At my college in Oxford, one of the night porters had (according to rumours)
been a high flying student at one stage. She got a job after finals, but had
problems with stress and decided that she'd be happier doing a non-academic
job, so she became a porter. She'd been there about 10-15 years when I left,
and (I think left a few years after with a job in academia).
This wasn't ever confirmed to me, so it may have not been true. She was a
lovely (and interesting) person to talk to anyway.

Having lived, studied and worked in Cambridge, you could never make any
judgment about someones intelligence by what job they had, someone's
secretary could easily have just as good a degree as they did. I myself
worked part time on both the academic and admin side at the same time!

Anne