The Fallout Begins

Two months ago, I noted a fall in morale in the IT industry amongst my friends and colleagues. I wondered whether the best people in the industry who’d been fighting for a sane development process, but living without it because people were handing out cars as signing bonuses, would rather not work in another industry when the cars were no longer available and the fight for what was right didn’t seem to make as much difference any more. Yesterday, one of the people that I’d put into the “right up there” category, Justin Rudd, announced his intention to pack it in and go back to school to be a doctor.

This kind of thing shakes my own faith. Should I continue to bust my hump on the latest and greatest technologies or ditch it all and start that novel I’ve got in the back of my head? I still really love doing the former, but it seems that everyone has to work a lot harder for a lot less these days. Maybe I just need to readjust my thinking, but damn, being smack dab in the middle of an economic boom really does a number on you! I feel like the guy who found a silver mine in the middle of the gold rush. I don’t have any trouble feeding my family and it’s not fool’s gold, but I still pine for those deep, yellow nuggets…