Re:Fight your own battles. (Score 1)

Yes - I had a similiar experience. I live and work in the L.A. area and got layed off awhile back after 4 years as a "web master" and could not find new work for 6 months. What made this worse was it was for a non-profit so I could not take advantage of COBRA or anything like that. 2 kids - no income - no insurance. I sent out hundreds of resumes and calls and got only 1 real interview - luckily they hired me, or I would probably be doing something completely different now. What I discovered though, and I have found this to be increasingly true for both web development and programming as well is that less and less companies are looking for full-time salaried employees. They want to develop on the cheap with a blend of contract work, off-shoring, and 3rd party outsourcing of services. Why pay all that extra money for insurance, workers comp., pension, etc. when you can just put together a hodge-podge of desperate people? I think this is bound to bit back sooner or later however, as comapanies realize this a recipe for developing some seriously crappy projects.