This is really up to you and it depends a lot on what you want/have to do. When I have a problem like that, I use 2 "methods":
1. Which solution is the best from the point of view of the 3 main characteristics of OOP.
2. I try to think as "I am the object" and "I am the program". Or: the object is the employee, the program is the boss. The idea is to choose the solution when the program/the boss works less and doesn't need to know how the class/the employee does its job. Of course, this is just to help me understand the process. There are many other aspects that count.

And don't forget: OOP is not a bunch of laws, OOP must only help us work less now and in the future (ie: development and maintenance). There's no "best way". There's only "best way from the point of view of...".

BTW, you can't subclass an object.

HTH,
Vlad

>I want to utilize objects in the best way possible but I also want to follow good design principles. I could use some
>advice on the length of time I stay in the object itself.
>Example.. I have an object that is subclassed for 50 different states. Within the code, there is an outer and inner loop
>whereby the outer loop is in the master table and the inner loop is with the children. Each subclass does some specific
>i/o but the majority of the work is done from the methods in the base class.
>
>Should the calling prg control these loops and call methods withing the object or should the calling prg go into the
>object and let all the looping and other work be handled by the object itself? There is alot of low-level i/o as well in
>the methods.
>I can here my PROF going crazy over letting the object do all the work.. eg staying within the object the entire time.