I’ve been working pretty much non-stop since I was 12 years old.  No I won’t tell you how long that’s been.

There are a few simple lessons I’ve learned along the way that kept me from getting fired: Get to work on time, don’t slack and do what the boss tells you to do. 

You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to succeed. You just have to be the one who works the hardest, is never late and who’s happy to do the bidding of the boss.

And that’s the reason I have a hard time ginning up much sympathy for Dave Sunderland, a 55-year-old pipe-fitter at  Newport News Shipbuilding who was fired from an excellent job last week because he refused to remove his “Trump 2020” ball cap after his superiors told him to lose it.

It does not appear he was fired merely for supporting the president.

According to news reports, the shipyard has a rule: No political campaigning on the property.

The “Make America Great” or plain old “Trump” hat that Mr. Sunderland told the paper he wore to work for the past four years seemed to pass muster or went unnoticed. But Sunderland’s “2020” hat got the attention of shipyard managers. They claimed it amounted to political campaigning and Sunderland was asked to remove it.

Several times, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

A shipyard spokesman claimed that the “no campaigning” rule has been in effect since 2005 and applies to all political points of view. A union official at the shipyard told The Pilot that there was a crackdown on political messages recently. A worker who showed up wearing a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt was told to either change or turn the shirt inside out.

Sounds like the rules are being applied evenly.

Mr. Sunderland claims that he has no problem with his co-workers expressing their liberal political preferences as they join him in exercising what he called their “First amendment rights.” But the pipe fitter misses the point. The First Amendment protects citizens from governmental interference in their exercise of free speech. It does not restrain private employers.

Even though the shipyard works on government contracts, it is a private company and free to set its own rules about appropriate apparel and the messages emblazoned there.

The Pilot outlined numerous times that Sunderland’s superiors attempted to get him to remove the hat and that he was warned that if he didn't take it off, he’d be sacked.

He stood his ground. And he was fired.

The union filed a grievance on his behalf.

If I could talk to this newly unemployed pipe-fitter I’d give him one piece of advice for his next job: Do what the boss tells you to do as long as it’s legal. 

No one ever got the boot for doing that.