There's a Chinese American mathematician who had the exact thing happen to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_

There's a Chinese American mathematician who had the exact thing happen to him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang Dude obtained his PhD in 1991 and had some bad blood with his advisor. Coupled with the influx of Soviet talent and some stubborness with staying in academia, he had to deliver food and make sandwiches for almost a decade before finally landing a lecturer job and eventually academic breakthrough more than a decade after that.