Wow. I posted this thread 8 years ago and I am still employed at the same company!
I'm coming up on 9 years at this company in September. I *love* the people I work with and love being in a fast-paced super-techie environment and I have gained a huge amount of education here and several friends whom I consider family.
The industry itself wears me out some days. There can be a lot of stress and a lot of bureaucracy and I can feel the glass ceiling sometimes but I've also had the luxury of being completely and 100% out of the closet here (Like, so far out that I have spearheaded multiple diversity projects).
I've only held one position in all of my white-collar employment where I felt the homophobia leaking from people's faces and that was working for the State. I swore I'd never put up with that shit again...and I haven't.
My company is going through a massive transition right now and I don't know what it is going to mean for me in the long run. I hope I can stay here for a while longer until I decide what I want to do long-term. I have thought about taking a teaching position at a university or maybe developing my freelance work into something more full-time, and I definitely could because my free-lance can be as lucrative was my steady, just with more hustle. LOL
In short, I'm employed full-time in a white collar environment at a high-tech marketing company. I have an office, a salary, and I don't punch a clock.
I never imagined myself in this position because I always thought I'd end up being a mortician or working for the FBI but such is life.
