I have a hard time classifying myself. I would say I'm a medium skill w/ potential and varying will. Basically I WANT to be really good, I WANT to learn the newest stuff... I'm always reading about the next thing in my particular area of the industry (Java development, specifically). But my employer current provides exactly zero resources for training or instruction. No money for conferences/training courses (which are expensive out-of-pocket), and any time taken to attend on my own dime is unpaid. Coupled with the fact that I've been working on the exact same thing for THREE YEARS. An ERP system with a Swing client, WebLogic app server, and an old, slow implementation of web services.

I desperately WANT to spread my wings, so to speak... to learn and utilize the newest stuff. But as mentioned there's no encouragement or help for knowledge advancement, and they have no desire to integrate the new technologies into our project. And suggestion to that end is met with, paraphrasing: "Nope. Get back to building that screen."

On the rare, rare occasions I get to jump into something where my knowledge is being stretched, my will is VERY high... 16-hours-a-day-7-days-a-week high. But the vast majority of the time, it's painful even getting in my 40 hours a week building yet ONE MORE screen with a table and a save button.

Am I being too picky? I guess a job is a job...