I agree for most jobs, but academia is different. It's so wildly different to other careers, that it does feel more like a calling, and is far easier to identify with. Especially if you are a first generation academic, you are doing something considered wildly more prestigious than anything anyone before you has done.

That is, I think it's relatively easy to dismiss your career as not that important if you have a normal job. But I think it's inherently much harder if you are an academic for many reasons.

I think academia is one of those special places where a lot of people who enter it are altruistic and idealistic, and consider it a part of their identity to make a change in the world in a larger sense. You are literally taking a pay-cut, willingly, in order to make the world a better place. At least in theory. So, in that sense, academia is (or at least used to be) more akin to monasteries than corporations.

Not that other jobs aren't making a change in the world, but you know what I mean. It's one thing to be a knowingly replaceable cog in a team that tries to offer more effective ads, and it's quite another to singularly, completely in isolation, try to devote your life trying to invent the MRI, where if you fail the MRI may never come to exist. So yes, a lot of people in academia traditionally do ascribe a big part of their identity to their jobs, but I think this goes beyond the superficial sense you describe (i.e. I'm so boring and soulless that my work defines me).

Which is also why it's such a big deal when some academics are found to be 'cheating' the system (again, see monasteries). Traditionally, the whole edifice has been based on 'honor', but the tide seems to be changing; the rampant corporatisation of academia has been a very recent phenomenon, and now that the inevitable shills and snake-oil merchants have entered the game, we don't quite know how to handle them.

You can't really be an academic whose identity is not centered around their job. This is because it virtually never makes sense to pursue an academic career as a means to other ends (given that pay and conditions tend to be quite bad).

In the 19th century you had the same job for life. If you were a blacksmith you stayed a blacksmith and died a blacksmith in the village where you were born. Your surname was synonymous with your skill. Wheeler. Smith. Potter. Even in the mid 20th century people worked for the same company for life. The "corporate" (body) world meant something very different than today. The corporation took care of you. It paid for your health and holidays. If you were unhappy in work, it helped sort that out so you would stay. As late as the 1960s, and still for some people who work in government, and still a culture in Japan, you can get a "job for life".

"Career" means to move haphazardly. It replaced the more stable notions of "vocation" and "calling". Today you might spend a year in hospitality, a few years in sales, then do a diploma in programming, move to California, get into media design, and then open a juice bar on the beach... Everyone is at the mercy of ever swirling markets and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, layoffs and takeovers, new trends. Who here didn't "get into AI" in the last 2 years?

In a way that's a richer better life. It's more challenging. It is also shallower. There are less places to put down roots and grow anything worthwhile. People with active minds and a lust for life naturally outgrow scenes, groups and institutions. Moving on should be an exciting joy. What I see of America and UK now (at least here on HN) is that people are held in place by fear. We've regressed to 19th century ideas about work and life, minus the positive 'belonging'.

What I think people sometimes "grieve" is the sunk-cost spiritual investment in what they thought an institution represented. Or they found themselves in an career that is in decline. or in institutions that have decayed - and it's painful to move on. Those reasons may be emotionally noble; loyalty, fidelity to values etc. You can let go of values and of a dream. Or you can take them with you, by realising that they never belonged to any "institution" in the first place. They're yours.

Academia is definitely that place in 2024. The reality of academic life is the antithesis of human values we traditionally associate it with. If the institutions we inhabit are inflexible, ineffectual, and less than our ambitions then it's time to move on. The problem is not so much that people identify with what they "do", but where and with whom they do it. It's a strong and valuable kind of person who keeps their calling/purpose separate from their employment identity.

Cults sometimes don't allow returnees.

Academia tends to have fairly linear career paths. You do a doctorate, then maybe do a post-doc, then become a lecturer / assistant professor, etc. If you don't follow the path you end up without the track record (publications, funding, etc.) you need for promotion and will be passed over for other candidates who look more likely to succeed. There are many more applicants than positions in most fields.

If you're not on this career path, there is basically no alternative in most institutions. You can be an adjunct, or lab assistant, or other low-level employee forever but this will lead nowhere. This is particularly a problem in the US, where the tenure track system gives you seven years of grind to achieve tenure, and if you fail your academic career is basically over.

(Things are changing. Some institutions have, for example, teaching track positions.)

Well, for one, people usually leave for systematic issues with academia that won't just magically be fixed over time.

Second, it's very difficult to get back in anyway, you will have a publication gap and with the extreme increase in publish and perish it's hard to imagine it being a good choice. Here in Germany, getting any permanent academic position is a pipe dream even for the extremely motivated. This ties back into the first point.

Not OP, but in general to be hirable in academia you need to demonstrate a constant flow of papers and grant proposals.

Being 'out of the game' for a couple of years means you have not published or applied to grants within that time. At best, you might be looking at restarting at the bottom of the ladder until you've reasonably caught up in numbers to climb back up again.

And it's not even just a case of "computer says no" because of automated metrics. In the UK at least, government initiatives like the REF mean that the university will actively avoid hiring you because by definition you would be costing the university money. (and conversely, you have an advantage for being hired if you demonstrate the right REFfable metrics, even if you weren't the most suitable candidate at the interview, because this automatically brings a university money that is directly linked to your recent REF outputs).

I don't know what the situation is like in the US, but I'm fairly sure similar exercises exist with effectively the same effect.

Academia is a guild. There are far more people who want the job that can get it, and has very strong employment protections for members. They don't welcome outsiders anyhere except the bottom of ladder.

At some level in industry you have at least the potential to have the paradox of choice. Of course, some people are perfectly happy and successful with roles that are essentially the same in the fundamentals from one company to the next. But others largely reinvent themselves with each new role both between different companies and even within the same one. That really isn't an option in academia.

I did a PhD and postdoc too. My issue was how drawn out it was. I had a 3 year postdoc contract with great pay, so it seemed like a really bad idea to quit. Basically I spent 3 years wanting to quit but knowing I couldn't because it made no economic sense. Our group leader didn't care at all. He was totally fine with me sitting around earning money while doing everything.

I think I would have done far better if I were simply fired.