First off, now that I've slept on it, I think ROLE is a better name for a class than OCCUPATION. But I'll stick with the latter for now.

The only reason I'd define some OCCUPATION class is that while perl is not strongly typed, this allows you to check to make sure that a 'addOccupation' works right, and that you have some expected functions in which you can use in a call such as 'queryOccupations' in the PERSON class. The base class can be as simple as simply having a name of the occupation and a method to get it.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important