What would you do in this situation?

Remember my post recently about Having a Back-up Plan? As a re-cap, she was offered a position where she would be gone for June and August. She would be making around $8,000 a month, working 12 hour days for 60 days straight.

However, the day before she was supposed to leave, someone called her at the company and said that due to funding, they couldn’t afford her anymore.

Of course she was extremely upset. She had 2 other jobs (one full-time at a permanent dig that she has worked at for around 5 years and also a part-time retail management job). She had to tell her other 2 jobs that she could not work for the entire summer so that she could take this opportunity. Her jobs both said to take it and just come back in August.

Well my friend received a phone call last week asking if she would like to come to the dig the very next day. I think they called her on Friday and asked her to work the VERY NEXT DAY.

Yes this would be possible for most people, but this job is 11 hours away. She didn’t even have enough time to drive there and make it to her job in the morning, let alone did she have time to even think about taking the job offer (again).

When she told me this, I was very angry. This makes the company seem very unprofessional. Yes I realize that the world of archaeology probably isn’t the most stable career path due to the unforeseen things that may happen, but I do think they could’ve done this better.

I asked my friend what she told them when they called her. She said she told them no and that she might come next month. Now the ball was in her court because they were practically begging for her to come.

I asked her why she said no (however, I would’ve also said no also in a heartbeat). She told me that her part-time job gave her full-time hours for the rest of the summer. She asked her boss (also my old boss) if she could have hours for the summer time, and her boss said yes. They desperately needed her, so this came at a decent time.

So of course she felt bad if she told her part-time job that she was going to leave again.

She didn’t feel this was right to treat someone like this who gave her work hours at the very last second. She’s also worried that this archaeology job will cancel on her at the last second again.

I know a lot of you said she should sign a contract, but with this job, they don’t offer it. It’s all non-profit (as are most archaeology jobs) so they don’t offer permanent employment at this company and it all depends on funding, so this limits the ability they have to offer a secure job. She has worked on assignments for them plenty of times in the past, so she is hoping that it will work out this time.

She told me that she will most likely go for the month on July. Even if they cancel at the last second, she will just take the month off and use it to find a house with her fiance (he lives in another state for his job).

I feel like my anger and my stubbornness would make me tell them no. I would hate to be treated like that. However, it is GREAT money.  She would be making around$8,000 just for one month(however, it is 12 hours a day for 30 days straight and not a single day off).