Scottie, it sounds to me as if leaving the purist academic environment rather than the ****ty colleague is the root cause of your problem.
In any work situation there will be someone scrambling about for personal advantage, and even self-employed you can always get a power-crazed client or a manipulative supplier.
That's just the way it works, something I think you have, I'd guess, already worked out, hence your disquiet over the US job which may easily be 'out of the frying pan into the fire' as the chance is strong that there will be another ****ty person there too.
Have you thought about pure academic work, or even teaching? It strikes me that you
- may not be too money motivated
- are obviously a good communicator
IT lecturers, or especially teachers, are typically in short supply - most qualified people go into the real world, where the money is. The payoff - holiday time with your family - may be a big bonus to you. And whilst the politics still exist - ugly smear campaigns when head of dept. comes up etc - this may be easier for you to cope with as the competitive rulebook between teachers or academics is structured and so is typically a bit less easy to manipulate.
Well, I do currently lecture in programming as my development job is based at a university. The new job applied for is a lecturing (tenure track post). However, I'm not sure the issue is one of leaving purist academia. I believe it is more of one of the toxic work culture.
Oddly, if we all worked in the common interest of each other and the organisation, we would all be doing so much better. It would be a brilliant place to work. Some of them are potentially great, but have been sucked into this work culture, or been sedated by it (in two instances).
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Well, I do currently lecture in programming as my development job is based at a university. The new job applied for is a lecturing (tenure track post). However, I'm not sure the issue is one of leaving purist academia. I believe it is more of one of the toxic work culture.
Oddly, if we all worked in the common interest of each other and the organisation, we would all be doing so much better. It would be a brilliant place to work. Some of them are potentially great, but have been sucked into this work culture, or been sedated by it (in two instances).