Back in the 90s I was working for a very large IT contractor on a very large federal government contract. The place sucked, but that's another story. I started

Back in the 90s I was working for a very large IT contractor on a very large federal government contract. The place sucked, but that's another story. I started as a senior dev, and within a year or so moved up 3 or 4 levels. Even after moving up, after a year I couldn't do that no more. I wanted to build stuff. When I told them I was going to leave, we worked out a deal: I'd pick a team of 2. We'd work on a project with a couple of other large government agencies. Folks would leave us alone. We'd get shit done. So we did. In six months we delivered the project. I worked mostly from home. We 3 were delivering at a rate that was greater than the 10-20 person teams at the other agencies. It was sad. After six months, I was getting ready to bail, but they beat me to the punch. They told me I could no longer be working at the job I was doing. Why? Because I was self-taught. Needed at least a Master's degree, preferably a PhD. It really didn't bother me since I was leaving anyway. On the way out, though, I spoke to the number 3 guy on the contract. He asked me about a few of the PhDs I had working for me. "They're pretty good, I guess. But this one guy? He's so arrogant nobody can work with him" The guy basically told me that they had to fill seats with PhDs to meet the GSA schedule, didn't matter whether they did anything or not. I liked all the people I worked with, but I'd never voluntarily go back to that kind of idiocy.