I left academia 20 years ago after completing my PhD (in physics). Getting the PhD was an awesome experience : intellectual effort, nice peers, teaching was gr

I left academia 20 years ago after completing my PhD (in physics). Getting the PhD was an awesome experience : intellectual effort, nice peers, teaching was great and the parties in the campus were memorable. One of the greatest periods in my life. By the end I started to feel two things which drove me away : the begging for money and the feudalism. I was payed peanuts (which was ok) and was not willing to spend a big part of my time looking after funding. I was a physicist, not a negotiator or economist. Then came the medieval feudalism where the mere fact that you had dr, or prof or whatever was supposed to make others kneel in front of you. I did not kneel, told a few professors (after they provoqued me for a long time) that their contribution to the school was useless (no science, no teaching, no anything, just sitting idle on their tenure) and inserted of telling me what I did not know (that they were super heroes of finding, or whatever), they told me that this is not a way to address a professor. I had a laugh and said good bye. I have a great job in industry, look at these years in awe but would not come back. At least until something changes towards meritocracy.