Be careful - or the headaches get bigger. (Score 1)

So I, like a number of other people moved from my home to Silicon Valley as part of the gold rush. I had gone to school for an earth science, but found that I wanted to have a 'real job' (tm) before moving on to the life of poverty and humiliation that is graduate school.

It was a good time, and then the bubble burst. I was left scrambling for a job, like so many others. Through some dice searching, I managed to land a science gig with reasonable pay, back in my home state. Sounded good to me.

No, here's the problem: I forgot how eduational institutions operate. As a student, you are insulated froma lot of the political BS that flys around at higher levels in academia.Being technical staff for a bunch of scientists is no fun at all, especially if they have degrees in computer science (!!).

Now, I'm a system administrator, not a programmer, so my perspective might be a little different. All I can say is, be careful before making the jumpp back into the academic/science world - you might be in for some frustration. There is little in the IT world that can rival the ego of a PI (Principal Investigator) on a project. Be ready to have your opinions ignored, and get ready to do some crackheaded stuff in the name of keeping the researchers happy.

Just my $0.02.