Yea, I've seen guys literally work themself's to death. They finally get the wife, buy the always buoyed yacht; and die at 55. The wife gets over the death pretty quickly because she really never knew the work horse, with all the brilliant ways to get ahead. "He was a hard worker, and had so much ambition---too bad he passed." I guess there's a happy medium to work? I'm not sure what's considered menial these days? I heard people on this site refer to Plumbers and Mechanics as examples of menial occupations, while I bet most make more money than the average computer programmer. We are in another tech bubble. I saw this in the nineties. Guy's who threw around the word menial, and thought their cushy, exciting computer related job would always be in demand. Well, the crash hit hard. They went through their savings. Didn't take a menial job, and by the time the industry started to bubble up again they were just a little to old, or rusty. They never laughed about the menial workers of the world again. The party was over. There were no more alcohol fueled pub crawls--debating nuances of programming languages. There life just stopped. It's kind of sad this industry is so youth oriented, but then again the barriers of entry to this field are not that steep--look at Jennifer. She's a Coder!