Harka wrote:

The "just don't work for them if 'ya don't like it"-argument will last about 4 weeks...the approximate time a human can survive without eating. (or a couple of weeks less, if you have kids)

I.e. unless you are the super-duper, three-times nobel-prize-winner (with lots of money in stocks), who can AFFORD to choose employers that freely, you will be DAMN GLAD to have a job AT ALL, regardless of their policies!

Start your own business. It will take sacrifice, but it can be done. It doesn't even need to be in your day-job profession, for that matter -- of the 4 start-ups I've been in, the biggest crash-and-burn was in the computer business (I seem to think mainly like a "practical researcher" rather than a businessperson when it comes to computers...). One of her problems is that teaching is basically a monopoly profession (a fact we are dealing with in our own family) -- there is no second, third etc. public school system as an employer. Another is that she is living in the confines of New York City, although I would think there should be places within 60 miles of her ex-husband where the cost of living should be significantly less. (In the Indianapolis area, she could be buying a house on her income -- maybe through a contract sale by owner rather than through the more common "Realtor" scenario, but buying a house nonetheless.) "Chance favors only the prepared mind", Louis Pasteur once said -- we took advantage of a new local trend 2 years ago, got a guaranteed sale on our large house (2300 sq.ft. with basement), went to a small house (1600 sq.ft. without basement), using the money left over to develop some ground. (All while helping my mother-in-law cope after my father-in-law's death.) There are opportunities out there -- you just have to look for them. They may take a lot of your time (so I advise looking for opportunities that you don't mind or even like exercising at 10pm at night after working a day job and caring for your children), but they do exist. ========================================================== Mark Leighton Fisher Thomson Consumer Electronics fisherm@indy.tce.com Indianapolis, IN "Their walls are built of cannon balls, their motto is 'Don't Tread on Me'"