I worked for a commercial financing firm while I went to school at night to pick up the courses and credits to sit for the CPA exam. (I already had a degree in art.) They reimbursed me based on grades and I took advantage of it… and they took advantage of me! LOL When I told my father that I was leaving the firm to work for a public accounting firm, he asked whether or not I felt I owed the company anything for having paid for my school. My response was “Heck, no!” I was in a position to know that they had been paying me less than people in similar positions and had more than recouped the cost of my schooling. It didn’t bother me — we were both using each other, a fair trade in my book.

By the way, I took a salary cut to 2/3 of what I was making in industry to go into public accounting. The tradeoff there was the professional certification, which I couldn’t get without so many hours experience in various fields in public accounting for the state I lived in. It’s not always about immediate monetary returns.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen a lot of changes in the job market and the benefits offered. When I was young (and particularly during my father’s time), people didn’t switch jobs as often or as many times as people did 5 – 10 years ago. Retirement and healthcare benefits have changed drastically.

I also noticed a tendency in younger workers to “expect” high salaries despite little to no experience and an all too frequent lack of work ethic — too many of them thought that they should be paid big bucks to be sitting at a desk just from 9 to 5, even though they spent half their time on the internet or their cell phones. What’s happening now is a wake up call for those people.

On the other hand, I do know how your friend who’s being squeezed by less personnel feels! I’ve been there!!! There’s a fine line between working longer, productive hours and being abused. Long hours take a toll on your personal life and your health and it’s extremely difficult to find a balance between what is necessary to keep your job and being assertive enough to say “I just can’t do this additional project in the time allotted without some extra help.”

There are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration, when evaluating some of the things you talk about. For instance, relocating may mean leaving a family support system behind. If the decision is between no job and a lower paying job, the decision may be easier, but, if it’s between a higher paying job and a lower paying job but you need to leave your family behind and grandma or grandpa or siblings behind and those people were your backup for being there for your children, the decision may not be so easy.

I’m going to be interested to see whether or not there are any long-term changes in our society and workforce expectations in general from what’s going on.