>Well I've finally made full circle. I thought I'd seen everything that could cause me to loose a job. But I just lost a job thru the "our bank account is empty. Packup and go home. You won't be paid for anymore time you spend here", email. There were problems at the company for the last couple months, but we were all lead to believe that everything was now going great. The company president was giving talks as early as 2 weeks ago about how happy he was about how things were turning around.

Wow... brings back the warm and fuzzy memories, of end of August 2001, the month for which we didn't get paid. And 4 days of July too, and health for July... though this one wasn't embezzlement, it was "we'll junk the VFP app and do everything in VB6/COM/ASP/VBS/SQL/MTDLL".

But the end result was the same. Repeated pep talks about "we've hit the bottom and rebounded", "good news", "we have new investors on board" etc etc... with the final

Chief acct: "...and we will not issue any salaries this month?"

I: "well wasn't that what you always wanted to do but didn't know how?"

Chief acct: "I didn't mean to get myself included!"

Luckily, nine-eleven was only a dozen days ahead, when it became nearly impossible to get hired as a foreigner an international.