Hey Jon,

Beat them to the bang. Going to a job everyday feeling like you might not have one shortly is horrible. I'd suggest being proactive instead of reactive. Don't wait for them to lay you off or fire you. Look to see what's out there, balance what's out there with what you would prefer doing. Try to find a happy medium. Get the training and move on. Also, salary isn't everything, I've found that people learn to live within their means. In other words, the more you make the more you spend. If a position would allow for you to spend more time with the family or be a closer commute it may be something to consider (as long as they can pay you what you need). Just my two cents.

Aloha,

James
>Hi guys,
>
>I realise this is not what you guys are here for but I need to make some importent decisions over the next few months and any advice suggestions would be greatly recieved.
>
>Background - I have almost 4 years of Fox 2.6 and VFP6 experience, I've been with my current company for 3 years. They have just been bought out and it seems the product I work on is going to be redevloped overseas in VB.NET. This is good for the company because they will be able to produce a product at a very low cost..but I dont think its so good for me. The new company seem not to want to involve the UK based team in any of the new product development and Im concerned because this puts me in a very weak position.
>
>Basically I want to make sure I'm in a strong position when they decide they dont need any of the developers based in the UK, probably in the next 12 months or so.
>
>I think I need to retrain as although I love foxpro there arent to many jobs about for it (espcially in the area I want). My main concern is that it seems the the role of the programmer especially in the UK is not that clear, it makes perfect sense for companies to out source their development overseas as it save a significant amount of money, but I think that means that the programmers lifetime is coming to an end.
>
>I was looking to get my MCP in VFP6, however I dont think this will really benefit me as I think if a VFP job came up I could get it with or without the MCP.
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>I have almost 12 months experience in SQL 2000, I am seriously considering funding myself through a "boot camp" style course to gain certification on SQL 2000, hopefully this will open up some more doors for me. My idea behind this is that I would leave open the opportunity of moving into a DBA role if I gained a couple more MCP's and I feel this role may have a longer lifetime than that of a programmer. My other choice is to do some training on .net technology however I dont have any commercial experience in this so Im not so sure and it also means Im slightly more tied to the programmer role.
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>I know I could self study for these exams, but in a cost benefit sort of way I dont know if I can wait (have) that much time before Im going to really need to move jobs. The cost of the investment (and I would see it as an investment) in the short term would hopefully be repaid in the long term by a better job and salary.
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>At the end of the day its really my own fault that im in this position as I have sat back and not thought about the future (that along with my company not re-investing in me).
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>Wow this is a long message if you get this far im impressed.
>
>What im interested to know..
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>Do any of my theries make sense. I don not want to pay out lots of money for a course that may not improve my chances of finding new workk.
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>Do "boot camps" work. Im looking to do it with "thetrainingcamp" has anybody used them or can they reccomend anybody else.
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>Apologies for the extremely long message.