Cynthia Morgan Quotations

U.S. tech workers, ... are increasingly nervous about employers' use of temporary non-U.S. citizens in tech jobs. The most anxiety comes from the most vulnerable.

Workers making more than $100,000 in yearly salary,

Seventy-two percent said they'd use their ex-supervisor as a reference in finding a new job,

Most agree the present environment makes it harder to succeed with self-employment.

New England techies were more likely than others to think the best asset in self-employment is sales ability,

Respondents in the mountain states -- where self-employed technologists are proportionately rare -- were the most optimistic, regionally.

Just about everyone wants to strike out on their own sometime. But they won't do it for the money -- what they're looking for is more control over their professional lives.

We qualified 700 tech workers who've been laid off within the last three years, ... and used their responses exclusively.

We also saw a lot of differences according to pay levels. In general, workers making $100,000 annually wanted government to keep out of the temporary non-U.S. worker situation.

With all the talk of telecommuting, ... it's not a hugely widespread practice, even among techies. A survey like this one about telecommuting would naturally draw a high percentage of telecommuters. But we found only 48 percent of respondents saying that they actively telecommute.

Even full-time telecommuters often told us they furnish their own office and computer and/or communications equipment,

The most highly-paid tech workers, ... also told us they'd be far less willing to work for ex-employers than those making less money.

The most effective job-seekers, ... use an average of 6.8 different employment resources when they search for jobs, combining online, networking and recruiter tools.

The Northwest also has a high percentage of self-employed tech professionals: They may be speaking from sad experience.

The best for me is word of mouth, because all who know my work know how good I can be at what I do. It also makes the interview easier, because they've heard about me from someone else and know it's not just me boasting. I still dread looking. It's troublesome to be turned down for any reason, good or bad.

In most cases, tech workers don't telecommute because their bosses discourage it or their companies prohibit it. Sixty percent of help-desk and support workers don't telecommute at all -- often because they're in the office supporting all the other telecommuters. In some cases, they're working on large, expensive equipment that you just can't take home with you.

In fact, most told us that companies are very reluctant to allow frequent telecommuters to manage others -- 29 percent cited that as the single biggest negative impact that telecommuting had on career advancement. Many also said that telecommuting seems to slow down raises and bonuses.

And 39 percent said they'd take a pay cut if they were allowed to telecommute. Even if they had to take that pay cut, ... our telecommuters might come out ahead, since several also told us that telecommuting has reduced their costs for gas, auto maintenance, parking, tolls and even clothing.