Thanks for the info, ATPflyer. It seems as if everyone's opinion here is to avoid Mesa unless they're a last resort. I guess I'll just do the instructional thing for a few hundred more hours and then try Skywest or something. I really wish I would have found this board before I went to one of those "Buy a job" programs. There really is no way to land one of these jobs unless you really work hard for it, and earning a type rating (although it's a lot of fun) is not the right way to do it. Ah.... $25k that I could have put down on a house

Eh, I'd rather earn other pilots' respect than buy it anyway.