I'm of the opinion that most workplaces do not provide adequate opportunities to become an expert in anything beyond the very narrow niche job you're paid to do

I'm of the opinion that most workplaces do not provide adequate opportunities to become an expert in anything beyond the very narrow niche job you're paid to do. Often it's knowledge of of their business domain that trumps programming skills. A few are lucky to have research jobs that allow for spreading your wings, but you're typically already an expert in something before you can land a job like that. I'm also a corporate drone right now, and my experience is that most of my "corporate programmer" peers check their programming skills at the door when they go home. Adequacy and personal development mean nothing to them so long as they remain gainfully employed. These men and women also tend to be the most boring people to converse with, not because they lack passion for programming, but because they have no apparent passions at all. Any personal improvements are due to system constraints that force them to learn something new to prevent failing a task. The few who strive to improve on their own, learn another language besides Java, have side projects or businesses, or run a blog or whatever...they're the ones who also do interesting non-programming stuff. I attribute it to having a personal drive or being a self-motivated person or having some mental itch that needs scratching. Something that just prevents a person from being happy by just sitting around watching TV.