Hey pal, like a job in computers?

One day Dad fish came home with a slightly more puzzled than usual expression, and caught me in the Fish Lair's kitchen, trying to manipulate a piece of meat into a SMP (Schnitzel, Mustard and Pickles) sandwich.

"Hye, Red" he said, and proceeded to a line that hasn't changed in the last 12 years, "What do you know now that you didn't know in the morning?"

"According to statistics of death at the job, the most dangerous job in the US is president" I said.

"Aha. And how's school?"

"Boring. I'm still waiting for someone to say something I don't know. And how was your day?"

"I had a job interview."

"I didn't know you were looking."

"I'm not. They were."

Since I can remember, Dad fish hadn't kept a job for more than three months. This was not, god forbid, because of him being layed off, just out of boredom. Usually he'd quit and then join the company that would offer him a business trip to the farthest place - he has by using this method managed to visit San Francisco, Tokyo, Norway, Sri Lanka, Bahrein and Quiriat-Bialik (He chose that last one because it sounded exotic, but it turned out not to be that far away after all).

"Then how did it go?" I asked, while considering adding tomato to the project, thus making it an SMTP sandwich.

"Pretty good, I think"

"So are you going to move there?"

"I don't think I have a choice", he said miserably.

Further investigation lead to the following acts: The interview took place at the corridor leading to the offices of Dad Fish's current company. The offering company's representative was dressed in a heavy brown coat, wore a hat that hid his face, stayed in the shadow and spoke in a hoarse whisper.

The interview itself was very short, and consisted of the following:

"Psssst. Hey you. Do you know how to program?"

"Yes."

The company representative then handed Dad a calling card and disappeared into the darkness. Following the instructions on the card, Dad Fish found out that he was offered a luxurious, complete with a jacuzzi, in expensiveville, unlimited internet access for him and his family for the rest of our lives, a twice-annual all-expanses paid trip to DisneyWorld, and an obscene paycheck. This was, obviously, an offer that cannot be refused, and that was a shame, because he actually kinda liked his current company and didn't plan to leave for another month or so.


He turned it down. Why would he need to take offers from suspicious strangers when he has dozens of company representatives gathered below his window, throwing job offers, neatly folded into paper airplanes, into his office?

Okay, so there has to be a reasonable explanation to why the rest of the world sinks into depression, programmer paycheck just keep getting bigger and bigger. There are plenty of software companies and not enough people who know how to program, so naturally the prices go up. When I joined the Alugktogajic course I was told they were waiting at the college's exit at graduation day, snatching away everything that comes out with a diploma and locking them in golden cages with Pentium-II's. I very much doubt this story - why would they stalk the exit when they can just walk in - but the basic situation seem to be, um, pretty good. If you can program and you have a diploma, you pretty much got the job. But you have to have a diploma. If you don't have a diploma, you'll never get a job at a software company: you'll have to found a new one. And get really stinking rich.

All the while, there are thousands of professional lawyers going around unemployed. But hey, they have movies made about them. You have to settle your priorities.