Last year a friend who happens to be a career counselor was helping me through a dilemma regarding job search/career choices.

“Try a job out for awhile and if it isn’t a good fit, move on,” she said.

“I can’t do that!” I replied. “Job hopping doesn’t look good on a résumé. Besides, I can’t just leave an employer hanging.”

“Here’s the bottom line,” she countered. “An employer’s priority is running the business. Do you think that they would take your loyalty into consideration? They owe you nothing but the paycheck you earn. Nothing else. It’s not personal for them, so don’t let it be personal for you.”

She gave me some strategies for learning about work environments where I may apply for jobs and we moved on to other conversation.

This week, our good friend *Sophia* (name has been changed) encountered this very principle. She had been hired by a local company to work a specific part-time shift. After a few months, one of her co-workers transfered to a different department so the company sought to hire someone else for the part-time shift vacated by the lateral-move guy. Only there weren’t any “promising” applicants for the position, so the manager told Sophia that they wanted to hire for her shift so as to get better quality applicants. He wanted to change her hours to an on-call position, for which she would need to be available ten hours each day on weekdays. Sophia did not complain or argue with her boss about it, but she said to us later, “You know, I’m tag-teaming with my husband to help with the kids. Being on-call all day, every day will make it impossible to commit to helping out.”

Well, by Sophia’s next day at work (today) the manager had changed his mind and said, “We’ve decided to hire someone for your shift. You can train them, then you can go ahead and resign.”

“HE DID NOT SAY THAT!” I exclaimed in disbelief.

“Yes, he did. And I said nothing because I didn’t want to say anything impulsive that I would later regret.”

My mind reeled with the heedlessness of her boss and I tried entering problem-solving mode, but even I know that being an at-will employee affords no guarantees and no right to consideration. The truth is that an employer can and will do whatever is necessary to keep things rolling. It’s not personal.

I was stunned. How can they do this? And I really wanted to know how this manager had the audacity to be so casual about shafting a superb and loyal employee in this job market.

I remembered the words spoken to me, “They owe you nothing.” Yeah, I didn’t tell her that, though. Not yet.

Such knowledge will not discourage me from being a hard-working, dependable employee; it sure helps me to keep work at work, where it belongs.

© Alexa Lopez, 2009