I used to feel that way about my job. I can recall getting up at three in the morning with an idea and driving miles in the snow to the lab to try it out. As Grace Slick once sang, "Your mind's guaranteed, it's all you'll ever need." No matter how things turned out, as long as my brain worked I would be able to work.

But for more and more people these days it just isn't turning out that way. We used to use our skill and experience to solve problems, sometimes with the exciting new tools technology had provided us. But today, it seems we spend all our time dealing with the tools instead of doing the work. I spend less and less time solving problems with software and more and more time solving software problems. My work looks more like data entry than creative engineering. And in a world of ever-changing technology, what you know seems to have little relevance to the new tasks that now seem important. What matters now is experience with the latest version, or with file structures and software interfaces. I used to use a generalist's knowledge in math and earth and hard science to hop effortlessly from one technical career to another. Now I have trouble keeping up with my field in the same place I've been for years. You never work with any system long enough to get good at it, and if you are an authority on anything, people look at you like a fossil, not a guru.

Oh sure, "if you don't like your job, you can always get another one." is the usual glib response to this complaint, but the choice isn't as easy as it used to be. You're tied down by a mortgage, health insurance, seniority, family responsibilities, the pension plan. It simply isn't possible to get a new job at half the salary because you want to try something new and build up your resume. At my age, if I do get a job it will be because I have mastered a skill I'm tired of doing. And I'll start out with nothing but a salary. Loyalty and corporate memory is no longer considered an asset.

I know it's not just me, I talk to colleagues my age and I get the same story, everything seems to be morphing into a workplace where judgement and experience mean little, all that matters is the ability to stay just long enough and learn just enough to hop to somewhere else. The technology, the work environment, everything seems to favor the transient, the quick learn, the superficial mind. And of course, those folks will work for nothing...they're young. That's how I was when I was that age.

I don't know if it's the technology, or the changing economics of the workplace, or just my age, but work isn't fun any more. And it's not just me, I talk to engineers, managers, senior technicians, people with time in grade and they all tell me the same story, the things they've spent a lifetime learning don't seem to matter to anyone anymore. The last time I went on a job interview it seems what they were most interested in was that I know Power Point. I used to think only secretaries needed to know that.