instead he has acknowledged the futility of trying to fix the system piecemeal. Only a fundamental overhaul of R&D can work. So instead, he tries to sabotage the current system to make it fail faster. He knows which management approaches are appealing on the surface, and can be pitched to senior management. He also knows that this appeal is only superficial, and underneath the approaches are quite damaging to morale and productivity. Let's do it and hasten the demise of this madness that surrounds us.

There is another explanation. These may be the individuals who have stepped back from the daily commotion and have discovered that even their best efforts will never succeed within the current environment. If the rules of the game are stacked against you then the best policy may be: What's-in-it-for-me⁺ (WIIFM).

A common (attractive) practice in the consulting industry is not to remove the pain a client is feeling with band-aids when surgery is what's needed. It's better the client really feel the pain so they'll take the necessary medicine to remedy the underlying ailment. Don't settle for small consulting fees when mega-fees are possible. So I'm not retired, I'm just waiting patiently.

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