Well, as some of you may remember I had landed a wonderful contract job back in August of 08. Being a contract paralegal meant that I could pick and choose the jobs she would like help with and I could work from home, the hours I wanted, and I still had control over my time allowing me to put in many hours at my daughter's school. The job itself was wonderful and an amazing learning opportunity on many different sides of the law.

Well, all was fine and dandy with that job until the owner asked me to perform some work that I had serious misgivings about completing. I emailed her and explained that I had serious ethical, professional, and moral reasons why I did not want to do the work and backed it up with a few legitimate state & government websites addressing the "issue". Her EMAIL reply to my concerns was, "in this economy we cannot afford to put principles before earnings"... at which point I packed my belongings, thanked her for the opportunity and walked out.

I don't care what her ideals are but mine are clearly very different. No amount of money is worth potential jail time for doing something illegal, nor is any amount of money worth my principles. They are what make me the person I am and I hold strong to who and what I am as a human being.

So, my family suffered financially of course. Scraping by with overdraft protection paying the automatic payments and then replenishing the funds when money would come in. It's been a long, difficult, and humbling road. But I just continued to send out my resume and spent hours at my local EDD office searching for jobs and networking at any opportune time.

Well, I was contacted by the US Bankruptcy court in Sacramento and went in for a panel interview. I was offered a case manager position 2 days later. I am officially a civilian employee with all those great Federal benefits. I'm very happy of course and breathing a sigh of relief.

Part of me wonders... had I sacrificed my principles, where would I be today? What kind of Karma would come back on me? I'm a true believer in Karma and I partly wondered what I had done to get the lousy experience over the last 3 months. But in the end, I'm starting a new job on Monday that is a great opportunity to save so we can buy a house, and prepare for my/our future retirement. I'm very fortunate, in this economy, to have landed such a great job.

I do wonder however, how is business going for the lady with lousy principles?