Ella Kallish is a nationally syndicated columnist with years of experience marketing candidates directly to decision-makers inside business organizations throughout the United States. Her "Ask Ella" column offers you personal, strategic and tactical advice on all your workplace questions.

Dear Ella,

I am considering home schooling my daughter for 6th through 12th grades. She will get a state diploma, not a GED. However, I am concerned about the reaction of prospective employers to seeing "home schooled" on her job applications. Also, I have looked into getting a college degree online. Do you know how employers react to hose?

Dear Timing Is Everything,

Due to many factors (especially cost), by the time your daughter enters the workforce, online degrees and home schooling will be as commonplace as their primitive counterparts: certificates of learning from brick-and-mortar schools.

However, since the Internet is a new medium, it will take a little more time before it is seen as the legitimate delivery system for goods and services it actually has become. That time is not far off, though.

As employers become more savvy in the utilization of the Internet to optimize worker, customer and product performance and security, the natural migration will be toward the building of the virtual workplace.

When the kids of today -- who have been weaned on the Internet and who instinctively use it for everything from connecting with friends to researching homework assignments to buying their next pair of shoes -- move into the workplace and positions of leadership, the corporate perspective of what constitutes a legitimate channel for the delivery of knowledge will never be the same.

Add to that fact the threat of terrorist acts and the rising costs of insurance to cover workers who travel for business and re-education purposes during these turbulent times, and you've a business environment ripe for change toward the unconventional.

Cost, logistics, financial viability of learning establishments, and the inevitability of academia and the private sector coming together to form customized training programs to design the perfect ready-made employee upon graduation will all combine to support and even encourage online learning.

Pre-paid programs to institutions of learning for your little girl or boy may be money down the drain when online learning is made available to everyone, anywhere, for the cost of an Internet connection. Heads up.

Dear Ella,

My boss is not staying in range of his budget, so he must make some cuts. He has told me he wants to cut my hours from 40 to 24. Needless to say, this would have a devastating effect on my family. He wants to try it for a few weeks and then revisit the matter. It just doesn't make any sense that my life should be so disrupted when he is not even sure exactly what he wants to do.

How should I handle this? I'm not sure what to say to him to try to get him to change his mind. Should I say anything personal?

Dear Between A Rock And A Hard Place,

Let your boss know that, especially as we move toward the holiday season, to take a cut in hours and salary would create a great deal of hardship for you and your family. Ask him if there is a way he could move workloads from other areas or departments to your charge. This would help him manage the costs he's grappling with while helping you maintain your full-time employment and the medical benefits that that full-time employment affords.

Tell him that you are willing to work longer hours for no overtime consideration. If he is still unmoved by your offer, ask him to postpone his decision until after the holidays and start looking for another job immediately.

Sometimes it's best to realize that no matter how much water you've bailed out of the canoe, it's still going down and to make other arrangements for your safety. Keep the fact that you are looking for another job opportunity from your boss, though, or you may find your work-hours reduced from 24 to zero.

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Written By Ella Kallish
For more information on Ella Kallish go to AskElla.com.
Ella Kallish is available for corporate and group seminars.