Professional Development

Last Friday my wife lost her job at a place she's worked for nearly 7 years. She was one of the best employees and, we believe, she was let go because she makes too much money. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do because in our state the laws don't protect workers as well as elsewhere, so employers aren't required to have a valid reason for firing an employee (or several as it appears in this case). It works the other way round as well, employees can quit without notice. It certainly makes for tentative feelings regarding employment and we've talked several times over the past year or so about the fact that she was begin well paid, and rightly so, but if they needed to cut employees to reduce costs she would likely be at the top of the list. This happened to some co-workers of mine back when I was working full time. 12 - 15 years at a company, dedicated, cut off at the knees when the time came simply because they were more of an expense (on paper) than they were worth.

No worries, though. At least not yet. This was a kind of kick in the pants and has spurred us on to move forward with some other ideas (albeit rather quickly), or try to. Plans we've had for a couple years now to work together in the photography business. We'll see if it works out or not in the near term, but we've seen that goal appear ahead of us and it might actually be attainable.

It just so happened that today I attended a business organization lunch and the presenter was from the local university's Center for Professional Development.