Since the economy hit its peak employment rate about two years ago, more than 2 million people have lost their jobs, and there's no sign, yet, of a reversal. According to the Labor Department's latest numbers, about 300,000 jobs were cut in February alone. Tech workers across many industries have been among the hardest hit by the economic slump, but anecdotal evidence suggests that there's a specific kind of tech worker -- what some people call the "tech generalist," people who are pretty good at lots of different kinds of technologies, who consider themselves quick learners and can easily fit into new jobs -- who is having the most difficult time these days.

"I think I can do many different kinds of things, but it's like in the current marketplace I'm worthless," says Bill Lessard. The jobs on fuckthatjob.com bear this out, as do many of the listings on most online job boards, he adds. "They say you have to be able to do five things within a specified industry. You can do databases and graphics. You can do marketing and network administration. And whatever you do you have to have three to five years of experience working with cosmetics for elderly women."

Teresa Guerriero, who has worked as a director of application development for firms in several different industries, and considers herself flexible enough to learn new businesses, expressed a similar frustration. "They say they want you to have all these skills, plus you have to have experience in merchandising or retail or the pharmaceutical industry," she says.

Guerriero, who was laid off seven months ago, is not the sort of dot-com youngster who made millions in the last boom. She has a daughter in high school and a mortgage to worry about. But that background hasn't helped her much in the job market. She's been granted only three interviews since she began her search, a number that disappoints her greatly.

"I'm panicked now," she said, when asked about her state of mind. "I'm through my severance, and I'm slowly making my way through my savings. I thought it would take me six or seven months to find a job, and that's where I am now. But in order to feel some hope I would have had to have had a number of interviews by now, and I haven't. Although I send out a lot of résumés and I'll answer many ads, you're discouraged from sending your résumé in if you don't have 14 of the 15 things they want. If you were responsible for application development in the past, they now want you to be responsible for application development and networking and a dozen other things."

"I don't think anybody's afraid of working hard," she added, "but I was very surprised at the expectations they had."

Although technologists have had a hard time in this slump, their plight has been the least pitied. Much of the coverage of the new economy's souring has had the flavor of a morality play. Dot-com workers are portrayed as victims of their own outsized ambitions, greedy kids who lucked into a pot of gold they hadn't really earned. They flew too close to the sun, and got what was coming to them.

"You go from one exaggerated position to another exaggerated position. It used to be you go to cocktail parties and if they found out you worked in technology they'd say you must be rich, must be a genius," Lessard says. "Now it's like, 'You poor slob, you fool.' Everybody's waiting for you to jump out the window."

Tanya Bershadsky says, "It's kind of embarrassing to tell people you worked on the Web. It's got this weird stigma attached to it now -- when you say what you do, people know you're unemployed. It's like when you meet someone in New York and they say they're an actor, you know they're not working on anything."

Justin Market, a 25-year-old programmer in San Francisco, embodies the shopworn stereotype of the dot-com youngster who seemed to get everything too easily. (The name is a pseudonym; he didn't want his real name published, for fear that prospective employers might question his love of the software industry, which he is thinking about leaving entirely.) Six years ago, Market dropped out of college -- school was no match for the fortunes being minted in the Internet industry. It turned out to be a pretty good decision. Market founded a company that was eventually purchased by WebMD, and, when that company went public, he became an instant millionaire.

When he was 22, Market sold some of his stock to buy an $800,000 house in the city. "I listened to everyone but my accountant," he says now, "and I didn't put enough away for taxes." He has been out of work since early last year, and has about $300 in his bank account. He's trying to sell his house, which he thinks is worth a bit more than $1 million; most of the money he gets from that will go to pay the IRS. He owes "piles and piles" in taxes, he says.

Market's job search, so far, has been less successful than he'd hoped. "It used to be that if you were a smart programmer and could pick things up easily, they wanted to hire you," he says. "Now they want you to have done exactly what the last person in that job has done." The average salary on offer is smaller as well. At his last job, Market was making about $125,000 a year -- which he concedes is large sum for someone his age. These days, "the jobs I'm looking at are $80,000 or $90,000 for full-time," he says. "These are for actual development jobs, which I have a lot of experience in. I've written two books on Java."

Since the start of this year, there has been a slight increase in the number of viable postings available, Market says. He has sent in his résumé to dozens of firms, and has had "a handful" of interviews. But he hasn't received any offers yet.

Market is only looking for a temporary job, one he plans to keep for a year or so, just until he gets himself settled financially. During his last few months of unemployment, he discovered, he says, a new way to live -- a life of meditation and reflection, less troubled by the need to make money and spend it. Market teaches yoga now, and he thinks it's what he wants to do permanently. He's also taken up cooking; he finds that he can make better food than most of the expensive restaurants he used to frequent.

"I see myself being happier now," he says. "It's hard being financially pretty strapped, but I don't have the same stresses that I used to, I don't have the same constant push to acquire shit that I did. Before, I needed more and more stuff, like buying this house, and I've bought all sorts of expensive artwork. You know, I just had this money! You go from having $1,000 in your bank account to having a portfolio worth more than $1 million -- it was just there, and I spent it. But I learned a lot from it, and it was a lesson I had to learn. Things came so easy for me before."

Many other tech workers said they planned to get out of the technology field as well. Tanya Bershadsky now wants to work as a publicist. "When the Web economy collapsed, I felt that I had to reinvent myself," she says. Now she's doing some part-time P.R. work, but permanent work in that industry isn't easy to come by, either. There are several entertainment-industry job boards that allow workers to pay to get early access to new listings, and Bershadsky has willingly done so. It might seem exploitative, she agrees, but in a tight job market, any small edge can help.

Bill Lessard has been writing a book about the technology boom, "Netslaves 2.0: Tales of Surviving the Great Tech Gold Rush," which will be released later this month. But for much of the time he's been unemployed he's worked part-time at a catering company. "I think a lot of people are underemployed like that, and are really in a bizarre situation," he says.

"I remember one time they sent me out before New Year's Eve to place flyers under people's windshield wipers, and this seagull took a crap on me. And I'm like, here's symbolism for you. But you laugh, man, you have to laugh. I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm proud of what I've done with my life. I was part of the construction of the Internet, which is the greatest thing since the light bulb as far as I'm concerned."

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