In 2007--8, I was trying to leave my academic position and join the NSA as a mathematician. It didn't end up working out. That was an enormous blow at the time: with the cycle of academic contracts, I had to choose whether to not sign or to defer the NSA job until the end of the next academic year. I chose the former, and the provisional job offer fell through.

In the end, though, it was probably for the best. When Snowden first hit the news, all I could think of was "there but for the grace of the gods go I."