Some years back, I lobbied my IT manager to allow the programmers and analysts to spend 1/2 day a week self-training to learn new stuff. Here were the rules: 1) Plan your work assignments around your self-training time. In other words, you are not available for work assignments during your self-training time. 2) Learn new stuff. You pick what it is. 3) Let the rest of us know if you find something really useful. Out of 8 people, I was the only one to consistently use it. Only one other person even made an effort to do it, and that was a sporadic one. Go figure! -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l