Jock,

I can readily sympathise. My 'other half' Nick got made redundant again last month, and he's pretty down in the dumps about it; you can only stay 'upbeat' for so long. He's worked really hard in recent years to get secure employment with decent pay, but it seems standard practice nowadays for companies to regularly 'let go' whole groups of staff in sudden cost cutting exercises.

In September he was made redundant from his third 'permanent' Software Analyst/Programmer job in three years (well, strictly speaking he left one of them on his own accord, but that was only after hearing rumours of the forthcoming cut-backs). In this instance, they got rid of most of the department. The whole thing came at a particularly difficult time for us as only the day before we'd put our house on the market, wanting desperately to move closer to the town where we (or now rather, I) work, and where prices are about 70 percent higher. Looks like I'm stuck with the over-two-hours a day commute for a while longer.

Nick left school with little in the way of qualifications, and has had many career changes to date (British Army, fctory work, Self-Employed Painter/Decorator etc...). In the early 1990's he took some O-levels, then a Computing B-TEC and ended up with a Computer Science Degree. He worked as a self-employed contractor for a while, then moved into 'permanent' work (so called!). He's still searching for employment where 'permanent' might mean longer than 12 months!

No he is 'over 40' and feels that his age will count against him in finding new employment. At the time of writing, he is so fed-up wih it all that he's looking into going to Alaska for a few months to pack fish (16 hour days/6 day weeks)...how can I blame him?!

Julie B