The previous two years, like a lot of junior academics, I become extremely disillusioned with academia: long hours, low pay, and no job security.
I was about to quit my fixed-term assistant professor position (Maths) until I became curious: what would happen if I didn't care about being fired?
So Dec 2012, I made the decision to only focus on high-quality research that I care about (quality over volume), to do a decent (but not amazing) job teaching, and to secretly do consulting/contract work on the side.
It's been really interesting. Suddenly, when I didn't care anymore, they gave me tenure and bumped my salary. Over the year, I've also spent roughly 2 days a week sneaking around and doing contract work which has been amazing financially...
Would anyone be interested in my story?