| I've never worked in academia so can't offer any comparison, but I can add my industrial experience to the mix in case its helpful. I've had probably a dozen line managers and a couple of dozen superiors I've had to deal with on a very regular basis over the course of my career (a smidge over 20 years). Of them only one, who happened to be a line manager, was habitually abusive. Two others were periodically abusive, but in general not (say once or twice per month), and perhaps three more had very occasional snarly moments/blow-ups. I've worked at, or contracted for, around a dozen companies. Perhaps four of them had a management culture I'd describe as toxic: two explicitly so, two in more underhanded and mendacious ways. Overall if I had to choose between those two evils I'd probably pick the former, although both basically suck. Of the four companies in question in only three of the cases was there any discernible impact on my own happiness and wellbeing. No company has been perfect and all have at times manifested some amount of dysfunction in management and process - I think that's just normal no matter where you work. Almost everywhere I've worked where there are more than about 30 people some element of politics comes into play. Some people play politics more than others, but it's always there. It's also a natural consequence of getting a group of people working together who all have different ambitions, beliefs and values, interests, and motivations. Not everybody pulls in exactly the same direction all of the time. Also, if you are ambitious you will always reach a point where you are "held back" for whatever reason. Often that's because there are only so many more senior jobs to go round, and the company only has so much money to pay wages, although you might hear all kinds of other reasons given. If that's a problem (and sometimes it will be, if you're ambitious) my advice to you would be to find a new job. I've made the mistake of staying at the odd place too long before, but don't do this because - depending on your temperament - you may find it hard to avoid becoming bitter and disillusioned. If that happens it will hamper your search for new employment. Industry pay is probably better than academia but you have to understand that to some extent dysfunctionality and asshole behaviour are part of life. You can (and should) get out of bad situations and move yourself into better situations, but you can never guarantee you won't have to deal with a bad situation again. Industry is absolutely not homogeneous and a lot of it comes down to who your manager is, and your own preferences and biases. E.g., if you're a "just get stuff done" kind of person you may find working for a giant megacorp kind of aggravating. OTOH if you like things to be orderly you may find the more cowboy/everybody muck in and turn their hand to anything ambience of a smaller growing company (not even necessarily a start-up) to be not entirely to your liking. And of course there's a whole spectrum in between. Some people say that you'll have more control over creating a great place to work if you start your own company. That's true to some extent. However, when there's a downturn, pandemic, or your business simply doesn't get enough traction to keep going in its current form, you'll find you have to start making hard decisions. That doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but it will mean you'll make decisions that affect other peoples' lives in ways they understandably won't like. There are no guarantees about the future: the past 12 months should have taught all of us that. With all of that being said, and whatever you decide, I wish you the best, and urge you to always be seeking work that delivers some amount of joy/satisfaction (it'll never be perfect though!). |