When Your Child-Care Needs Collide with Your Job

When Ellen B. applied for a job as a buyer at a major department store, she was asked the following questions on her job application:






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• Can you be available to work any hours?


• Are you willing to travel?


• Can you work overtime?


Wanting to be viewed as an eager and dedicated employee, Ellen immediately checked “Yes” to all the questions.


“I regret that to this day,” says Ellen, who was hired and then fired eight months later when she informed her supervisor that she would need to leave work by 6 p.m. each day to pick up her son. “Other employees were asked to work late into the evening and refused. They weren’t fired. They fired me because I’d told them I was available to work any hours on my job application.”


According to the department store, Ellen was not living up to the commitments she had made on her job application. They were right.


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