When I was a little girl my two sisters and I were spending the night at my grandparents house when we pushed my grandfather to the brink.

My grandfather, who we called Papu, was a quiet, reserved man, who never raised his voice and was rarely mad at anyone. But on this particular evening the three of us were jumping on the beds, blasting the little clock radio and screaming at the top of our lungs. My grandmother tried to quiet us to no avail.

Finally Papu threw open the door yelled some curse in Turkish and spat at us.

In an instant we all were in our beds under the covers, shaking in disbelief. “We made Papu spit,” my older sister whispered to me in shock after the lights were out.

This was how he showed his anger. When I told my American friends the story they thought my Papu was insane and laughed about it. But it was culturally acceptable for him to spit in that way when he grew up in Istanbul.

I thought about this when I watched an Iraqi reporter throw his shoe in anger at President Bush this weekend.

For the past few years, there’s been a growing anger towards Bush in this country over the war, the economy, etc. But no one has thrown anything at the man. That’s just not the way we show our outrage in this country.

It is in Iraq. This from the Washington Post:

Throwing a shoe at someone is considered the worst possible insult in Iraq and is meant to show extreme disrespect and contempt. When U.S. forces helped topple a statue of Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein after rolling into Baghdad in April 2003, jubilant Iraqis beat the statue’s face with their shoes.

“This is a farewell kiss!” the man, identified as Muntadar al-Zaidi, a reporter with the Cairo-based al-Baghdadia television network, yelled in Arabic as he threw the first shoe.

Most American’s aren’t this overt about their anger. They tend to seethe over things, let it eat them up inside.

I see this a lot with workers. Bosses treat them like crap, they fire them for little reason, they yell at them, undermine them, play favorites, but the employees often become paralyzed by both fear and anger.

During this time of uncertainty and mass layoffs, there’s a lot of anger percolating out there against the managers making all the decisions.

Will throwing your shoe at your boss after he or she tells you to clean out your desk and has your escorted out of the building by security guards make you feel better?

Unfortunately, if you throw your shoe that’s probably what everyone will focus on, the shoe, not the actions that caused the anger, says management consultant Jenny Schade, a trained counseling psychologist and president of JRS Consulting.

“The best thing to do is take a deep breath and then take another one,” says Schade. “Don’t react to the anger.”

She has no problem with an employee approaching a boss or former boss to discuss what is causing the anger, but that means having a conversation with a manager and having a specific goal in mind. Maybe you want to extend your health insurance, or make sure you get your vacation pay. These are all valid reasons to have a civil discussion with a manager. But intimidation or angry confrontations won’t work, and may even come back to hurt your career if you make a big enough rage rant.

If you are escorted out of the building but still want to know why you were fired and others weren’t, Schade suggests writing an email, or making a phone call to your former boss to find out why. But again, don’t leave angry messages. This is where it helps to get an unemotional friend or colleague to take a look at your message before you leave it or send it.

Taking these level-headed approaches won’t guarantee you’ll get satisfaction. Your boss may be too stupid or just be too chicken to return the email or phone call. In this case you’ll have to release steam in other ways, Schade says. Maybe go to the gym or bitch to your friends.

I know, I know, a stiletto to a boss’ head sounds so much more fulfilling. But in this age of cyber socializing you don’t want that to end up on Facebook or YouTube.

Unlike Iraq where some people are hailing the shoe-throwing journalist as a hero, in America you’ll probably end up “the insane shoe thrower” no one wants to hire.

We wake up this morning with news that two ends of our economy were knocked for a loop — autos and the financial sector.

The deal to give loans to the Big Three automakers has failed, and Bank of America, the nation’s biggest bank, announced plans to slash up to 35,000 jobs.

It’s a grim tale of two worker cities.

Even with such bad news, most workers will prevail and go on to do bigger and better things. But it’s unfortunate that rank and file employees continue to be the ones that suffer because of stupid or corrupt moves made by the leaders running the largest companies in this country.

Life isn’t fair when it comes to how the regular people are treated in the business world and in politics.

The financial sector is in a tailspin because a bunch of greedy people decided being moderately rich wasn’t enough so they invested in risky investments with little regard for the long-term consequences.

The U.S. auto industry, long seeing the environmental hand-writing on the wall, did little to make more alternatives to gas guzzlers. And a loan that would help shore up the struggling industry in Congress failed because Republican Senate leaders wanted more blood from a stone — the autoworkers. These men in power decided not to do the deal because middle-class workers wouldn’t agree to slash their pay further.

It’s the way it is I suppose. The way these things tend to play out. Thanks goodness people who work hard for a living, typically the rank and file, are strong enough to weather the bad times. They can pick themselves up and do what they have to to support themselves and their families.

But we have to start expecting more from the leaders in this country.

There’s a hopeful opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning by former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina where she takes some shots at this country’s corporate leaders and how they’ve lost the respect of their own workers.

Business leaders must use these difficult times as an opportunity to restore our credibility with the American people. We must be prepared to step up to new levels of transparency and accountability and to recalibrate our own role in an increasingly competitive world.

She continues with a key point:

In a fast-paced, hypercompetitive, technology-driven world, common sense, good judgment and ethics matter more than ever. The American people expect leaders to have sufficient wisdom and perspective to buck the crowd and defy conventional wisdom when necessary, even if it isn’t popular at the time. Quarterly earnings and share price cannot be the singular purpose of business or metric of success for CEOs. Shareholders are not the only constituency a CEO and board serve. Businesses have equally important obligations to employees and customers. A CEO’s job is to balance the competing requirements of all of these constituencies.

She says businesses have obligations to employees. Yes, employees. They are not just line items on a balance sheet, they are “flesh and blood,” as business consultant Jamie Showkeir, coauthor of Authentic Conversations: Moving from Manipulation to Truth and Commitment, told me recently.

It’s time we all started demanding integrity from our leaders.

We need auto and finance workers to stage a sit-in protest now.

People thought the 200 plus workers at a Chicago door and window factory were so quaint, staging a sit in in today’s world. But they got what they wanted baby — the severance and vacation they were owed.

Workers are tired of these injustices and, it seems, they’re not going to take it anymore.

Let’s get twisted!

Oh We’re Not Gonna Take It
no, We Ain’t Gonna Take It
oh We’re Not Gonna Take It Anymore

we’ve Got The Right To Choose And
there Ain’t No Way We’ll Lose It
this Is Our Life, This Is Our Song
we’ll Fight The Powers That Be Just
don’t Pick Our Destiny ’cause
you Don’t Know Us, You Don’t Belong

‘Tis the season to be working hard for no money. NOT!

I know, it’s scary out there with the jobless rate at an all-time high.

This just in from Bloomberg News:

The number of Americans filing first- time claims for unemployment benefits surged more than forecast last week to a 26-year high, a sign companies are stepping up firings as the recession deepens.

Despite the bad numbers, employees have to keep their heads.

So, I wanted to ask you employed people out there some questions.

Are you working more than your regular hours? Are you picking up the slack because so many people have been laid off around you? Or are you so nervous you might be next you’ve been working like a dog so the boss is less inclined to downsize you?

During most of the economic downturns I’ve covered as a journalist, I’ve observed many employees putting in overtime, and often do not getting paid for it.

Well, it’s deja vu all over again.

Already I’ve gotten a rash of emails from readers saying they put in tons of extra hours hoping to keep their jobs but now that they’ve been laid off they want to know if they can get the overtime money they feel they’re owed.

Here’s a sampling of some recent reader emails:

I no longer have a job even though I had seniority and was the office manager. My job was cut I believe because I was one of the highest paid employees and had a month of vacation accrued but because of the downturn in the economy I was let go with no hope of getting my job back. I was a salaried employee and my question is this, was there not federal legislation a few years back that gave salaried workers overtime pay if they worked more than 40 hours a week? And does this have to be “documented” by a time card?
As of right now I have been out of work since March and have not been able to find any work.

- K.F. of Hartville, MO

A couple of weeks ago my son in law was “laid off” as his employer put it. He was working for a photography studio and had been there since February of this year. His boss worked him 60 plus hours a week, usually more like 70 or so always with the promise of bigger and better things to come and at minimum at least paid days off “when things slowed down a bit.” He was paid a salary, naturally. The employer knew exactly what he was doing, in my opinion. Don’t you agree? No union, nothing in writing. Well, now the boss said because of the poor economy he was forced to fire or lay off almost the entire crew of 20+ employees, my son in law one of them. He didn’t give anyone any notice at all. What a rotten thing to do. Does my son in law have a case to fight or not in your opinion?

- Diane from Oregon

Oh, overtime remorse. We break our backs for our employers, putting in extra hours, hoping they’ll appreciate our efforts and what do we get? A pink slip and a empty pocket.

First off, a message to all of you out there thinking your unpaid extra hours will someday pay off — it rarely does. I’m not saying you should be a jerk and document every extra 20 minutes you put in here or there to finish a project, or help out a manager. I’m talking about the 10, 20, even 30 extra work hours you clock with no compensation.

That’s not smart in any economy.

That said, what are the rights of these individuals above.

It’s a myth that only hourly workers are entitled to overtime. Both these individuals may have a claim.

A while back I did a story on overtime for the New York Times that looked at an increase in the number of class action lawsuits against corporations that were misclassifying workers as managers and not paying them the overtime they should have been owned.

Here’s an excerpt:

The 1938 Federal Fair Labor Standards Act that governs overtime pay ‘’is universally misunderstood.'’ It outlines four types of employees who can be exempted from overtime-pay requirements — executives who manage some part of a company’s business and have the authority to hire and fire workers; administrators who perform nonmanual work and exercise some independent judgment; professionals like lawyers and accountants; and traveling sales representatives. While the act offers detailed descriptions, the actual decisions on who is really exempt are open to interpretation by the courts or by Labor Department investigators.

So, if you feel you should have been paid overtime, you need to call your state Labor Department pronto. Just because you don’t have time sheets, or time cards calculating your hours doesn’t mean you can’t win a claim for overtime against your employer.

And, for all of you spending endless hours at your desks or at the plant, you’re really not helping your career prospects, or your health, or your relationships, or your well being, etc. etc. etc…..

Congress is now fighting over whether the Big Three U.S. automobile companies should get a bailout, but there’s a bigger battle going on in this country — the battle to keep blue collar and manufacturing jobs.

To hear some pundits, politicians and even average Joes lately, you’d think no one wants or respects jobs that require workers to work with their hands.

I just wrote about this for MSNBC.com and I was surprised by the flood of response so far from readers.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

Ron Maccari, who works at the Newport, Del., plant that makes GM’s Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice, thinks blue-collar work is getting a bum rap.

“If someone is producing something in this country, is making money and has a semi-decent house, we thumb our nose at them,” he said. “I read what they’re saying on blogs: ‘Let the auto industry die.’”

Maccari sees a growing movement in the United States to “disregard manufacturing, to eliminate it.”

Maccari’s not alone in his feelings.

“What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II,” conservative pundit Pat Buchanan said in a recent article published on WorldNetDaily.com. (Buchanan is a msnbc political analyst.)

Today only about 13 million people work in the manufacturing sector, down from nearly 18 million 10 years ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Despite the decline in jobs, there are expected shortages of skilled production workers in a host of industries. These include everything from aerospace to medical manufacturing to products needed for infrastructure improvements and green industries favored by President-elect Barack Obama, says Patricia Lee, a spokeswoman with the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, a trade group.

A recent survey by the group found that the most serious concern about the sector, behind the cost of raw materials, was availability of skilled labor.

It’s a problem that is expected to get worse in the years ahead. But does this nation really want a manufacturing workforce? Do parents hope their kids follow a career path into U.S. factories?

Manufacturing has an image problem, many experts say.

Indeed, so many of us career writers never even think of blue-collar jobs when we’re offering advice. Some of my regular readers may notice that I just added a “manufacturing” category to this blog. (Sorry it took so long.)

I got this email from a reader just last week:

I noticed your column leans more toward the professional, white collar workers (over paid and underworked). Not many columns of interest geared toward the blue collar workers.

It’s not just that career writers don’t want to right about those that toil in plants, there sometimes seems to be a dearth of information out there. I’m working on a story right now about using cyber social networking to land a job, and almost every site I’m researching has little in the way of help for manufacturing professionals.

What do you all think? Is it OK if we lose all our blue-collar jobs? Should every American work in a office?

UPDATE“Some how these workers always end up on the bottom. It’s wrong.”

This statement was made by a guy who enjoys being at the top — Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Yesterday, Blagojevich was supporting the workers at a Chicago factory who were staging a sit-in protest because they were laid off without severance or owed vacation pay.

Today, the federal government accused Blagojevich of a “corruption crime spree.”

It got me thinking about how phony people can be. How things don’t get better for the little guys and gals because to often the people championing their causes don’t really give a crap about the working stiffs.

Blagojevich probably rushed to the factory for a photo opt because the sit-in was increasingly getting national attention, but did this guy really care?

Here are some specifics on his alleged crimes from MSNBC.com:

CHICAGO - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich embarked on “political corruption crime spree” and tried to benefit from his ability to appoint President-elect Barack Obama’s replacement in the U.S. Senate, federal officials said Tuesday.

At a news conference in Chicago on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called it a sad day for the citizens of Illinois and alleged that the governor tried to “auction off” the Senate seat “to the highest bidder”.

He said the alleged behavior “would make (Abe) Lincoln roll over in his grave”.

Didn’t this guy have enough power and money? Why would he want to make a quick buck on a Senate seat. If this is true it would mean he was a greedy idiot, no? He is a governor for goodness sake.

Back to the sit-in workers.

Blagojevich claimed he was going to help them fight for what they were owed, specifically, that they should have been given 60 days notice based on something called the WARN Act.

I recently wrote a story for MSNBC.com that included information about WARN, and almost every lawyer and workplace advocate I talked to said that often times if employers don’t follow this federal law and fail to provide notice, very little is done to enforce it. In fact, the Act was adopted without any provisions to provide for enforcement so your only recourse is suing your former employer in court, these experts told me.

This example of Blagojevich’s alleged self-centeredness proves yet again that we can not rely on people doing the right thing folks.

We need enforceable laws to protect workers, not just hopes that people will do the right thing. Too often they don’t.

UPDATE:

Talk about not trusting anyone, I got an email, totally unsolicited, from one of the nation’s biggest unions today, the SEIU, or Service Employees International Union, regarding the Blagojevich allegations:

Statement by SEIU Communications Director Ramona Oliver on the federal investigation involving Governor Blagojevich:

“We have no reason to believe that SEIU or any SEIU official was involved in any wrongdoing.”

“In keeping with the U.S. Attorney’s request, we are not sharing information with the media at this time.”

It made me cringe inside. What the heck are they denying? Who charged them of anything?

Well, it turns out, the union may be embroiled in the Illinois Governor’s mess.

This from BuzzFlash.com:

Two schemes Rod Blagojevich discussed in conversations recorded and excerpted in today’s two-count criminal complaint, concerned the idea of attempting to use Blagovevich’s power to appoint a Senate replacement as leverage to help him secure financial security and a post-gubernatorial position for himself.

Blagojevich floated two balloons. One was the formation of a new 501(c)(4) nonprofit which he would head. The other was to jockey to secure a salaried job as head of “Change To Win,” a non-profit affiliated with 7 unions including the SEIU.

Blagojevich and aides contemplated pressuring the Obama transition team for help with these schemes, believing the Governor could offer in return to appoint the candidate of Obama’s choice to fill the Senate seat.

It appears that these schemes did not progress very far.

An un-named SEIU Official did talk with the Governor about the plan, but there is no recording indicating that the Governor received confirmation from that person that there was agreement to his suggestion from any Obama representative. Rather, the prospective Senate candidate whom Blagojevich believed Obama favored (speculated to be Valerie Jarrett) removed herself from consideration.The apparent SEIU go-between also suggested later that Obama favored other candidate(s).

UPDATE BELOWThere’s a sit-in protest going on in Chicago right now.

No, it’s not a bunch of college kids protesting the war. It’s a bunch of factory workers, some middle aged, who are fighting for what they’re owed.

On Friday, their company Republic Windows & Doors abruptly fired nearly 300 workers at the factory, gave them no notice — which is required by law — and did not pay them the accrued vacation time they were owed. (Here’s a link to what some of your layoff rights are.)

“It’s time for the little man to stand up,” says Melvin Maclin, a worker at the facility.

“Sorry sucker,” seems to be the refrain many workers across the country are hearing these days as employers, strapped for cash, do everything to save themselves with little regard for the little guys and gals…you know, the people that made the senior executives at these companies so rich.

Yesterday I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post about how U.S. corporations seem to be in a mad dash to cut workers and worker benefits. I wanted to ask whether the mass layoffs we’ve been seeing are really necessary. Executives are scrambling to keep their fortunes. If they chop thousands of workers from their rolls, they surmise, the company stock will get a boost and ultimately so will their stock options.

The bottom-line is the bottom-line workforce — which is how so many company leaders see employees, as a line-item on a balance sheet — is getting the shaft.

Maybe it’s time you guys started writing your members of Congress and pushing them to make sure their are provisions in these bailout to save jobs, or at least pay workers what they’re owed when they get booted out the door.

We should all send some good karma vibes over to those workers in Chicago. They are getting some recognition, with even President-elect Obama talking about their fight. But the only way things will change is if workers support each other.

Let’s not let them sit in vain.

UPDATE:

This from the Associate Press:

The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend limited loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared their protest unfinished.

A resolution appeared closer when the bank announced that it had sent a letter to Republic offering to “provide a limited amount of additional loans” to resolve the employee claims.

The bank appeared to side at least in part with disgruntled workers, expressing concern in a statement Tuesday “about Republic’s failure to pay their employees the Employee Claims to which they are legally entitled.”

Bank of America has been criticized for cutting off the plant’s credit after taking federal bailout money itself.

Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for the union representing the workers, said Tuesday that it was too soon to know whether the sit-in will be called off. She said that workers would have to vote to end the action but that negotiations among the bank, the company and union representative continued.

Workers, who received just three days’ notice before the plant shut down on Friday, argue that the company violated federal law because employees were not given 60 days’ notice that they were losing their jobs.

The company did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

You’re not unemployed. You are intra-employed.

That’s a great, half-full phrase from one of my favorite workplace academics, Ben Dattner, a New York University adjunct professor who teaches organizational development.

Basically, intra-employed means you’re between jobs, he says, and that’s a positive spin on a negative situation — being out of work.

“I think as hard as times are,” he explains, “one can always frame things positively.”

Exactly! I’m trying to be more positive.

Recently a colleague and branding expert I respect, Dan Schawbel, told me my blogs about the recession and skyrocketing joblessness have been too negative lately. So, I’m putting on my positive hat.

In fact, I’m even singing this morning.

Always look on the bright side of life.

That’s a line from a song from one of my favorite movies, Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” –

I know, I know, the guy is on a cross, and what’s positive about that. Well, he’s looking on the bright side. If he can, you can damn it!

No matter how hard it gets out there in the unemployment trenches folks, you’re better off than these guys.

I was speaking on a Michigan radio show called Barnaby & Friends this morning about layoffs and how, for most people, getting fired from a job always turns out to be the best thing that ever happened.

I’m serious about this. In my 20 plus years covering labor and workplace issues I have never met anywone who said, a year or more after being let go, that the layoff wasn’t the best thing that ever happened.

It may not seem like that now folks, but I promise, you’ll look back and say, “Eve was right.”

So, on this lovely, beautiful Monday morning, (I don’t care if the weather is bad where you are, go with me on this) I want you all to create a job-seeking action plan.

I know you might not want to face this, but start out with your resume. Some of you may not have one, or have a dusty old one. Don’t look at that old one, just start fresh.

If you’ve had the same job for the last 25 plus years, I would suggest making a list of ten things you did recently at your job, i.e. projects you handled; sales targets you met; major articles or papers you wrote, etc.

This is a starting point folks. The challenge is convincing someone you are the best person for the job. Wow them with your accomplishments. I don’t care if you don’t have 12 employers on your resume.

Make your resume interesting and please, please, don’t be long winded. One page is fine unless you’re in a highly technical field or academia.

And approach your job search as if you’re just in transition.

Transition from one job to another, as Dattner says.

With potential employers and even friends you meet up with at holiday parties you can say — and maintain this as your mentality — “I’m intra-employed right now. I’m looking for something that’s right for me.”

How’s that for positive Dan?

OK, sing with me:

Always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that’s the thing.

And…always look on the bright side of life…
Always look on the light side of life…

It was a bloody week.

And it seems like it’s only going to get worse.

Just a few minutes ago the government announced the jobless rate continues to rise.

From the Associated Press:

The nation’s unemployment rate hit 6.7 percent in Nov. as companies, worried about the state of the economy, the consumer and tight credit, slashed 533,000 jobs.

Employers cut 1.2 million jobs through October. And the layoffs keep coming — on Thursday, bellwether companies like AT&T Inc. and DuPont Co. announced they were cutting thousands of jobs.

I’ve gotten so many emails this week from people telling me they lost their jobs that I lost count.

There was one theme that kept coming up in your emails — a lack of opportunities in the industries you were working in. Autoworkers are wondering what next, since jobs in the sector are disappearing; newspaper writers and editors are seeing the death of newspapers; and long-time telephone company employees know the heyday of traditional wire-lines is over. This is just a sampling of segments of our economy that are gasping for life.

Some of us have to face the hand writing on the wall. It’s time to start looking for new career horizons.

How do you do that? Training.

Yes, many of you will be able to take your skills and just do a little side step into a similar industry that’s growing. But for so many people, this won’t be an option.

At a time when you’re out of work the last thing many of you think you can afford is paying for school. It may not be as expensive as you think. In fact, it could be free.

I got an email recently from a company that’s offering free retraining in Michigan. And it turns out many schools in Michigan are also getting on the free school bandwagon.

Here’s an excerpt from that email:

Michigan-based businesses and universities are now offering free training and discounted education to assist the state’s displaced workforce.

Altair Engineering, a global provider of technology and services, today announced that it will offer free technology training courses and licenses for advanced software to displaced engineers who want in computer-aided engineering (CAE) as a way of increasing their marketability to employers. The value of the program and 90-day software license Altair offers after the program exceeds $11,000 per person. Please find a full release below announcing the program.

Also, Lawrence Tech University, a private university in metropolitan Detroit, is offering a 50 percent reduction in tuition for displaced workers.

From what I’ve heard from other schools and businesses, this is not just something that’s happening in Michigan.

Here’s some info on free classes at schools in Pennsylvania:

Residents of Northampton and Monroe counties who have lost their jobs because of the slumping economy will be eligible for free tuition at Northampton Community College to help change their careers.

The program will allow students to take up to 12 credits in one semester in a number of career fields, including biotechnology, business and nursing. The college will also offer up to $900 worth of community education classes and a career transitions expo Dec. 13.

“We know that individuals that are educated and better trained will be well-positioned to enter into the new world once the recession is over,” said NCC president Arthur Scott.

The assistance program will begin in the spring semester and continue as long as necessary. The waiver can only be used once and does not cover fees, textbooks or supplies.

This is a good time for all of you to go online and check out what your state has to offer displaced workers. State budgets often have provisions to provide, or help provide the jobless with help getting retrained. Surf over to the websites of all the colleges and trade schools in your region to see what they have to offer.

Also, your former employer could be a source of training. In many cases, employees who were fired were the ones in non growing segments at a company. There may have been growth in other areas, but maybe your boss didn’t think you were open to retraining. If you liked your company and had a good performance record, go back and ask if there’s anyway you can take advantage of retraining programs if they’re offered.

I’ll include other options for training later. But for now, keep an open mind. Maybe there is something else you can be trained for that you’ll end up loving.

Will all you women out there without families please stand up.

I’ve got a job for you. Head of Homeland Security. Yes, the head of our nation’s Homeland Security Department.

Turns out, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell thinks women who don’t have families are the best choice for the gig.

Yesterday Rendell, one of the biggest-mouth politicians on the planet, actually said Janet Napolitano, Arizona Governor and Obama’s choice for Homeland Security chief, was a good pick because she didn’t have a family and could devote her whole heart and soul to the job. (Napolitano is not married and has no kids.)

“Janet’s perfect for that job,” Rendell says. “Because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it.”

Hello, the present security chief, Michael Chertoff, has a wife and kids.

Here’s a video of Rendell’s comments that were highlighted on a CNN show last night:

I bet many of you women out there didn’t realize you should put “Not married. No kids.” at the top of your resumes in order to land those really big, difficult jobs.

OK, enough of my sarcasm.

This type of mentality, unfortunately, is still pervasive in politics and in Corporate America. But I’m not here to whine about it, at least not for too long.

Let’s do a reality check. I have covered the business world for decades now, and often I find myself disheartened at how few women hold the top jobs. Women still make up less than 16 percent of the corporate jobs in the U.S., and that’s down from last year, according to research firm Catalyst.

When I did a profile of a major health insurance company in Philadelphia a while back I was given access to all the top woman at the firm. The reason I decided to write about this particular company for a magazine was because so many women were in the corner offices. One question I asked, and I ask this of men and women in top positions all the time, was if they had children. To my chagrin, the majority of the top level females told me they did not. Some said they had cats but no kids.

That experience left me with this gnawing feeling inside. Was this how it really was. Family and high-level success just don’t mix?

Obviously people with families can do difficult and high profile jobs but the bottom line, and Rendell knows this, is women end up with the nurturer role at home most often, giving them that extra load that many successful men don’t have.

Indeed, even the CIO of the insurance firm I mentioned was becoming the nurturer in her 50s. She was beginning to care for her aging parents. Her brothers, she said, figured she’d be the one to handle that role and she did.

So where am I going with all this?

Turns out, there’s really good news for women with families who aspire to leadership roles.

My intern Katherine and I have been doing some research that proves women with families can also wear the head honcho hat outside of the home.

Every year, the Wall Street Journal does a section called “The 50 Women to Watch” and this year’s list includes the who’s who of business and politics.

I read through the list and my first thought was, “how many of these women actually have families?”

Instead of just wondering I asked Katherine to do a bit of cyber snooping and tell me, among the ten U.S. leaders named in the article, how many were moms?

Drum rolllllll.

Seven out of ten did indeed have kids. Yeah! We both rejoiced. And I have to admit, I was even surprised. I would have guessed maybe two out of ten had families.

Why? Because I guess I’ve been a bit brainwashed as well.

At the top of the Journal list was Sheila Bair, chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., who I have written about before in this blog. She is married, the mother of two, and she’s also written children’s books.

Our research did not uncover how difficult it is for these women to balance work and family. But the key is women with families do make great leaders, so much so the Wall Street Journal decided to include them on their watch list.

Take that Ed.

So, what do you all think? Is Ed a male chauvinist pig, or is he just speaking the truth?

It’s bad enough you have to deal with being laid off. But many of you are also dealing with, or may have to deal with, horribly stupid managers who somehow lost all their humanity and sense when they accepted the title of boss, aka, Pointy-Haired Boss.

This is how the layoffs worked at a colleague’s office yesterday:

After months of warnings that 10 percent of the workforce would be axed, “D” day came. One by one direct managers of doomed workers tapped their employees on the shoulder and escorted them to the human resources department. This was not done discretely. Given the open plan office, workers had to slowly walk by a sea of coworker desks. Everyone knew where the poor guy or gal was going, and many people kept their eyes down toward their desktops, fearful of catching their coworkers’ eyes.

My friend, who witnessed about 20 of these scenarios, called this “the walk of shame.”

She didn’t think it was shameful to be laid off, but she sensed a feeling of shame among these employees.

When the workers got to HR they were informed that their services were no longer needed. Many of these workers had been with this firm for over 25 years. An HR person told them what they were entitled to and then they were told to go pack up their desks and leave.

When they returned to their desks they found their computers had been turned off and their access to the company system terminated. (This is why I always tell workers to copy everything they need off of their computers, especially if you think layoffs are coming. You probably won’t get a chance to go back and get contacts, or other important info after you’ve been booted.)

This story makes my stomach turn. Prisoners on death row are treated better than this. No last meal for this pink-slipped lot. No priest, rabbi or imam to talk to.

After decades with a company, no manager came up with a plan to deal with this in a more humane way?

What was wrong with emailing a worker and asking them to come to your office idiot bosses? Take a moment to talk to them, tell them how much you valued their work. It wouldn’t kill you people to treat folks the way you’d want your kid, mom or best friend treated.

What do you think this does for employee morale at an office or factory? Isn’t stuff like this considered a no-no in your stupid-ass leadership books. (Seriously, there’s a best-selling business book called the “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”.)

Sorry for my tone of disgust. I can’t help it right now, because I’m disgusted.

Since there’s a good chance the idiot bosses won’t be reading my blog — unless all of you send them this post — you need to be ready, just in case your managers subscribe to the caveman-leadership school of thought.

If you have to take a “walk of shame” you need to first realize that this is happening because your managers are idiots.

After that, you have to keep a positive frame of mine.

I asked Terri Levine, a career coach and author of “Work Yourself Happy”, for some advice.

She offered some simple, common sense tidbits you guys should take to heart:

* Focus on thinking about what you did well at work.
* Think about this as an opportunity to allow a new door to open.
* Smile and think about what is working and how silly they are being.
* Know that anyone who treats an employee this way doesn’t deserve your skills and talents.

Mostly, feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel and think thoughts that don’t suck you into their behavior. For example: one of my clients thought about being home with her son soon and taking off panty hose and high heels… Another focused on being allowed out of “prison” and finding an employer that respected him.

Don’t think about your anger, don’t let them make you feel worthless.

You control your thoughts and what you think creates what you experience.

Sing a happy tune inside and move on!

OK, I know singing a happy tune may sound corny. But people, the way we make it through tough times in our lives is if we’re positive.

When I was laid off from a rinky dink trade magazine it was the best thing that could have happened. I was feeling pretty crummy but somehow convinced myself that being a sad sack would get me nowhere. Well, I actually was getting sick of bitching about the layoff injustice with some of my colleagues who were also laid off.

You can be angry for a short time, maybe a day or two, especially if your boss was a jerk when implementing the layoff, but like a wise man told me a while back, “anger only poisons the one who is angry.”

Let’s take a deep breath together and feel the career love. It’s out there. I promise.