So I'm a telecom tech and I'm so lucky to have fallen into this field. There's so much money in it if you're willing to travel and work away from home for extended periods of time. As I hate my home life (or at least greatly dislike it) this has never been a problem for me; though I do get a bit lonesome at times. Being an introverted recluse helps with that though.
Prob with being a contractor is there's no insurance but what you provide yourself, no paid vacation and if you get hurt you're on your own. There's workers comp but you have to fight tooth and nail to get it and once you do you risk being black balled by the company you were with when you got hurt. We're just numbers at best. But we do make the "big bucks" so we accept this as part of the territory. Sure it gets old but once we're used to this money we become reliant on it and though I'm not as bad as most at saving money, current family issues have been keeping my from working, and though I've made hella money this year, time I've been forced to take off has drained my acct. Always a loop of building bank, then losing it, rinse and repeat.
No, not really a sob story, just venting a bit I guess.