In science, there is also a definite “smartest one in the room” phenomenon. Everyone is competing for grant money to fund their research, and while there is a lot of collaboration, there is also a lot of competition – a lot of it based on one’s personal and intellectual merits over another. This can lead to a culture of politics that I was always really uncomfortable in.
I like not having life and death in my hands. If I mess something up now, there is a delay and a problem. If I messed something up in the lab, it could have meant the loss of millions of dollars and a delay in the progress of solving terminal diseases. I like working in a field that matters, but I also like to sleep easily at night without that kind of stress weighing on my conscience.
There is a surprising amount of skill overlap between my previous and current life. One – memorization of acronyms. I believe memorization is a mental muscle that you have to keep in constant exercise, and luckily I have a well-developed one for learning all these AIA, AHC, DHI acronyms.
Secondly, there is a lot of coordinating between multiple players. To get a scientific study up and running required coordinating researchers, administration, technicians. To get a construction project up and running requires almost as many – okay, probably more – players in the game.
