Page 104 - Free Yourself From

Making the Break 87

do you a favor. On some level, the company or manager who gave you
that latitude believed your skills or performance made the compromise
worthwhile. If they didn’t believe you could still do your job and add
value or that it wouldn’t work for them, they most likely would not
have done it. As long as you’ve pulled your weight and done a good
job all along, you owe them as much loyalty as any other employee,
but not necessarily any more. And it’s as reasonable for you as for any
other employee to consider opportunities to advance yourself.
And as for potential new employers, well it’s not really fair to
assume they won’t be able to work with your flexible schedule before
you even talk to them. Flex work is so common today that many
companies use it as a recruiting tool. So you’ve got nothing to lose
by getting out in front of people, telling them what you have to offer,
and letting them know your bottom line, be it a four-day week or
working from home in the morning. Give them the opportunity to
say yes rather than assuming they will say no.
If change itself seems too overwhelming to think about, take
inspiration from Wendy Hufford, who left her job as senior global lit-
igation counsel of General Electric, in Westchester, New York, to
become chief litigation counsel of Cardinal Health, in Dublin, Ohio.
In addition to being an accomplished attorney, Wendy is also the
mother of eight and the wife of an equally successful attorney.
Changing jobs didn’t just mean leaving a great company, but relo-
cating the entire family, her husband’s job, and several pets. She told
Corporate Counsel that the thought of quitting her previous job was
as daunting as the prospect of moving, but Cardinal was offering her
a “dream job.” Everything from winning the kids over to the idea of
moving to settling in to the new job went much more smoothly than
she had expected. She told the magazine that the lesson she took
from the experience was, “Don’t be afraid to take a chance to pur-
sue your career dreams—and enjoy the ride.”