[Slings and Arrows]

Depends on the field: Ph.D.'s in areas where you are expected to be able to DO something (Engineering, Computer Science, Business, and so forth) are much more likely to be conservative than those in which there are no right answers (Humanities and Social Sciences, Education, Art, etc.).

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I'm not sure that that's totally true. I've known many Ph.D. engineers, I've even had some work for me. They do tend to be somewhat protective about their credentials. In industry no one really gives a rat's patootey about academic credentials except that they can be a shorthand way of filtering and sorting. The only time I am really surprised to find out someone has a Ph.D is when I know them to be productive and a team player. If someone's a prima donna, self-regarding "genius" I am surprised that they don't have Ph.D.

BTW, the hardest people to work with are former professors. A lot of them never quite got tenure and they had to get a job in the real world. Having ruled in the fantasty world where careers are made on discerning the tenth decimal place of some obscure probability distribution, they are unsuited to work in an environment were success is guaged by kicking and pushing a product out the door.

The former chairman of the E.E. department at an Ivy League school (and a Ph.D physics graduate of one of the most prestige physics institutions in the world) came to work at my company some years ago, for a big increase in money. He was disappointed that he couldn't just take the afternoon off whenever he wanted and go skiing. He was a very bright guy, academically, but he could not get anything done, and had a way of infuriating everyone he worked with. When he got canned by our division he landed on his feet another division of our company. I later found out his father-in-law was that division's VP for R&D. He left the company within a year of his f-i-l's retirement. I'll bet a month's pay that he has always, reliably, voted Democratic.