I tend to get bored if I stay in the same job too long. Also cash, promotions, and respect are easier to come by when you switch companies. Sad, but true. My progression has been tech support, NOC, Network Engineer, Windows Admin, Network Eng/Sys Admin, Sys Admin/DBA/Network/Developer/IT guy, Application Operations, and finally head Application Engineer which is mostly capacity planning, architecture review, project management, and trying to catch issues before they take the service down. Most of what you learn at one job can be applied at another job. At the very least you'll be that Sys Admin that actually understands routing or the DBA that doesn't blame the network first.

None of the moving around has retarded my career and I'm somewhat sought after these days because I'm a generalist with a 14 years of experience as well as workign at five startups. Moving around like that might not work for everyone, but I recommend it if you're bored to tears with your current bailiwick and actually like the IT field overall.

kashani

This is completely false. Idiot people who don't want to have to wear a helmet continue to bring that nonsense up. Think about it. How can a helmet which spreads an impact out over a large space *and* absorbs impact via padding be worse than no helmet at all.

Wait, you mean David Weber's rehash of Horatio Hornblower? :-P

Not that I didn't enjoy the first couple of books, but there isn't anything new in them.

Meh, you get quantum physics shoehorned into some of the worst sci-fi ever written. Truly awful characters and just plain bad plots. I read a lot of tripe, but those two guys just suck.

kashani