would you take a contract

[mrdonuts]

which was a bit to the left or right of your normal skillset/focus, just to stay in the game?

[oracleslave]

Yes. Up the rate as well as you're likely to be spending extra hours reading the manual.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

As long as it wasn't even more of a backwater than my current skillset Even then, probably yes if I needed the moolah

[BrilloPad]

no poll?

I definetly would.

[darmstadt]

Doing it now. Initial contract was for one year, finished that bit after 6 months but still support it. Moved onto another project and after 6 months on that the contract was extended for another 14 months and looks like being extended again. In fact in the original skill set required I really only had 2 skills which I could actually put forward but because I had worked with the product around 12 years previously and not many people know it they took me on. Since then I've been working on projects which use tools and applications that I have never used before. Learning by doing (as the Germans say...)