... a great deal of the people I know in the business fall into two groups:

1) People who are out of work

2) People who have a job, but don't really like what they are doing very much.

In general the people in group 1 are having a lot of trouble finding anything, and the people in group 2 have very little hope of moving anywhere they like better.

I have to say that this business seems like a fairly bad place to be these days.

I'm wondering if realistically we can excect this to change in the near future, or should many of us seriously consider another line of work.

I was originally attracted into this business by several factors:

1) The chance to innovate
2) The freedom to not feel chained to a given employer

I wanted to make money, good money, but I never really expected to get rich. I have made and still make pretty good money.

Along the line I got convinced by many people that stock options would make me rich. Yeah, I fell for that shit.

But I think almost everyone with a job feels like they are pretty much stuck with it -- good or bad.

And the chance to innovate is much reduced -- many companies are more focused on pulling themselves out of the current ruts -- or simply surviving -- that really, really new stuff is hard to do.

I get to work on more of that kind of thing that most people I know, so I don't have a right to complain.

But I still wonder if this line of work will really be what it was again, and whether it is worth waiting for that to happen.