I have a cousin that was let go about a year and half ago from Lucent Technologies, he did a lot of networking and for them and also was a UNIX administrator. He was extremely loyal to the company, however, come crunch time he was hacked. Instead of looking for another company to work for he decided to start his own consulting business. He was well liked at Lucent and now does lot’s of work for them as well as SBC and makes double what he did working for the company.

Maybe you should consider branching out on your own. It sounds like you know your job very well and you seem to have a good rapport with management so your foot is already in the door. A company would rather pay an outside source (contractor) and pay generously instead of hiring a full time employee. Heck my cousin did it I’m sure you could too.

I wish you all the best, trust me I know what you’re going through since I’m in same field as you are. The situation sucks.

Good Luck Dan,

Todd