AgentK

Hello Friends, Romans and Countrymen, This is my first post on this forum and may be one of the most candid post. For past few days I am really stuck pondering over 'Is Ph. D. for me?' or may be 'Am I for Ph. D.?'. I know the simple answer of yes or no depends on who am I currently, what I WANT to become and of course what I CAN become (can't really become superman though I want to become!!). I also know I am the best person to answer these questions.. they why this post?? Consider it just a dump of my frustration of not knowing the world at large and specially the Ph. D. and academic world or a call for genuine help or may be my way to know if there more such humans on earth who also went through similar thinking before the dived or did not dive, this post is to get some real guidance on wether an eccentric like me should opt for a Ph. D. At the cost of sounding a bit rude to the great academicians around, let me start with candid submission, I don't like academic life niether do I plan to go and publish loads of high quality research papers in academic journals. What I reallly like to find answer to some very stupid but yet unanswered questions. I like challenging myself every single day. And sadly my current job doesn't challenge my abilities even a bit. Okay so let me tell a bit about myself. I am a typical 'corporate' guy in his late 20s from India. Did my MBA from one of the top 20 bschool and getting paid more than decent. Couldnt ask anything more in life at this stage.. But, somehow there is nowhere that thrill in the life.. that learning something new every other day.. Theres always a stupid client sitting on my head shouting his *** out and a bunch of more stupid reportees waiting for I shouting at them.. Its all mess.. Theres not talent and especially management skills of MBA grade required to manage this show.. So, lately I started thinking about what can be the escape routes.. of course the easiest is job switch!! But, the role in which I work has more or less similar things all across the companies So, I started thinking about something which will challenge my knowledge everyday.. there will be guys around who will understand what economics is, what strategy is, what does it mean when I say we need to optimize and stuff like that.. I think academia is one such place.. And so thats how I started looking at Ph. D. world... But frankly I am feeling hesitant on betting 5 long years of my life at this stage.. Also I am not quite type of a guy who will feel good about converting life's simple problem in scarry looking equations, putting them together with some more scarry looking equations, publishing them in top academic journals and then moving onto the next.. I think I am type of a guy who will like to roll up the sleeves, get the hands dirty and see if I have really solved the problem.. as they tell it elegantly 'Applied Research'. So, do you think a guy like me who is more interested in 'working' (and not 'publishing') on intelligent day to day problems should get into a Ph.D. program? I think I won't be suited to enter those sacred academic colleges post Ph.D. and will have to settle down with corporates.. So, is it really routine to get back to corporate post Ph.D. or its going to hurt searching for a Corporate job post Ph.D.? Tried doing a little bit of Googling and came to know about Doctorate of Management programs.. seems it is closre to 'Applied Research' when compared to pure Ph.D. in management... So, please help this poor soluld in carving his years to come..