Over the years my dad has worked for a few different people in his trade. One of his (many) big frustrations is the tools situation. You have a boss who is chintzy with what his company spends on tools. I mean sure, it's nice that the company got that new vacuum former in the corner that's fully-automated, but it still doesn't help the fact that you have to work with a crappy band-saw and 40-year old hand tools.

Old tools isn't too much to complain about on it's own; after all, it's good to be frugal. What sucks is that this tool-stinginess is invariably coupled with an insistence of high quality and performance... which you somehow have to pull off with your crappy tools. To top it all off like a maraschino cherry that's been stewing in a bottle of olives, is the end result. That is, when with your herculean skillz you manage to pull of something resembling a decent result/product, it's either (a) Not good enough, or (b) Grudgingly accepted. It isn't exactly the kind of lifestyle that makes you feel appreciated or ambitious.

The rules are the same, whether you're talking about manufacturing tools or software/hardware technology.

And you can only be in that kind of situation for a certain amount of time before you realize it's not actually worth the effort.