I cannot really call myself a CSI fan. I think in eleven years they've released over 250 episodes (!) and I watched maybe 25 or so. It was enough to familiarize myself with the protagonists and even the first level of secondary characters. Their dynamics piqued my interest.
After all, the Crime Lab is a workplace and many actors on the show portray co-workers. Even though they are government employees, the operational localization makes CSI and the human conflicts within similar to a small business.
One antagonistic relationship between two characters I consider archetypal. It is applicable to any workplace. I am talking about professional devotion vs. careerism as represented by graveyard shift supervisor Gil Grissom on one side and Conrad Ecklie on the other side.
It is not that Ecklie is a complete professional failure or a wicked person. Not the sharpest pencil in the box or the most advanced scientist around, he is good enough. He is spiteful, but not diabolically evil. He puts all animosity aside when Nick Stokes is in trouble (in the episode conceived and directed by Quentin Tarantino). Still, his priorities are clear and they have nothing to do with being the best at what he does. His ambitions are all about getting ahead in the organizational structure, and he will do whatever it takes to achieve that.
On the other hand, Grissom is a brilliant scholar whose life's purpose is to never stop learning. The puzzle of crime investigation is his passion. His rise to the shift supervisor position had occurred without his doing anything but the best job he could.
In one of the episodes I've seen, this exchange between the two took place:
Ecklie: "You kept the sheriff out of the loop, that's a career killer."
Grissom: "That's your problem, Eckley, you view it as a career."
And that says it all. So, what happens?
Ecklie consistently rises from dayshift supervisor, to Assistant Director to the Undersheriff of LVPD. Grissom, even though a PhD and a star in his field, holds the same title leading his team until he retires and goes to Paris to teach in Sorbonne.
Obviously, I feel very strongly about this issue – I despise self-promoting careerists who climb up the ranks not because they are the best at what they do, but because they don't step on anyone's toes and know which ass to kiss at the right moment. You, with all your knowledge, intellect and diligence have no chance against them. If promotions and bigger salaries are rewards and it's the mediocre Ecklies who succeed, it means that the merit based system fails.
Whatever was the real reason for William Petersen's departure from the show, the viewers are to believe that Grissom is happier now. But he did leave the job, to which he devoted a big chunk of his life. And so did I – at one point in my career I left a job I liked because someone else undeservedly got ahead of me. It wasn't easy.
The Frustrated CFO 