I'm no lawyer, but a verbal promise is a contract nonetheless. He promised you fulltime, and is now trying to act like that never happened... that would have me concerned too.

I know what you mean by there not being anything out there. Is the same here too. I keep hearing how the economy is picking up and jobs are opening up. WHERE? I'd like to know where and what jobs, because none are available around here and the money from an improved economy sure isn't making its way to this area.

I would talk to Renee again and see what input she might have. He just might be the typical guy who doesn't want to spend money. I worked for a guy like that. I was making $11 an hour and wanted a raise. I was working 6 days a week and the store was bustling because of ME. He LAUGHED at me when I asked for $1 raise. So I told him to start looking for someone new because I was looking for something else myself. When I found a new job (one that paid considerably better) he was FLOORED because he never expected me to leave. Here we are 5 or 6 years later... the store has hardly any buiness because the grump he hired scares all the customers away. This grump is also slow as can be and takes all day to do a project that took me an hour or two. This grump makes $18 and hour. He made his choice and lost the best employee he ever had because he was too penny pinching to give his best asset what she deserved. Now he's paying ten times over for me and his business might go bankrupt soon because he doesn't have the good coverage I gave.

Sometimes small business owners will balk at hiring new people fulltime because then they'd have to pay insurance and all those other benefits he's not paying now -- thats a huge taking from HIS pockets every month. But thats utterly stupid - they'll spend a dollar to train and teach someone else all to save a dime. Then that new person will get fed up and leave, and he'll start all over again. Which seems to be the way its working here.