First, Steve, I would ask myself if I am truly comfortable that my demise is his/her real concern. Budgets, especially governmental, are under heavy "attack" these days and there may be added considerations.

Next I would provide this manager with things like counts of UT registrants in Fla and nearby states, just to help convince that the potential problem is not so deep. If you have a friend or two who do VFP work, give the manager their names as possible replacements should you ever croak prematurely.

Then I would make damned sure that the code/projct(s) are both easily locateable and fully documented. It might even help to get some other IT person from some other agency to spend a morning or less to review/confirm the facts of this matter.

Finally, I would ask the manager what kind of support they expect to get with a canned product maintained at some distance. It surely cannot beat on-site like you are (I assume).

I guess there's another point too - look for more stuff that you can do for the agency to improve their workflow/efficiency, all the while increasing your worth to them.

good luck


>I work for a small government agency in Florida. I am the only IT staff member. The office depends on an application that I have written for it's operation. My boss has become concerned that I am the only one who can support this application. More importantly, he is concerned that if I leave (I have no intentions), or Die, the office will be left in a lurch.
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>Can anyone recommend suggestions that I can use to alleviate my boss' concerns about application support. He is considering moving the office to a canned program. While this does have benefits in the area of support, it will cause major upheaval/stress for all employees, and our in-house application is tailored to our office and can be changed to suit our whims. Certainly someone has encountered similar problems before.
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>Thanks much, Steve.