It's still great and I make decent money doing low stress work. Despite being a great job all I can expect is small incremental raises yearly in a shop this size. So... I won't have much upward mobility here. I'm already as high as I can get w/ this company. The silver lining is that I do have very good job security. Salesman push it, I install shit, document installation, teach a few classes afterwards for corporate/govt employees. By doing contractual work I'm actually able to also see how profitable I am. While it's not a large company, I fulfill more contracts in a quarter than anyone else working there does in half a year. Feels goog to be mission critical. There's this misconception IT people are hired for "what they know". While it's generally true people like a piece of paper that doesn't really address future issues. Plasticity of mind and the ability to learn quickly is what matters. I've got like 30 something IT certifications posted on the walls of the office and I generally cheat on all them b/c if it's not in a line of specific set of "hardware and software solutions" offered I'll likely only need it once. Many certifications require a minimum score that's above passing to allow one to hold classes on their proprietary shit.