job loyalty should be reciprocal

Vesna is an executive employment consultant - actually a headhunter - and at 46 she earns forty-four times the salary she once earned - well above the six-figure bracket. She attributes her success to being loyal to herself, totally in charge of her life.

Vesna admits that her success has probably a lot to do with the fact that she’s divorced and her kids are now grown up and living independently. Without a husband and kids wanting attention, her loyalties are focused.

"The biggest problem in workplaces these days," confides Vesna, "is the breakdown in the time-honored tradition of reciprocal loyalty between employer and employee."

"Nowadays," says Vesna, "most employers put profit way ahead of the duty of care they once felt towards employees, and in this sort of climate employees who remain loyal to companies are selling themselves short and setting themselves up for a bitter lay-off down the line."

"Loyalty, like most of the higher human traits, is losing relevance in today's workplace," says Vesna. "When profits are down, staff members get shown the door."

Very rarely will companies shoulder a drop in profits in order to retain staff. Even rarer is the managing director who will take a pay cut in order to retain the services of a loyal employee.

"When one does," laughs Vesna, "it usually makes front-page news!"

"Basically," confides Vesna, "if you are not taking charge of your career and keeping a close watch on the economy you will not prosper in the workplace. Your first loyalty is to yourself and those who depend upon your income."

Vesna believes that too many people, young and old, fall into the trap of thinking that because they have been with a company for a considerable length of time that their loyalty will be rewarded when the going gets tough.

"It may be," says Vesna. "You may be one of the lucky employees who are retained, but your loyalty may have had nothing to do with that decision. Your good fortune may be simply due to the fact that you are not highly paid, and it would be cheaper to keep you than hire and re-train someone else further down the line when profits go up."

With more people in the global workforce than there are jobs to fill, Vesna believes that those in jobs tend to confuse loyalty with what is essentially a fear of losing their jobs.

In an employer's market there is very little reciprocal loyalty shown towards employees.

"When good workers are essentially a dime a dozen," says Vesna, "why would any employer fear losing staff?"

Vesna believes that for reciprocal loyalty to exist, there has to be equality and balance. A sense that I have what you need, and you have what I need. Very few people in jobs, or between jobs, can boast that they have as much clout as their employer or potential employer.

"However," enthuses Vesna, "when you start taking charge of your working life, you acquire a unique sense of loyalty to yourself that employers recognize and appreciate. They see an independent woman, a clever woman. They like that. It is how they run their business. They can relate to you. They know that you are likely to have another job in the wings long before they announce a downsizing. They know that you have your finger on the pulse of their business."

"Ironically," says Vesna, "it is the people who leave a job before the rot sets in that are more highly prized than the ones who stay to face the axe."

"In taking responsibility for your own career," explains Vesna, "you are not only assuring your own survival, but also exhibiting traits that employers appreciate."

This may seem contradictory when one of the stock interview questions is: "Why have you not stayed longer than a year [or whatever] at any job in the past 5 years?"

The generally acceptable view is that someone who job-hops is a bad risk, but Vesna believes that if you can give an honest and intelligent explanation for each of your job changes - and you not only left previous employers on good terms but secured good references as well - then you will be seen as someone with a flexible nature, capable of being loyal and reliable in a mutually beneficial workplace situation.

"In other words," says Vesna, "you will be seen as someone who is fully in charge of her career."

This is the type of employee 21st century employers want, and this is also the type of woman who ends up with a six-figure salary like Vesna.

This story first appeared as the ethics of job loyalty

facing the facts

Naomi is 58, a fine arts graduate who can't get a job in her field of expertise and has had to take a menial job with a corporate giant where she’s the oldest person on the payroll -- subordinate to people young enough to be her grandchildren -- but she survives in the job by facing the facts, and sketching them!

She’s a very friendly lady, very easy to talk to - a typical people pleaser - and she’s very philosophical about young people taking over the workplace at a time in her life when she would have been enjoying seniority and a good income under the old system.

"Yes," says Naomi, "when I started work at 15 the pecking order was by age. It still is, but the age of seniority is now reversed!"

"Some of the young managers at my workplace are often brash and brusque with me," says Naomi, "but I forgive them all. I remember what youth was like and these young things are going to be horribly burnt out by the time they're my age. It's wrong, I think, to put heavy responsibilities on young shoulders, but who am I to argue with the new world order!"

"I must admit, though, that the youth of today is remarkable," says Naomi, "they have so much drive and ambition and confidence, and they come from all over the world."

"Actually," admits Naomi, "if it were not for all the new people I get to rub shoulders with at work I would have retired long ago and learned to live happily with my husband in retired poverty."

"You see, I survive in the job by reading faces and sketching them from memory," smiles Naomi. "Yes, reading faces!"

"I suppose it's may way of asserting who I am and venting my frustration," says Naomi. "Just by observing people I get a clear picture of who they are inside and some of my sketches are really cute pictures but others, of course, are nasty as befitting the person I've sketched."

Her workplace, like most places run by young people, is extremely stressful.

"Everyone wants everything right now," says Naomi, "and nobody takes any notice of normal work hours."

"There's always a constant stream of new faces at work," says Naomi, "and that's the one bright light in a job that is otherwise hellish. All of the people are very young, mostly ordinary but some have extraordinary faces. Some may be staff members from head office or branch offices doing training, or temporary workers from overseas or out of town, or tradesmen or technicians coming to fix things that the good thump I gave them won't fix."

"Every new face becomes the subject of one of my cute pencil sketches," says Naomi, "and just about everyone here has a sketch of mine pinned up on the walls where they work."

"No," says Naomi, "I would not say that I am a ‘people’ person in the traditional sense of the word, but I am definitely more interested in the human side of work than anything else."

"And, no," says Naomi, "I don’t deliberately go out of my way to talk to the new faces at work. Some I must necessarily brief on what to do and where to go, but generally I prefer to observe them from a distance."

"And, yes," says Naomi, "I am the stereotypical sketcher who carries around a small sketchpad, but frankly I do most of my sketches from memory."

"I am blessed with an incredible memory for faces," says Naomi. "I can sketch from memory the people I saw at a training session at work last month - with 30 people seated exactly where they were around the room - and I can do the same for a similar scene that happened ten years ago."

It is sad -- and shows an incredible lack of staff talent spotting by her global giant employer -- that her remarkable memory for faces, and her considerable artistic talent, have been completely overlooked and not put to good use."

Naomi admits that very few people notice her. She tries to pretend that it does not bother her that few of the people she works with will remember her, but deep down it must hurt her.

"At 58 I'm considered to be an old woman who should be retired in a rocking chair," laughs Naomi. "And, with so many beautiful young things for others to notice in the workplace, why would anyone remember me? I am philosophical about being part of the furniture around here."

For all her apparent invisibility, someone up high must notice the bright smile on Naomi's face and the pleasant way she interacts with people because, let's face it, there's no way someone her age could have survived in such a youth orientated workplace without being noticed by someone who counts.

Naomi's story first appeared as surviving as the oldest employee and is reprinted with permission.

blow ups and blow overs

Gayle, single and 34, sensed something was wrong when she returned from lunch early one day and saw a strange woman in her manager's office.

"He looked like he was interviewing this woman," says Gayle, "and yet when I asked him whether he's hiring more supervisors - and, if so, why, when sales had been slipping for months and some of my girls didn't have enough work to keep them busy - he changed the subject abruptly."

Gayle immediately sensed that her job was on the line. Why? No rational reason whatsoever. There were no other signs besides this one-off meeting, and up until then she had no reason to believe her manager was anything other than a good guy - but he was going away for the next three weeks and this bothered her, too. She sensed she was in trouble.

The meeting gave Gayle five preliminary signs:

there was a strange woman in the office
the meeting appeared to have been arranged deliberately to coincide with her normal lunch time
the meeting appeared to be an interview
the meeting was held immediately before her manager was going to be away for three weeks
her manager refused to tell her what was going on (this was the most telling of the signs).

"Most people would have shrugged these signs off had they noticed them - which most people don't because they're too busy or too stressed to pay attention to what's going on around them," says Gayle, "but not me. I had a flash intuition that my manager intended to drop a bomb on me - demotion or dismissal - when he returned from an extended business trip and I wanted to be prepared."

"I didn't want to spend the next three weeks worrying under a black cloud," explains Gayle, "so that night I decided that the best way to handle this niggling doubt about my future with the company was to cover myself."

She had no worries about her performance. It had been consistently excellent. The only trouble was that only a few people knew how good she was, so if her manager had decided he was tired of her and wanted to get rid of her, he had a clear coast. Her tactic of covering herself meant that she had to make sure that those at the top knew how good she was.

Gayle's company had a suggestion box that circumvented middle management, going straight to the executive managers. She sat down that night and composed a great report about ideas the company could follow to improve its market position.

"The next day I dropped my report into the suggestion box and almost immediately I felt that black cloud disappearing," laughs Gayle.

The act of covering oneself does have this 'unburdening' effect, but if the niggling doubts persist then something else needs to be done.

In Gayle's case, she started to get uneasy feelings again a week later when she had not received an acknowledgement for her report.

"Having never dropped anything into the suggestion box before, I had no idea how long acknowledgements took," explains Gayle, "so I asked and was told about two weeks. In other words, exactly coinciding with my manager's return and probably too late to be of assistance to me."

It's wise to find as many ways as you can to cover yourself, and while Gayle's story relates to a workplace situation, it applies to any type of relationship.

"If the man in your life - or a child, relative or friend - is showing preliminary signs that something is not quite right," says Gayle, "you need to cover yourself. Do something to ameliorate the situation until you know which way the wind is blowing."

Gayle explains that when you intuit preliminary signs of trouble you need to take cover - do something to ameliorate the situation until such time as whatever you have intuited either blows over or blows up - but if this preliminary action does not ease those intuitive bells ringing in your head, then you can either stew for that period, distract yourself or take action in preparation for the worst possible scenario.

Gayle decided to take the third option - she moved very quickly to put herself in charge of her life.

Gayle's rationale was quite simple: when a manager wants to get rid of you he almost has carte blanche to do so and it matters not an iota if your work and behavior are excellent.

"It's not fair, it's not productive and it's an abominable way to treat staff ," explains Gayle, "but it happens every day, all around the world, in every workplace and, indeed, in every relationship. If you want to be a success in life, you need to accept this fact - not moan about it - and take charge not only of your career, but your private life, too."

Rather than waiting for a potential bomb to drop in two weeks - or more obvious signs that her job was in jeopardy - Gayle took action to secure her future. She started looking for another job. Her intuition was telling her that she could not trust her manager any more, and when this happens it's time to move on. She wanted to be in charge of her career, not at the mercy of a fickle manager.

She was, of course, taking action on the worst possible scenario happening rather than stewing or distracting herself.

If her manager does not dismiss her upon his return, then that does not mean that he did not think about it. The whole point of intuition is to trust your feelings. If Gayle's manager does not dismiss her upon his return, then he changed his mind in the interim period. If asked point blank whether he had thought about dismissing her, he would deny it. Isn't that true of all situations?

Indeed, Gayle's "covering" report in the suggestion box may have worked in her favor. An executive might have contacted her manager, asking who this great ideas girl Gayle was. We are never in full knowledge of what happens behind the scenes.

Anyway, if things blow over, then Gayle intends to continue job searching at the same time as asking for a promotion or a transfer. She is happy to stay with the company, but she does not wish to work with her old manager any more. Once someone has put you through a blow over or blow up situation, they can do it again and again.

If her manager does dismiss her upon his return, or starts an overt campaign to get rid of her, then she is already well into job hunting and can leave with her self-respect intact.

So, blow up or blow over, Gayle is trusting her intuition on preliminary signs and taking charge of her life. If the situation had occurred with a friend or a lover, she would have acted similarly.

(Gayle's story first appeared as always cover yourself and is reprinted with permission.)

breakfast at tiffany's

Susan is flat out all day at work, and when she gets home at night her time is consumed with housework and children. Her only time to herself is something she makes time for -- it's breakfast every morning at Tiffany's.

"I get up very early and have an hour of blissful peace and quiet at a breakfast diner," explains Susan. "It’s not only how I survive a busy job, but also how I survive the stressful existence of being a working mother."

"Amid so much gloom and doom in the workplace," says Susan, "it's important to keep your spirits high. My job survival strategy is to focus every day on something I like about my work routine. For most people that would be the euphoric feeling of going home at night, but for me it is breakfast at Tiffany’s!"

What Susan loves most about her workday is having breakfast at a place she calls Tiffany's. Even if there are no diamonds in sight, she likes to imagine she is Audrey Hepburn in that glorious film that made her famous.

"I get up very early in order to enjoy this part of her day, and leave the children for my husband to attend to."

"He goes to a bar after work," laughs Susan, "so he doesn’t begrudge me time to myself."

Early in the morning, the city is relatively quiet -- most people are still sleeping -- and there is generally an early morning mist shrouding the skyscrapers. Susan can actually hear her footsteps on the pavement as she makes her way to Tiffany's.

When she arrives at her destination, the glorious aromas of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked bread greet her.

The proprietor of Tiffany’s -- Spiro, a cheerful Greek, and his two assistants Alex and Maria -- also greet her.

After experiencing the dour faces of dawn commuters on the train, Susan says it is incredibly uplifting to receive smiles and warm greetings before she starts her workday.

"Without these glorious aromas and warm greetings to start my day," says Susan, "I don't think I could face work."

But that is just the beginning of Susan’s breakfast at Tiffany's!

What comes next is an hour of absolute bliss.

The staff at Tiffany’s know Susan well enough to leave her in peace during her hour of tranquility before she faces the music -- or, more appropriately, the cacophony -- at work.

Without that hour of peace she would never be able to get through her day.

Breakfasting at Tiffany's gives Susan time to collect her thoughts, compose herself and prepare herself for a hard day at work. It provides an environment that is a neutral transitional ground between the sanctity of her home and the salt-mine that is her workplace.

There are two more pleasures that Susan enjoys at Tiffany's.

"It is the one place where I actually get to handle and read a real newspaper," laughs Susan. "So much information comes to us via radio, television and the Internet these days that it is easy to forget the tactile -- as well as visual -- pleasure of reading printed material."

And it doesn't bother Susan that her fingers get inky from handling newspapers fresh off the printing press. She enjoys the experience. She reads the morning newspaper from front to back and everything in between.

"Yes," laughs Susan, "even the advertisements."

The other pleasure, of course, is the freshly brewed coffee and the freshly baked bread.

"It will be a good four hours or more before I get time off to drink or eat anything," explains Susan, "so I savor every sip of coffee and every morsel of bread."

All too soon her hour is up and she must make her way to work. By now the city is filled with thousands of commuters scurrying like rats to their workplaces.

She can no longer hear her footsteps on the pavement.

She is no longer Audrey Hepburn.

Susan has become another rat.

lunchtime adventures

Marcia, 52, lives and works in a big city and survives in a stressful job by making the most of her lunchtimes -- getting as much exercise and fresh air as she can.

"I usually de-stress myself by taking a walk in the park," says Marcia, "but one lunchtime I made a big mistake when I changed my routine and got stuck in an elevator with sixteen strangers."

"I had an overdue bill to pay and since the creditor's office was situated near where I worked, I thought it would be a good idea to pay it in person," explains Marcia

"It was a sweltering day and people were in a hot and hurried mood, going to lunch or returning from lunch," explains Marcia, "and because I was so determined to pay that bill in person I piled into the elevator at the creditor's building like all the other sweating sardines who probably had the same destination and intention as I had."

Had there been stairs visible, Marcia would have chosen to walk up to the next floor, but like most office blocks, stairs are hidden behind solid, fireproof doors for emergency use only.

"Nobody had a choice," explains Marcia, "it was either pile in, or wait forever for the next elevator."

Being enclosed in an elevator with just one stranger is sometimes unnerving, so being in close proximity to sixteen strangers was not going to be pleasant -- especially when most of the elevator travelers were wearing sleeveless blouses or shirts.

Before the door closed, Marcia felt her bare arms sticking to the people next to her.

"I only had to travel one floor," laughs Marcia. "I gritted my teeth and resolved that I would survive this indignity."

As always in an elevator, nobody looked at each other.

"I suppose it's elevator etiquette all over the world that one should avert one's gaze and look at the door, wall or floor rather than at one's fellow elevator travelers," laughs Marica, "and being unable to see any of these usual distractions, I concentrated on focusing my attention on the ceiling of the elevator. In fact, so did everyone else!"

"It was an elevator full of sardined cranes," laughs Marcia, "and gratefully, the journey was over quickly. The door opened and then those in the front started grumbling."

"We had gone down to the Basement, not up," says Marcia, "and how odd that nobody, least of all me, noticed a downward rather than an upward movement."

"Anyway, somebody pressed the First Floor button, and off we went again," explains Marcia. "But we didn't get very far. We became stuck between the Ground Floor and the First Floor!"

With every passing minute the temperature in the elevator crept up by a degree.

It was not long before Marcia’s bare arms were practically married to the people on either side of her. One a man, one a woman. They probably hated her as much as Marcia hated them. Such is marriage.

The woman nearest to the emergency button did her job. Bells started ringing. She picked up the emergency telephone and was told that an engineer was on his way.

She had a sense of humor. "Dearly beloved ...." she announced to the elevator inmates incarcerated with her.

"Get me out of here!" A man in the back of the elevator started to panic and banged on the walls.

"I think I'm going to faint," a woman whispered.

As Marcia was near the point of fainting herself, she called out, "Would the person nearest to the doors try to force them open, please. We need air!"

Thankfully, the doors opened a few inches revealing the location of the elevator. A gush of cool air filled the stuffy cage. The man at the back calmed down.

Marcia caught a glimpse of a group of people on the Ground Floor, looking up in amazement at the legs of those trapped in the elevator.

Then another man from the back of the elevator declared that opening the doors was a mistake.

"How can we get out with the doors open half-way between floors? Close them, and press the button for the First Floor again," he demanded.

"He may have been a managing director, used to giving orders," muses Marcia, "but he held no sway in an elevator full of hot and bothered and terrified strangers."

Having fresh air and a glimpse of life on the 'outside' -- in the form of the people on the Ground Floor -- comforted the rest of the elevated sardines.

They voted to keep the doors open.

Someone shouted up that the Engineer would be arriving in about half an hour, and suggested that the sardines could try crawling out.

By now they had opened the doors fully on the Ground Floor and Marcia and the rest of the people trapped with her slithered out of the elevator to the place from which they had all started their journey.

They congregated in the Ground Floor Lobby and re-lived their harrowing experience. Some were clearly shaken, others were highly amused.

"The managing director type had disappeared, and good thing, too," said Marcia, "because had he been in charge we would have been stuck there for at least half an hour during which some of the trapped people would have expired from heat exhaustion or the horror of claustrophobia."

"In my case, I imagined that a surgical operation would have been necessary to detach my arms from the two people I was pressed up against."

And then, suddenly, in the midst of all this camaraderie and therapy, the group remembered that they were all strangers and one by one they nodded good-bye and proceeded on their business.

By now, the emergency stair door had been propped open and notices had been pinned on the walls not to use the elevator.

Faced with the choice whether to return to work or proceed on her business, Marcia chose the latter.

Walking up the steps she glanced at her watch. The whole experience had taken less than ten minutes.

"It felt like hours!" laughs Marcia.

At the busy bill-paying counter, Marcia saw a fellow elevator sardine. They smiled.

On her way back to work, Marcia mused that she would never be able to recognize that person or any of those sixteen people again.

"Imagine being stuck to two people, flesh to flesh," laughs Marcia, "and not knowing who they were?"

"For a brief period of time we had shared an adventure -- a touch of death -- that each and every one of us will go home and relate to our families and friends and will probably remember for the rest of our lives," says Marcia, "but none of us is likely to remember the faces of any of the people who shared the adventure with us."

"When I got back to work I never mentioned the experience to anyone because, quite frankly, it's not that sort of workplace," says Marcia. "Even when 9/11 happened, not one person at work brought up the subject. Can you believe that? It was strictly business as usual."

"I'm sure that in their private lives everyone I work with has a heart beating under that cold exterior," says Marcia, "but at work they behave essentially like strangers in an elevator -- no eye contact, no chat and God forbid no skin contact!"

"I need this job, so I'm not complaining," smiles Marica. "Like I said, I survive by making the most of my lunchtimes and while I hope I never have another elevating experience it did act as a welcome infusion of humanity into an otherwise cold and uncaring day at work."

enjoy your commute

Sammy is lucky to live in a beautiful city, a Mecca for tourists, so when she travels to and from work she looks at the passing scenery and pretends she’s a tourist. By turning her morning and evening commute into a tourist tour Sammy keeps her blood pressure down and survives in her job.

"The commute is the only real leisure time I have," explains Sammy, "and I make the most of it."

"People travel thousands of miles and pay heaps to visit my city and I get to see it five days a week for free and travel a mere eight miles," laughs Sammy, "so I always keep that in mind when life gets me down. But even if I didn't live in a beautiful city I'd pretend I did because it's so vitally important to start and end your working day with pleasant thoughts. God knows, you don't get a chance to have many of them while you're at work -- do you?"

"I travel by bus so it's easy for me to imagine I'm on a luxury tourist bus, and even though the driver is not giving a running commentary during the trip I am nevertheless forming one in my brain for my own pleasure and sanity."

Sammy has figured out that it is better to catch an early morning bus and an early evening bus not only to avoid the crowds but also to avoid having to stand up for the entire trip, and for about half an hour every morning and evening for five days a week she focuses all of her energy on the sights she sees during her commute.

"My kids are old enough to get themselves to and from school," says Sammy, "so I don’t have to worry about them when I leave home early. I can relax and enjoy the trip."

Sammy always takes a window seat on the side of the bus where the views are better, and when she’s settled she blots out entirely the fact that she is on her way to work or returning home from an 8-hour slog to face more work in the form of household chores.

Being a single working mother is no fun, but Sammy tries to make the best of her life, and for this brief period in the morning and evening she becomes a German or a Japanese tourist seeing her city for the very first time. No, she doesn’t carry a camera to work. She doesn’t need to. She knows every street and every building on her commute. They are etched onto her memory banks.

"I have been doing this commute for three years now," says Sammy, "but I never fail to spot something new. It may be a face in a window of an apartment block -- at last I know who lives on the top floor!"

It may be a building being erected or renovated.

"I am always pleased to watch the progress of construction work over the months," says Sammy. "I've seen countless old buildings being torn down and replaced, and in some areas the whole streetscape has been changed."

It may be a familiar face in a passing vehicle or an interesting looking pedestrian.

It may be an unexpected traffic jam. A crash. A chase. A fire.

It may be a new ship in the bay. A rusty old container from Panama. A luxury liner from Miami. A tanker from the Gulf. Or just a kid out on the water testing his sailing skills.

It may be a sky-writer drawing "Marry Me Mandy" in puffs of smoke in the sky.

It may be a colorful air-balloon hovering over the city, or a noisy news helicopter reporting on traffic.
"I marvel at every sight I sees and I lock these visual treasures in my head all day so that when I am feeling low in my fluorescent lit workplace with nothing but a colorful screen saver of a desert island to remind me of the world outside, I can unlock the mental photograph album of my commute to make me feel better."

"It’s my secret job survival strategy," laughs Sammy, "and I recommend it to anyone stuck in a lousy job. If you don't keep yourself alive inside -- and happy with the world -- you won't last long in any job."

Sammy says that were it not for her present job, she would never have gotten to know so well the route into the city and the city itself.

"Most workers commute away from the city into the industrial suburbs," says Sammy. "Cities are mostly showcases for tourists, right? Well, I'm very lucky in that every morning and evening I can be a tourist on a luxury tourist bus and the city embraces me with open arms."

"I get to see the city as it wakes up in the morning to blue skies, blacks skies or no sky at all -- just a heavy mist obscuring everything -- and I get to see the city as it comes to life at night with bright lights, flashing lights, bawdy lights and strobe lights."

As she mostly spends her lunchtime indoors, she rarely see her city during the day so it is these early morning and early evening pictures that shine brightly in her mind.

"I really enjoy my commute to and from work," confides Sammy. "It helps me get out of bed in the morning to face another day at work. It buoys my spirits, it keeps me sane."

"When everyone else at work is down in the dumps, snapping and snarling, I have a secret strategy that keeps me smiling all day long -- and my boss likes that!"

don't rock the boat!

Alahna is a quietly spoken married women of 45 who believes that women are better at job survival than men are because we tend not to rock the boat so much.

"We're great people pleasers," laughs Alahna. "We just don't rock boats."

"These traits don't necessarily lead to success -- in fact they are more likely to keep us down in the ranks rather than propel us up the ladder of success," explains Alahna, "and that's a sore point with me because my husband is partially disabled and isn't bringing in very much money."

"Most of the breadwinning falls upon me," says Alahna, "so it's important that I keep my job -- and save enough to send the kids to college -- and that's why I smile rather than scowl and defer rather than argue the point over anything."

"Basically," says Alahna "female job survivors like me are simply concerned about keeping our jobs, and we will do whatever it takes to remain employed."

"Unlike most men, female job survivors don't take charge of their careers and don't take risks -- we can't afford to do so."

"Our job security needs are paramount," explains Alahna. "We are primarily interested in surviving in our jobs and we aren't interested in climbing corporate ladders."

"Most women are quite happy to stay at the bottom of the employment ladder all of their lives," sighs Alahna. "It's nice and safe down there, but not necessarily less stressful."

Alahna believes that money -- to most women workers -- is merely a means to an end. It isn't a judgment on their personal worth.

"We don't judge ourselves by the amount of money we earn -- as most men do -- and we don’t kick up a fuss if we don't get regular pay raises, " explains Alahna. "On the contrary, we're more likely to take a pay cut than jeopardize our jobs!"

"Put it this way, we are more likely to do whatever it takes in order to keep our jobs and secure a future income."

"That's why there are more unemployed men out there than unemployed women!" laughs Alahna. "Men tend to have far more pride than women."

"Also," adds Alahna, "women are better job survivors because the social fabric of the workplace is far more important to them than it is for men."

"It is probably true to say that women tend to congregate at the lower levels because that's where most of the camaraderie happens."

"The higher up you travel, the less likely you are to enjoy the company of co-workers. It gets too competitive up there."

"Depending upon the industry you're working in," says Alahna, "being on the lower levels is sometimes more of a risk than being in middle-management."

"But typical low level women's jobs -- such as secretaries and clerks and process workers -- tend to be safe across the board," adds Alahna. "If you're happy down there, and have no designs to do better, then you're likely to survive in your job indefinitely."

"As women age, though, their job survival prospects tend to lessen in lower level jobs," explains Alahna, "and this is a very good reason why women should think ahead and develop some constructive and active job survival skills."

"A passive desire not to rock the boat is not going to be enough."

"A pretty face may help our job prospects when we're young, but we're going to need a lot more going for us when we get older and find ourselves in competition with women half our age for the low level jobs."

"Ultimately, though," sighs Alahna, "the ability to work harder -- in terms of output and longer hours -- for less pay than anyone else is the clincher."

"The whole idea of women's liberation is a joke, isn't it?"