you wish! the whole point of hiring me was to have somebody younger learn the ropes of how our complex, outdated, and undocumented systems work. if the senior programmer gets fired, especially right as the school year is just starting, there's no way the other programmer can handle 100% of department responsibilities. and that's assuming she's willing to follow such a mandate anyway! she's out of office for a week so I haven't been able to ask her.