Since the beginning I could not stand the medieval system where there is a deference towards senior staff only found elsewhere in North Korea and religion. This did not end well, with some exchanges such as the one from an emeritus professor, when learning that I will be doing simulations and neural networks in physics said "yes, this is for the weaker students, the ones that do not understand physics", to what I replied "you are right, professor, to do what we do requires a minimum of intelligence that some do not have and are blissfully unaware of that". This set the tone.
I also had a theoretical physics prof that was super cold and hard with us, showing how much we don't know. We hated him with all our heart. At some point he told me "the more intelligent students have found out by now that at year 4 you can call me by my first name". To what I replied "ah, I was not aware of that, professor". I thought the final, very hard oral exam would be a disaster. I got 5 questions, 4 of which I went though easily, and the last one was incredibly hard. I thought "ok, so he got me". After the exam he said "well, the last question was for the best students I am afraid. I can only give you 20/20 and not 25/20 if you had it right...". This is where I discovered that assholeness and fairness live in two independent quantum states :) A few years later I told him "you know, we will never be friends but I will never forget how fair and professional you were during the exam. You set for me a model I will be proud to follow".
My thesis director was an angel. He was very senior in the university (vice-rector at some point) and helped me to navigate the muddy waters of academia. He was glad that someone was shaking the status quo and was cleaning up after me and smoothing things out. I wanted to add him as a co-author on my best paper, in a very prestigious journal and he said "I have all the prestige I need, do not dilute your work". He was quite stressed with my 45 pages PhD thesis but said "well, you will be the one belly dancing et the defense". He was really something, I miss him a lot.
I left academia for the industry, another medieval system but at least I was much better paid and could build my own teams to go ahead. But I miss teaching a lot.
