The current landscape in the web encourages this movement. Even when employed in a position, designers and developers are not truly employees, but hired guns. How often do we see a talented designer hired by a company leave in under two years? I’m not sure if dissatisfaction is the cause, but the “grass-is-greener” mentality seems alive and well in our industry.

via Chris Bowler’s Cultivating Contentment

I see the same problem in the IT Support industry. I’ve worked in tech support for nearly a decade and I’ve always felt like a nomadic hired guns. This goes double for large corporations and government agencies.

There are very few full-time employees. And the few positions that are full-time are managers and executive staff. Basically, the overseers of the crowd of IT contractors they use to perform the jobs of the department.

The help desk techs. The desktop support techs. The network and server administrators. All these people are contractors. Maybe we stay for ten years and have a great career in one place. But more often, we tend to roam from place to place as we get bored, company culture changes or we just want something new.

There is no end to the available work because IT Support is always in demand and the grass is always green.