When you lose your job there’s a lot you have to deal with. Panic over finances, loss of self-esteem, and the difficult task of finding a new gig.

But who would have thought your own kids would make things even harder.

For my New Year’s Eve post I’ve decided to let you hear from a recently laid off colleague who faced the unexpected wrath of his teenager when he lost his job after more than two decades.

Al Kemp is a great writer who has spent the bulk of his career writing for a newspaper. That life is now behind him.

He’ll be writing for this blog from time to time to update us all on where his new career path takes him.

Here’s his first blog post ever:

Tears pooled in my daughter’s blue eyes as the anger rose in her face.

“Are you even trying to get another job?,” she asked in the sort of petulant tone only heard among 16-year-old girls. “Why don’t you try to find a job in fast food? Something’s better than nothing.”

This was not a conversation I ever thought I’d be having with my youngest child, and it reminded me of how we seemed to have grown apart in recent years. Now that she was 16, our talks usually centered around telephone use and allowance and getting her learner’s license.

Two weeks earlier I had been laid off from the state’s largest newspaper, where I was a writer and editor for 23 years. For some reason – maybe denial – I hadn’t discussed it with her yet, and now she sat in the passenger seat of our battered minivan, venting her anger, hurt and fear.

So much she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand why I wasn’t working in “fast food.” (Her choice of words, “fast food.” Not “McDonald’s.”) She didn’t understand why I could not travel the world finding jobs like her stepfather, who works in IT for automakers.

I felt bitter, defensive and a little dissed. But apparently she needed to hear more from me now than “it’s not for you to worry about.” She wasn’t a little girl anymore, but a young lady who needed to understand reality, not be protected from it.

Yet here I was at age 47, not even understanding it myself.

* * *

Everyone knew the layoffs were coming. There had already been a preliminary round of layoffs at the paper in August, and now the company had orders to trim its work force another 10 percent by mid-December.



The weeks leading up to “Bloody Tuesday” (as the day of destiny came to be known) were bristling with tension, paranoia, fear, rampant speculation and a curious unwillingness among the rank and file to make eye contact.

 (You think scuttlebutt travels fast in your office? Imagine working in a newsroom, where the staff is trained to disseminate information after ferreting it out by any means necessary. The smallest secret in a newsroom is like a mighty cypress tree standing in the path of an expressway. It won’t last long.)

I arrived at my desk and had just removed my coat when a manager buttonholed me and suggested we take a walk. I still didn’t put two and two together. I thought we were going to talk about added responsibilities. Or maybe he wanted to show me a cloud that looked like Santa Claus.

Down in personnel I figured it out. I was handed severance papers along with phone numbers for counselors and therapists. They gave me a handy card that told me I should get plenty of sleep, and avoid excess sweets. And a cheerful smiley face.

I was numb. I was dreaming. 

”I was the company’s employee of the year two years ago … ” I managed to say.

”This is not personal, Al.”

”Umm, do yall know we have four teenage children, two already in college … ? ”



Little did I know that it was the youngest of those children who would remind me that losing a job has effects that reach far past the employee.

I told them I’d return to clear out my desk in a day or two, thank you very much, then drove home distraught, defeated, doomed, despairing and dammit dammit dammit why did they sink all my battleships?

* * *

I can’t say I didn’t cry. I had always imagined I’d spend my career at the same newspaper, a loyal, devoted employee who can do anything.



I didn’t waste any time rounding up freelance assignments from the weekly papers in the area. During that first week I hustled harder than I ever hustled in my life. Stories just rose up in front of me or fell in my lap. A video store closes, the last in a family-run chain. Sold. Surely a profile is needed of a legendary band director. Sold. What about a roundup of community figures saying what they want for Christmas? Sold. 



Still, I felt like a farmer who sees storm clouds approaching, and I needed to harvest all my grain before it got ruined by forces beyond my control.



Two days after the job loss, my therapist told me I was positively beaming, as if a weight had been lifted off me. My wife knew better: I was faking it the best I could. She knew as well as I that the little freelance gigs were just a Band Aid. The long-term problem was still there: I had no more career.



At my next therapist appointment, the glow was much dimmer. I tried to explain it was realism she was seeing, not defeatism.

I have resumes out there, and I’ve applied for jobs, but is anything going to happen before 2009? Highly unlikely. 

But my daughter’s reaction is probably the memory I’ll carry with me the longest. It reminded me it’s not just me at a turning point.

Cassidy was angry because she feared we wouldn’t be able to keep the house, and she’d be forced to switch schools.

I could have spared us all lots of stress if I had only been open with my daughter, and told her right away – like a grownup – that we plan to stay here.

The reason my wife and I moved our blended family to this house is because it feeds the best public high school in the state. I wanted Cassidy to have a chance to be a part of that school - and its world famous marching band.

On Christmas Day, over a game of Uno, I talked to my kids about what the layoff meant. I showed them clippings of my freelance work, and explained that I would not have time to rebuild my career if I were working in fast food. I told them about the long-term prospects. I told them that newspapers seem to be dying, and now I must find a new career.

Until that moment, I had always been “Dad the reporter.” Now I was about to become something else.

Why didn’t I level with them from the get-go? Maybe because I didn’t really want to face the man in the mirror. Now I’ve begun to do that, with help from Cassidy.

For now, the freelance work continues. After Jan. 1, we’ll see what the market will bear. 




Al and his daughter

I asked an expert, Gail Golden, a psychologist with corporate consulting firm RHR International, about what’s the best way to approach your child when you lose your job.

“The most important thing in communicating with your children is to tell the truth. The language you use and the amount of detail you share will vary with the age of the child, but being honest about what happened and what it means for you and the family is the most reassuring way to help your children deal with the situation. Let them know how they can help, whether by being gentle and understanding with you, or by cutting back on their requests for gifts and spending money.”

Great advice, but I also think Al had the right idea.

Happy New Years everyone!

Let’s start with this simple truism — Layoffs suck!

It sucks to get laid off, and many of you out there are pissed off about it.

I don’t blame you. It’s natural to be angry.

Many of you have told me what bothered you most was that it just “wasn’t fair” that your manager would boot you out after so many years. Others have this gnawing anger they just can’t overcome, and that anger is often directed at your former boss. Revenge seems pretty sweet right about now as some of you fantasize about your boss getting his or her comeuppance.

Well, none of that is going to help you, my unemployed friend.

I’m not belittling the anger you feel, and some of it is good, but lately I’ve been hearing more and more stories of unemployed individuals who cracked and shot up there whole families.

I know, these guys were probably wacko to begin with, but seething in anger will marinate you in bad vibes and keep you from launching an effective job search.

“When anger builds, it can get out of hand,” says Jo Anne White, a therapist from New Jersey, who’s also an author and professional coach. “It can create more stress for a person, and more of a sense of negativity in terms of any interactions they have with other people, and how they’re presenting themselves to other people.”

White isn’t opposed to a little anger, because it helps you get it out of yourself and find ways to deal with it. But wallowing in negativity, she says, will only impact your emotional and job-hunting state.

How do you know if you’re harboring anger too long: “If they’re holding onto the anger for months and it’s interfering with relationships with a spouse, kids, friends; or if in every situation they are not seeing the glass half full, and it’s distorting every other aspect of their lives.”

OK, if you know this is you, go to the gym, or find other ways to get rid of the darkness. You can also throw yourself into the job search, taking the energy from that anger, and using it in a productive way, White advises.

There’s a self esteem piece to this as well, she adds. People feel bad about themselves when they are laid off and they need someone to build them up, not tear them down, and that includes the person that’s been laid off. You have to constantly be telling yourself you’re great, and solicit positive feedback from friends and family, she stresses.

And, if you’re a family member or friend, do what you can to be that person’s cheerleader. Telling them they’re not doing enough is just dumb.

Anger will probably hinder your effectiveness when it comes to networking folks, a key tool in finding a new gig.

“People who are angry don’t reach out as broadly as they can to networking sources,” says Elaine Varelas, managing partner at HR consulting firm Keystone Partners. “The anger usually drives fear of rejection and more anger, so you end up limiting your potential contacts.”

I’m telling you people, that brewing anger comes through loud and clear to all the people around you, especially hiring managers.

No one is going to want to hire a sad sack or an angry sack, not in this economy.

I’m not saying you should wear a lampshade and pretend you’re happy Pete.

As I said, layoffs suck. I’ve been there. I know they suck.

Just don’t let the anger SUCK you in.

Go hit a punching bag, get it out of your system, and MOVE ON.

It boggles my mind when someone who makes a boat load of money publicly takes a stand against a fair wage for average working stiffs.

This from Wolfgang Puck today in the Wall Street Journal in a piece called “2009 Resolutions”:

“The industry should lobby to establish a federal law that allows restaurants nationwide to exempt waiters who earn tips from the minimum wage.”

We all know the Sean-”Puffy”-Combs life waiters and waitresses can enjoy off of their tips.

Puck has been beating this horse for many years now. He is based out of Los Angeles and in California there is no tip credit for businesses, meaning workers get minimum wage in that state even though they are paid tips.

The way tips work under federal law, companies are required to pay tipped workers direct pay of $2.13 an hour, but if the employee does not make at least the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour then the employer must make up the difference.

Puck seems to be perturbed that in certain states where he has restaurants he’s having to dish out the minimum wage on top of what workers get from customers in tips.

In 1999, the president of Puck’s operations was quoted in Nation’s Restaurant News — an industry trade publication I actually wrote for many years ago — threatening to shift operations to other states because of California’s laws:

Frank Guidara, president and chief executive of the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Wolfgang Puck Food Co., or WPFC, says he views the high cost of labor as affecting not just California but the entire West Coast. “If the choice is between the West Coast and almost anywhere else, we’ll go elsewhere,” he adds.

Many businesses want to escape paying workers what they deserve. Just last week, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. settled a host of lawsuits that charged the nation’s biggest employer was forcing workers to work off the clock without pay.

It’s the perpetual battle among employers and employees, and it’s not going away folks. Benefits and wages for employees will always be a big chunk of a firm’s balance sheet. Basically that means worker wages eat into a business owner’s profits. Business owners want to pocket as much money as they can, and that makes sense. My father was a serial entrepreneur who fought hard to keep the many businesses he ran running well so he could provide a good life for his family.

But when is enough enough? When do we start thinking about the little people who are the reason many companies are successful?

According to Wikipedia, Puck’s operations include “15 fine dining restaurants, premium catering services, more than 80 Wolfgang Puck Express operations, and kitchen and food merchandise, including cookbooks and canned foods.”

I’m assuming he does quite well for himself, which a great thing. I believe wholeheartedly in the free market system. But, as the subprime mess has proven to all of us, we still need strict laws in place to protect investors, workers and the economy at large. Mandating certain wage standards so more Americans can partake in the American dream shouldn’t be optional.

Puck offered the little people a deal in exchange for getting rid of minimum wage among workers at his operations in those minimum-wage friendly states.

He went on to say in the Journal that: “Waiters would not lose money because they could work overtime, and we could use the savings to provide health care or raise the wages of dishwashers.”

Hmmmm. Puck says, “we could” take the money saved and do this and that. How would we make sure the extra cash actually ends up in the pockets of dishwashers?

I guess Puck doesn’t think dishwashers, who make minimum wage, are making enough. And would he be open to having the government mandate health care coverage in exchange for cutting out minimum wage for tipped workers?

Sorry sir, “we could” just doesn’t cut it.

There’s been a lot of could’ve, should’ve, would’ve in this nation’s economic system for the past few decades, but alas it hasn’t translated into increasing wages for the bulk of employees.

And when it comes to tips, lately cash strapped restaurant goers seem to be cutting back on their generosity.

Puck also talked to the Journal about his newest restaurant that will be opening soon in Dallas and Union Station.

It’s called Five-Sixty. Maybe a more appropriate name would have been Two-Thirteen.

UPDATE When I was a little dorky girl growing up in Queens, N.Y., my parents would always give out gifts around Christmas to people they really didn’t know well in our community.

The garbage guy would get a big bottle of Whiskey. The mailman would get an envelope of, what I assumed at the time was, cash. And neighbors, tellers, and anyone else that crossed their path around the holidays would get Greek cookies — kourabiethes (an almond cookie with powered sugar on top), or koulourakia (a braided butter cookie.)

It always seemed to make my world a little smaller seeing my parents generosity and the reactions from people when they received a gift.

I asked my mom recently why they did what they did, and the reason was mainly about giving something special for people around them, and also those who toiled for them. The job of a garbage man was hard, really hard. And this was the one time of year they could say, “hey garbage man, we appreciate what you do.”

OK, I’ve adopted this tradition. I to make cookies for strangers and hand out gifts and cash. I think I bitch about it way more than my parents did because I never seem to have enough time to juggle everything around the holidays. But some how the cookies get baked and distributed.

I thought this is a good time to remind everyone out there to do something a little special for those around you who make your worlds the worlds they are, and for those that toil for you. I know, they get paid, but if you can get a card, or bake some cookies just to acknowledge you appreciate the work they do, why not do it.

It’s a tough time for many people right now and one little, tiny gesture of kindness really goes a long way.

That said, I wanted to share a great short story with you all that I recently read about Christmas that really touched my heart.

It’s “A Christmas Memory,” by Truman Capote, and it’s all about giving gifts to strangers. Take time to read it folks, I think you’ll all appreciate it.

And Happy Holidays everyone.

UPDATE

It’s been brought to my attention that even though Capote is dead his estate can still benefit from people buying his work. So, I am only including a brief excerpt below.

A Christmas Memory, by Truman Capote

Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar.

A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable—not unlike Lincoln’s, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. “Oh my,” she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, “it’s fruitcake weather!”

The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each other’s best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880’s, when she was still a child. She is still a child.

“I knew it before I got out of bed,” she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. “The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; they’ve gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. We’ve thirty cakes to bake.”

It’s always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: “It’s fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.”

My husband and I have this ongoing battle — he always wants to sleep in, but I don’t.

I like to get up at the crack of dawn and get a jump on the day even if I stayed up late the night before.

He’s convinced his lack of enough sleep, that has gotten worse since we had kids, is slowly killing him. And he never feels on his best game if he doesn’t get his eight hours.

I, on the other hand, feel like I can do it all with a minimal amount of sleep. OK, sometimes I feel burnt out and overwhelmed but it seems to work for me.

The reason we battle over this is because he finds it hard to sleep when I and the kids get up so early. It’s partly because he wants to hang with us, but in all honesty the main reason is probably because we are THE LOUD FAMILY. And I love to blast NPR every single morning. Hard to keep sleeping in our house, no way around it.

He’s been working on me for years to get me to sleep in sometimes because he figures if he does he has a chance to live until he’s 80.

So, this morning he hands me the latest issue of Wired magazine and asks me to read a short piece titled “Three Smart Things About Sleeping Late,” by Daniel Dumas:

1. You may need more sleep than you think.
Research by Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders Center found that people who slept eight hours and then claimed they were “well rested” actually performed better and were more alert if they slept another two hours. That figures. Until the invention of the lightbulb (damn you, Edison!), the average person slumbered 10 hours a night.

2. Night owls are more creative.
Artists, writers, and coders typically fire on all cylinders by crashing near dawn and awakening at the crack of noon. In one study, “evening people” almost universally slam-dunked a standardized creativity test. Their early-bird brethren struggled for passing scores.

3. Rising early is stressful.
The stress hormone cortisol peaks in your blood around 7 am. So if you get up then, you may experience tension. Grab some extra Zs! You’ll wake up feeling less like Bert, more like Ernie.

It definitely got me thinking that a little extra sleep may actually help you be more productive, more focused, most creative.

These are all things you need when you’re involved in a job search, especially in this economy. I know, some people need more sleep than others, but given the challenging gig-hunting environment these days you need to be on your ‘A’ game.

So sleep people!!

Even though I tend to be a strong advocate of getting as little sleep as possible, I’m going to swallow my pride and say, “you’re right honey. Maybe we should sleep in now and then.”

What’s your take? Do you need eight hours to be at your best?

Is Joe Biden the middle class’ Santa Claus?

The vice president-to-be is being pegged by the incoming Obama administration as the savior of working people everywhere. He will head a new government group that will have bolstering the middle class as its top priority.

In a statement released yesterday Biden says:

“Our charge is to look at existing and future policies across the board and use a yardstick to measure how they are impacting the working and middle-class families. President-elect Obama and I know the economic health of working families has eroded, and we intend to turn that around.”

The initiative, named the White House Task Force on Working Families, will be headed by Biden and will include help from the secretaries of Labor, Education, Health and Human Services and Commerce. The goals of the group:

* Expanding education and lifelong training opportunities
* Improving work and family balance
* Restoring labor standards, including workplace safety
* Helping to protect middle-class and working-family incomes
* Protecting retirement security

Big guns. Big plans. But will the incoming administration be able to turn the tide for so many hard-working Americans?

I’m in the Christmas spirit this morning so my gut answer right now is, maybe.

The rank and file in this country have seen their earnings stagnate in the last decade; they’ve seen their nest eggs and pensions dwindle; and they’ve been asked to work harder and harder.

And, with this recession, you better believe it is the middle class getting the screws put to them.

I’ve written before in this blog about how employers are squeezing employee pay and benefits. The New York Times reports on this today with a story on how “More Companies Cut Labor Cost Without Layoff.” And now we hear that more firms are asking workers to put in ridiculous hours because people are just not shopping enough. There’s a story about this in the Wall Street Journal today title “Retailers Look to Capture Night Owls.”

No one has really cared about the working stiffs behind the news stories and numbers. Indeed, the WSJ story doesn’t even mention the toll these hours put on the workers.

So, back to Biden-o-Claus. I’m too old to think a task force, or any special government group can really make a major difference. But it is a step in the right direction. At least somebody’s noticed that there haven’t been a lot of work-place presents under the Christmas trees of middle-class Americans.

Time for some ho, ho hoing, no?

Many of you know how I feel about the former Labor Secretary under Clinton, Robert Reich. He was the god among all labor secretaries and had the well-being of workers uppermost in his mind, always, to this day.

So, Obama’s new pick, Hilda Solis, is going to have a lot to live up to if she’s confirmed.

You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned the woman who’s had the job under Bush for the last eight years. I haven’t mentioned her or her name because she was a zero — enough said.

I don’t know much about Solis, who’s a congresswoman from California, but what I’ve read so far has made me optimistic. The two big things we can expect her to focus on is the creation of so-called “green” jobs to help jump start the economy, and the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which will make it easier for unions to form.

This from the Los Angeles Times:

Elected to Congress in 2000 from a district that includes swaths of East L.A. and the San Gabriel Valley, Solis has consistently voted in support of labor’s interests. A congressional voting analysis conducted by the AFL-CIO showed that she voted with organized labor 100% of the time last year.

She supported measures increasing the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to organize and preserving a ban on privatizing jobs at the Labor Department. Other labor groups that study congressional voting patterns gave her a 100% rating in 2005 and 2006.

J.P. Fielder, spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, suggested that Solis’ voting record is overly weighted in labor’s favor.

Bingo! After eight years of an administration that’s been overly weighted in businesses’ favor it’s time for the working stiff to get a break, no?

Here’s some reaction to Obama’s choice from labor and legal experts:

“Usually when Presidents select Secretaries of Labor they look for someone who is either very friendly toward business (like the last one and like Reagan’s) and will focus on general working conditions, looser requirements for overtime pay, job training and so on, or very friendly toward labor unions (like Reich under the Clinton administration), and will support the reform of the laws regarding union organizing and collective bargaining. Hilda Solis is very friendly toward labor unions, and her selection is part of the payback to the unions for their considerable and successful support (endorsements, funds, manpower for canvassing) during the last election.

“Expect Hilda Solis to create a Department of Labor that is attuned to the needs and priorities of unions, primarily their top legislative priority, the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make union organizing easier and cheaper because union majority support at a workplace could be determined by signed membership cards as opposed to secret ballot elections. Also, expect Solis to lead the charge for greater protection of workers who lose their jobs or are otherwise discriminated against during union organizing drives, as well as greater funding for the National Labor Relations Board to protect workers rights to freely choose unionization.

“Having a union-friendly Secretary of Labor is important to unions because it means they have a contact person for expressing their priorities, be they general (government policies in favor of immigrant rights, or against trade pacts) or specific (government help to restrict employer conduct during a strike, such as the use of strike breakers, or keeping unions and their collective bargaining agreements away from bankruptcy court as in the auto industry case). Solis will be taking an activist and liberal view in support of a wide range of issues, such as eliminating discrimination, increasing penalties against employers for unsafe workplaces, raising standards for on the job health and safety) and probably increased intervention in labor disputes. She will also testify before Congress in support of union friendly labor laws (e.g., the Employee Free Choice Act).”
–Gary Chaison, Professor of Industrial Relations, Clark University

“As someone who has pounded the pavement knocking on doors for Hilda Solis in her first upset campaign in California, I can tell you firsthand that this woman is about opening doors for millions of Americans who get up and go to work each day.

“From the streets of Los Angeles where she marched with the janitors who were fighting for jobs with dignity that can support a family through SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaigns, to the halls of Congress where she has been an outspoken supporter of healthcare rights for all, a livable minimum wage, and workers’ right to come together for a voice on the job, Hilda Solis has never backed down from the good fight to make the American Dream available to all.

“The daughter of two immigrant workers and union members and a board member of American Rights at Work, she will be a Secretary of Labor working men and women can finally count on to stand up and fight for them. For Representative Solis, the American Dream is not an abstraction. Her parents met in a citizenship class. She understands personally the challenges workers face in a global economy and the need for a bold new agenda that expands healthcare for everyone and gives American workers a greater choice and a greater voice. For Representative Solis, serving as Secretary of Labor will not just be a job, but the culmination of a lifetime of action serving as a voice for people who work.”
– SEIU President Andy Stern

“I think that Congresswoman Solis is an inspired, if risky, pick. She spearheaded a 1996 California initiative to increase the state minimum wage. She’s been a staunch labor advocate in Congress. She appreciates the critical role that immigrants play in the labor movement and that labor unions can play in improving the lives of immigrants. That all being said,it is unclear whether she will be able to effectively advance her agenda vis a vis macro issues of importance to workers in an Obama administration studded with economic heavyweights like Timothy Geithner and Paul Volcker.”
–Hanan B. Kolko, a skilled and experienced litigator in labor and employee benefits law at Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein, P.C

“I think Solis is a great pick for Labor Secretary. She has worked for the rights of poor and disenfranchised workers, to increase minimum wages, for workers’ rights to unionize and expect fair treatment, benefits, and wages, and for green jobs. Her support of green jobs seem fits well with President-Elect Obama’s focus on green energy and jobs.”
–Myrtle P. Bell, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Management, Professional Insights Editor, Equal Opportunities International, University of Texas at Arlington

“While Ms. Solis is a well educated and passionate supporter of the American Worker, her noted strategies to support the American Worker are misguided.

“Ms Solis has been known to generate comments such as ‘I will work to strengthen today’s unions’ and ‘I fully support the Employee Free Choice Act.’ While her sentiments to protect the American Worker are noble, if the Employee Free Choice Act bill is implemented containing today’s language, it will have dramatic effects on the American Worker, yet not in the positive sense. Even Obama himself has recently stated that although he is in favor of the EFCA, he looks to review ‘revisions’ of the current bill.

“The current wording will, in effect, damage American business, by potentially forcing smaller to mid-size businesses into bankruptcy or for larger institutions, paving the way for alternate viable operations i.e. offshoring. Ms. Solis believes in justice for the American Worker and should concentrate on other vehicles to create these justices, with the first being, the removal of administrative bottlenecks within the agencies (i.e. Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, etc.) who hear out employee complaints.”
– Sheri Stolp, The Stolp Group

I’ve got an email out to Reich to see if he’s got a take on Solis.

Haven’t heard from Reich yet, but here’s a link to a great blog post by employment attorney Jay Sumner, with Littler Mendelson.

Here are some key points he makes: (Keep in mind, Sumner represents businesses.)

Solis’ record for supporting business interests is less than spectacular. She has garnered a 21% rating in 2003 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, indicating a fairly anti-business voting record.

She has consistently voted in favor of increasing the federal minimum wage. Solis has indicated she will continue to support a bill she co-sponsored, the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2049), which increases penalties against employers for worker safety violations, enhances protections for whistleblowers, and mandates that employers pay for personal protective equipment. She is also in favor of greater OSHA funding to increase enforcement of workplace safety laws.

In terms of civil rights, Solis has supported the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment and related bills promoting comparable work pay rules for women, and legislation prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. In the healthcare arena, Solis voted in favor of giving mental health benefits full equity with physical health benefits.

Our society has been so obsessed with youth lately, is it sick for me to see some positives in the recession because it may stop women from going under the knife for no reason?

It’s been making me crazy lately, how many people, especially women, think they need to look young in order to land jobs. I know, there are even career experts out there telling you it’s a good idea. Sorry to disappoint you all, but it’s credentials and the ability to get the job done, and a few connections of course, that gets you a gig.

Of course, you can’t show up looking like a homeless person, but plumping up your lips and stretching out your face until you look like a freak (like Natasha Richardson did last night on “Top Chef”) won’t help.

I’ve been bitching about this for a while and people still are dumb enough to risk needles and knives. But finally the economy may derail some of you just in the nick of time. (No pun intended.)

There’s a great story in the New York Times today called “Putting Vanity On Hold” and the author surmises tough economic times may take some of the pressure off of the plastic-surgery obsessed.

As the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?

Will the vogue for a smoothed face in which only the mouth moves, or a mix-and-match body of mature breasts atop boyish hips become outmoded? Will aesthetic values loosen up, allowing the occasional wrinkle to take on a certain measure of authenticity?

“There comes a point when you are putting too much time and money into your vanity,” said Peri Basel, a practice consultant in Chappaqua, N.Y., who advises cosmetic doctors on marketing strategies. “For me, the vanity issue is: Where does it stop? If you are going for buttock implants, do you really need that?”

Amen Peri!

It’s a sad fact, but lean economic times make us all start to realize what really matters. The boom boom years we are leaving behind made many people filthy rich, but the me me time did little to make us a better society.

We’ve come away from this era hating ourselves and at the same time focused only on ourselves. Technological advances have ushered in unheard of medical miracles and the Internet. But how have we used these gifts — to cut up our faces and spend endless hours blogging about how we can better sell ourselves, or better yet, packages ourselves, to employers and consumers.

We shouldn’t be so surprised at the corruption and scamming of people like Bernard Madoff, or the financial sector at large, or corrupt politicians. We don’t really expect that much of people today, because we don’t expect that much of ourselves.

Let’s all hail the recession for a moment. Maybe it will shake us all up and put us on the right track, or at least a better one.

If only my father were alive to see the big wigs that were taken by the biggest Ponzi scam ever. Steven Spielberg and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel even got duped.

Boy, would my dad feel vindicated. He was the victim of such a scam several years before his death. As a serial entrepreneur, my father understood how businesses worked, but he was still duped by a smooth talking guy who took him for a big portion of his life savings.

If you haven’t been following the news, a guy named Bernard Madoff took tons of banks, rich people, and charities for a lot of money in an elaborate pyramid scheme.

From the Associated Press:

The 70-year-old Madoff (MAY-doff), well respected in the investment community after serving as chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested Thursday in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme to defraud investors. Some investors claim they’ve been wiped out, while others are still likely to come forward.

“There were a lot of very sophisticated people who were duped, and that happens a great deal when you’ve had somebody decide to be unscrupulous,” said Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a regulatory agency in charge of monitoring investment funds like the one Madoff operated.

Stories about what Madoff did make my stomach sick inside. It takes me back to that painful time when I saw my father crushed by a jerk.

My father was caught up in a much smaller version of this type of scam. He was upset about the money, yes. But I think he was most upset at being taken. He was ashamed and kept wondering how he fell for such a scam.

I’m pointing this out because I believe most anyone can fall prey to such schemes, and right now more than ever you all have to be diligent about reviewing and investigating any opportunities that come your way, especially work-at-home scams.

My email box is full of inquires from readers who wonder if the too-good-to-be true job offers are indeed too good to be true.

And now more than ever the scammers are out for blood, and they’re finding victims because so many of you are desperate.

“Scam artists follow market trends better than most corporations do, and, when they see a strong movement toward a certain product, service, or desire, they move quickly to bilk unsuspecting consumers out of their hard-earned cash,” says Christine Durst, CEO of Staffcentrix, a training company that specializes in home-based jobs and telework.

“Our researchers screen between 4,500 and 5,000 work at home job leads every week,” explains Durst, “and currently, there is a 54-to-1 scam ratio. This means, that for every 55 leads they investigate; only one passes our legitimacy standards.”

Yes folks, one in 55, and that seems high to me.

Complaints to the Better Business Bureau regarding work-at-home opportunities rose to 4,100 in 2007 from about 3,800 the previous year. That means more of you are falling prey to these bozos.

I wrote a story for MSNBC.com a while back warning against these too-good-to-be-true offers and in that Durst offered some warning signs:

1. “Work at Home” appears in the ad header: “Work from home” is not a job title. If it appears in the ad header there’s a good chance it’s a come on - scammers can rarely resist including it in the header – it’s the bait of their “hook” as they fish for desperate people to reel in.
2. Claims that no experience is necessary and no resume is requested: In the “real world” all jobs require you do something so it stands to reason that a legitimate ad will tell you what it is you need to be able to do. In the world of scams, a person’s gullibility is far more important than their experience or skills.
3. Unbelievable pay! - make $5,000 a week working part time! Exaggerated claims of income are a sure sign of a scam.
4. The ad arrives as spam in your email. As if by a miracle, an ad for home-based work just landed in your email inbox. How could this man from Romania have known you were looking for home-based work? Miracles do happen, but not via SPAM. If you receive unsolicited job offers in your email it’s probably the result of a scammer having “harvested” your email address from another location frequented by people who are seeking work. Move it to your trash file without using the “remove me from this list” link you’re likely to find at the bottom of the page. These links are often used to confirm that your email address is active and using them can result in even more SPAM.
5. No Job Description: What exactly is the ad for? Most scams will give little or no description of the type of work you are supposed to be performing – not even an allusion to such. Real job listings will always tell you what they expect you to do for them.
6. Palm Trees, Mansions, Beaches & Bikinis: If the ad you’re looking at features palm trees, a mansion, and a Ferrari, it’s probably a scam. Successful scammers often bag their prey by dangling enticing things in front of them – much like kidnappers do. “If you get into my car I’ll give you this candy bar.”
7. “Limited number of openings” in the subject line: “We are seeking 11 people to work from home!” Scammers use this tactic to build a sense of urgency in their prospective victims — “If I don’t act now, the opportunity may disappear.”

OK, for the soul of my incredibly intelligent, loving father, be careful out there. Don’t end up just another angry victim.

Do you feel like your employer is squeezing the economic life out of you?

Just because you haven’t been laid off doesn’t mean you’re living on employment easy street. Lots of companies are scaling back on overtime, freezing wages and coming up with creative ways to downsize by taking money out of their employees’ pockets.

I’ve gotten a host of emails lately from workers sharing the latest hack and slash, everything from not paying 100 percent of a salary when an employee is on vacation to cutting back on the number of sick days provided. Another tactic is temporarily laying off workers and then reinstating them. This is something that went on often during the downturn in the 1970s. That’s what people used to mean when they said lay off — you were laid off a job until you were put back on. You weren’t actually fired, just put in a suspended state of employment.

Here’s one email that’s typical of what’s happening out there:

I was wondering if you know if it is legal for a company to make it’s employers sign something saying that they are about to get laid off and that all the sick time and vacation time the employees have will be used to pay us while laid off and that we will have to work to pay back the sick time and vacation time given to us if we don’t have any accrued?
Basically my employer said we will be getting laid off for about a week or two, They said we weren’t able to get unemployment until we were out of work for 2 weeks and since we will be back to work by then they want us to sign a paper saying if we have sick or vacation time we can get paid with it, and if we don’t have any they’ll pay us but we then have to work to pay them back what they gave us, so we wont accumulate any sick or vacation time until we have worked off what they paid us.
When a co-worker questioned this the boss then said to sign it or don’t participate, meaning if we don’t sign it we wont get paid.
Is that legal to make us give up our accumulated time or to pay it back if we don’t have any??

Unfortunately, much of what employers are doing in this regard is legal, but I figured I’d get some feedback from a real lawyer.

Mark D. Risk, an attorney that mainly represents employees says:

Though I obviously don’t know any of the facts and circumstances, it sounds as if the employer is trying to cope with cash flow problems and keep its workforce intact while minimizing the cost of unemployment benefits. I remind you that there is no guarantee the employees will be recalled in two weeks, though I am sure the employer hopes and intends to do so.

Though it may take a couple of weeks for their claims to be processed, the employees are entitled to unemployment benefits as soon as they are laid off. While the employer has unemployment insurance, its insurance premiums will be increased to reflect the claims paid. So the employer has an economic incentive to dissuade the employees from filing claims for unemployment benefits.

This explains the request that employees take a vacation instead of a layoff. The employer is saying “Business is slow now, why don’t you take your vacation (and other paid time off) now.” To those without any accrued vacation time, the employer is saying “I am giving you a paid vacation now, but going forward I am reducing your compensation — you will not receive paid vacation next year.” And the employer certainly has the right to reduce compensation on a going forward basis.

The employees might want to tell the employer “no thanks, I will take the temporary layoff and file for unemployment benefits, then take my paid vacation at some future time after I return to work.” But keep in mind that, now more than ever, employees need for their employers’ businesses to succeed – so they can be recalled from layoff in two weeks, so that there will be a job to return to after their vacation next summer.

While many of us want our employers to succeed you should know your rights when it comes to changes employers make to your job. Don’t just roll over and accept what your boss offers. It may be illegal, or you may be able to negotiate terms that work better for you.

Send me an email at telleve@gmail.com if you have specific questions.