"I'm Batman, and I can breathe in space."

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one," he said.
"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one,"
...But still, THEY COME!

I concur. I'll also be more sympathetic to the pharmaceutical industry when they stop leaning on doctors to prescribe one medication over another via bribes or other chicanery, typically a more expensive one. I have actually switched MD's over this in the past.

I'll be more sympathetic to the Rx industry when they cease covering up their mistakes and take responsibility for the lives they have potentially ruined. Case in point: There is some preliminary indication that Avandiamet, a medication I am on, has been found to cause heart problems in some patients. Curiously, when I've been getting stressed out lately, my chest starts hurting. Funny, that. There are other cases out there, but little talk of reparation or even apology from the Rx companies unless someone starts priming the Giant Lawyer Faucet in the Sky. Admittedly, I will also be a little more sympathetic when my accursed employer realizes that you can't raise workers' prescription costs by 50-125% without giving them a salary increase to compensate. Well, you can, but you wind up with either very sick workers, or very broke workers.

I'm 32. I currently work in enterprise support, and have been in various IT and support functions almost since high school.

I make a point of not bringing my work home with me -- If I do, it just winds up stressing my wife, my roommate, and myself out just that much more, and it isn't worth it.

Shit-tons of work for about 2/3 the pay is getting to be typical for this industry from what I've seen, unless you're either a tiny technological deity or possessed of the gift of gab to a degree that you could convince a rabbi to have a ham sandwich during Passover.

I've bounced around enough IT/tech support jobs and done some consulting on the side, and I know that this is no longer the field I want to be in. There's too much instability, with companies buying and selling each other like children swapping baseball cards. Long hours, at least at some firms, are the norm rather than the exception, and if you insist on having a home life there are always those who think that you're not a team player. There are too many managers who don't comprehend word one of the explanations they demand, and blame you for their lack of understanding, particularly if it means that They Look Bad... even if it's ultimately their fault for not adequately supporting their staff. You're measured by criteria that are composed of formulae that shift according to the political whims of the company.

This is one reason I'm going back to school for a Mechanical Engineering degree -- still involved with technology, but I won't have to worry so much about arbitrary metrics.

I'll be creating, rather than just patching this, installing that, and rebuilding the other.

If/when my wife and I ever have children, I will neither encourage nor discourage them to follow my footsteps. My dad was in IT, until the bottom fell out, and now he sells Harley-Davidson parts in Florida, making a fraction of what he once did, but he's still happy. He's certainly more relaxed than I've seen him in years.

Even when he was still in the field, he made certain to strike a balance between work and home. That was his example to me, and that's the lesson I'm going to pass on to my own kids, should that occur: Do whatever you feel like doing -- but don't take it so seriously that you stop living.