What do I do? Well, right now I work for Tickets.com. Probably not as cool as it could have been during the big ol' Dot Com bubble, but not too bad either. As was true back in 1997, I write programs that run on Sun boxes, but nowadays it's all in Java, which I was just learning back then. All of Tickets.com's stuff runs on a few heavy-duty Sun boxes with a few dozen smaller machines running interference on the front end. Not bad, but hell when you need to upgrade the system.
I used to do some other work-type-things on the side - some sys admin, some contracting, but nowadays I reserve my spare time for more relaxing things like screwing with my TiVo or writing for (and playing in) the Ribhus D&D world There is a Ribhus page somewhere out there, but all that's public these days is a cobweb site dating back to about 2000. Not pretty. I also read a hell of a lot. You can read a couple of my reviews at SFReader.com. Writing them is fun but is a lot of work.
Working definitely has its benefits. Money is the main one. I've found that work is a lot like college, except that you can leave it at work when you go home. I used to work at home, which made it a bit sticky, but I also got free net access at home so it was worth it - more or less. Until the cabin fever got to be a bit much do deal with. For a while, I had my very own office with a dedicated ISDN connection. Then it became DSL and I worked with someone else. Then they closed the office and I switched jobs - I've had my fill of working at home for this life :)
Besides, I can still work from home pretty much whenever I want, due to the joys of DSL (and using the same Sun I've been using since 1996, I might add). And when I do I can still have a beer at lunchtime without leaving the office. But no beer at the office any more.
Another benefit of work is you get to go to meetings. I went to lots of them when I worked for Lock*Mart. Lest you think I got out of meetings by working 260 miles from my boss, I'll have you know that he bought a fancy conference phone specifically so I could attend his 11 minute meetings. I've seen it; it looked kind of like the station from Star Trek: Deep Space 9 without the big fins on it. Or maybe like a mutant starfish. And now I get this deja vu feeling all over again - they have the Exact Same Phone at Tickets.com. And every phone comes, standard issue, with one of those snazzy little headset things. These people spend way too much time on the phone.
Nowadays I still get pulled into my share of meetings, though usually only once a week or so. For a while I was a True Blue Manager, and was in many more. Thankfully I was demoted and that stopped happening. Plus spending a day in Microsoft Project every week was driving me insane. Ugh. Unfortunately, actually being *in* an office means I no longer have the remote luxury - doing something useful while all the other poor sods are stuck in the meeting - now I'm one of the poor sods and I know why it takes the people conferenced in an extra second or two every time someone asks them a question. You! Yes, you! You're not fooling anyone! I know damn well you're poking around on eBay or www.hotchixxx.net (not to be confused with www.unixchick.com, of course) or reading your email! Bah!
Back in the day (i.e. when I worked at Lock*Mart), this article had some relevance. Nowadays, my boss is pretty cool, and while the upper level management can be wacky at times, that's always par for the course and I don't get stressed. Writing software is still better than pretty much any other job in my book.