Nick;

I have mentioned this before. A friend of mine graduated from college with a degree in Software Quality Assurance (SQA), five years ago. The featured speaker (a Ph.D.) at the graduation ceremony was the president of AudoDesk (AutoCad) and he had something interesting to say: “I have had 17 jobs in my career, nine of which no longer exist. I suggest everyone remain in higher education to keep current with the job market”!

Life is about survival and we do what we must to exist. If you are employed you “have no problem” and if you are not employed… Always be prepared for what life may throw at you. When you get comfortable watch out! That is when you are least prepared for change!

By the way the job market for programmers in the San Francisco Bay Area is not good. I heard that there were 160,000 lost programming jobs in our area. That is the jobs no longer exist. You do not see ads for programmers in our newspapers except for "jokes" - that is non-existent jobs. In Silicon Valley we have 16 million square feet of empty office/rd space, 8% housing vacancy and about 6% unemployment and the numbers continue to climb. After 6 months you are no longer considered unemployed regardless of your status in real life.

For a successful life I recommend:
1. Remain employed or be born rich
2. Never get sick
3. Never have an accident

The above formula will assist you in having a comfortable life. :)

Now if I could only follow my own advice! :)


Tom


>John
>
>Here's a statistic.
>
>www.jobserve.co.uk search on foxpro contracts in last 5 days gives 3 results
>
>search on VB last 5 days gives 280.
>
>I definitely get a lot less calls about foxpro development work from agencies.
>
>There is work there but I have to find it myself much more now.
>
>I'll probably get sniped at now for expressing a negative message like Kevin.
>
>
>Nick Mason