[vishnu]

The company I work for has 123,000 employees, management is a mess, okay, it's a disaster, but our IT people are excellent. But as others have mentioned about their pay, my employer pays well enough that very few people ever leave of their own volition. Over the decades I've been there, our facility has laid off at least 2500 people, mostly union machinists (UAW; united auto workers of America). They sent all our production to a former GOCO (government owned contractor operated) that we bought in Louisville, but unfortunately the skill set there has so far been pretty inadequate, which I completely understand, we had an employee group that had a history of making complicated Navy equipment back into the 1920s, how would you like it if your supervisor showed up at your workbench and plunked a drawing package for the MK 45 5-inch deck gun down and said "let me know when you're done," because like I said above, our management are morons. 😜

[stormy]

What you guys are talking about is exactly why I never wanted to work in I.T.. I've been obsessed by computers my whole life, but I quickly realised that just because you are engaged in a time consuming hobby doesn't mean it should be your profession. Where does that leave your mental state when people ask 'what do you do as a hobby' and you answer 'more of what I do at work' ... that's not a good life man.

Also I realised that anyone with specific technical skills (sharp skill based focus mentality) is quickly manipulated and exploited by people in 'management' and they aren't appreciated or paid what they're worth.

The truly smartest of us all are the ones who have 'just enough' knowledge to keep your foot in the technical waters, while keeping your head above water to steer the ship.

[Raion]

You got the right idea man. The only time working in tech is actually worth it, imho, is when you're your own boss. Long term, I have some ideas and plans to monetize things outside of IRIX related projects (which I do out of a labor of love) that have come about because of IRIXNet. So in the future one may see some spinoffs that go mainstream and I try to make a small modest living off that. I'm capable of being thrifty.