When I was looking for my first job after university, I interviewed at the Johnson Space Center with a NASA contractor. The work looked super interesting. A fellow engineer from my university and great friend had taken a job at a different contractor a few months prior and was working on the jet packs that astronauts use during space walks. But…the working environment was dismal. Windowless, cinderblock walls and office furniture from the 1960s. The paperwork would be monumental. Finally, the pay was 25% less than my last offer. All that said, I really thought about taking the job just so that I could reply at opportune times, “Actually, I am a rocket scientist.”

I didn’t take the job and had to find other ways to be insufferable.