Trying for academia turned me off of chemistry so hard, I even started to hate my later corporate job doing research.

Though it did get me into regulations and safety, so it all worked out fine. If things had been different, they would have been different, but academia was a massive disillusionment for me.

It sounds weird to say that doing research for someone's increasing personal wealth was much more enjoyable for me, since the funding was just there, and I didn't have to teach students or write grant proposals I never wanted to complete.

The OP laments how he did his PhD because he wanted an academic career, and how his PhD didn't land him a professorship. Given how he must have spent 5 years at some institution or other, and have at least some success seeing how he got the PhD student position in the first place. My point was that how he in those 5 years didn't figure out how hard it is to become a professor I find strange.