You'd be surprised how little corporate bureaucracy values the act of "keeping the lights on" for an existing and stable revenue stream. Obviously, keeping the money hose going is good for the business, but it only gets recognized in the case of failure. To put it simply, it doesn't create new value, which is what corporate culture in the US is all about.

^this is a really underrated statement.

Coming from “sysadmin”/tech/keeper of the lights on: there is no win at the bottom line. Keeping the lights on always costs money, they always wish it could cost less (except when inter-company bragging about having the new hot tool), and when you’re doing your best possible job they will forget you exist. If something happens on your watch they can just as easily assume you have not been working at all.

One thing I’ve distilled from all this: Always keep at least some focus on how much your work costs vs how much value it’s providing.

Maybe what you do IS cool, but you expect others don't think it is, or you don't make it sound cool when you talk about it. I've made some pretty mundane work sound cool, but it's not always easy.

You may be right about that. I should note, however, that I am not out there looking for a new gig. I have kids, am getting a master's degree part time, and have a small side business. Yet I still have time to read books at night. Find me another job where I can do all that :)

having been part of many candidate interviews you would have massively scored in my book with this comment. you have values other than work. that's something I value very highly.

wish there were more like you these days to interview (I am just 42, so take it with a grain of salt) but the youngsters, straight from college with a streamlined CV are sometimes difficult to deal with imho.

No one pays for prevention. Few pay for maintenance. Everyone pays for the fixes required from the lack of investment in the former.

You sound like you hold a lot of disdain for "the youngsters," and you'd be a liability on a team if you had any younger teammates.

Oldies can be hard to work with, and you're sort of proving it right here.

I have a disdain for people that don't finish what they've started and don't satisfy requirements. I don't feel as though that has much of anything to do with age. Anyway, if that makes me hard to work with, so be it.

Wait, are you telling me that you develop software to solve business needs and not as a personal art project?! What kind of crazy talk is this?!

> I have a disdain for people that don't finish what they've started and don't satisfy requirements.

And everyone younger than you fits this criteria? You're quite bigoted, I hope you realize that.