I check in again with Al Kemp, a family man who lost his job during this harsh recession and is struggling to find his way.

Here’s a link to his previous post right after he was laid off and the challenge of explaining that to his daughter; and here’s his post about the job-seeking struggle.

He’s found work but it’s not what he expected, and alas, not quite what he wants.

He calls this installment “Gimme Shelter”: (more…)

We have to stop acting like having kids does not change people. When you wake up the morning after your child is born you are forever changed.

Sorry folks, you can’t just go back to being old lunchbox Jane or Joe and head to the office or plant like nothing has happened. And Corporate America has to stop pretending like you can.

In the work world we look at parenthood like we look at death in society at large. If we ignore it it will go away.

Remember the uproar during the health care reform debate over death panels.

Here’s Sarah Palin’s famous Facebook line from last summer:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel”

That was about a proposal to have patients and doctors sit down and actually talk about what everyone’s expectations are if a major illness hits. Would you want to be kept alive on machines, or allowed to die?

I see nothing wrong with this type of preplanning. If you talk about these things at a less emotional time they may go a bit more smoothly.

I’m proposing a similar death-panel idea for working parents and their employers. (more…)

During these past two years of hard economic times, lots of employers have been behaving badly and they know it.

They’ve been working lots of you to the bone, treating you pretty crummy and in many cases ethics have gone out the window.

According to a report released this week, many executives knew exactly what they were doing to workers and now they’re worried a bunch of you are going to abandon ship once the economy turns around. And why shouldn’t you?

Deloitte’s fourth annual Ethics & Workplace Survey paints a sad picture of corporate America. (more…)

If you walk around your office or factory this morning, you probably could point out the perverts, mean idiots and potential abusers in your midst.

The workplace jerks are rarely kept hidden. Often times, even the people in human resources know Bob has a porno problem, or Sue starts cursing and throwing things when a project fails.

Why then is it so difficult to rid the work environment of these people, especially in a tough economic environment when so many people are getting laid off? I often hear from readers that all the good employees were let go but for some reason the higher ups thought it was a good idea to keep the one toxic worker. (more…)

Today, the nation will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act, but will you care?

Most of us don’t, including many of those with disabilities. According to a survey by the Kessler Foundation and the National Organization on Disability:

A majority (61%) of people with disabilities say that the ADA of 1990 has made no difference in their life, while just about one quarter (23%) report that the ADA has made their life better. Only 4% report that it has made their life worse and 7% have not heard of
the ADA.

Those are pretty sad numbers for a law that was supposed to level the field for disabled workers. Bias against disabled workers is still rampant, and the unemployment rate among the disabled is nearly 15 percent, and far more are so discouraged they don’t even look for work.

While the Act was a great first step, enforcement of the law is the only way things will change, right?

Here’s a video I did along with Diana Gialo on the ADA anniversary and thoughts from government and disabled advocates on what needs to be done. The top dog at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency with the task of enforcing the ADA, said she is ready to roll her sleeves up and enforce the law:

Change takes a long time. But things won’t change until employers are forced to accept people with disabilities who can do the job; or who need a little help to make the workplace work for them.

This morning I’m heading to Washington to cover the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The event will be held at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which also rang in its 45th birthday this month.

While the ADA has transformed our nation by opening up doors for many disabled individuals in the workplace, almost everyone I’ve spoken with in these past few weeks leading up to today, even the strongest advocates of the ADA, say we are no where near creating a level playing field for people with disabilities in the workplace. (more…)

The job market is still tight, but there are some recent signs of life.

Some companies are beginning to hire, and many of you are ready to pounce. You’ve been waiting for your first chance to get the hell out of where you are now; or you just want to land any job after being unemployed for months.

This creates a volatile situation. Desperation=Dumb sometimes.

You finally get a call from a new employer and they want to interview you. Great. Just don’t let your enthusiasm cloud your judgment.

Maybe the job, or the company just isn’t a good fit for you. I know, you’re thinking, “I just want to make a move. If it doesn’t work out, what harm is done?”

Well, the harm includes wasting precious time you could have been spending on finding the perfect job; ending up in a toxic work environment that takes years off your life; or getting laid off because the company you joined was actually in a volatile financial situation and suddenly you’re jobless.

There are lots of things you can do to find out more about a company — do research on a firm’s financial health, talk to people who work there, etc. And here’s a link to a company that’s ranked the reputations of top U.S. companies. But how do you really know what’s going on? How do you know that the last three people who held that position left because the boss was insane? How do you know if the government is investigating a firm and soon half the staff will be going to jail?

What if there was a way to figure out if a hiring manager was lying to you when she or he raves about a firm in an interview? (more…)

My 74-year-old mother Sofi had a knock-down-drag-out with a customer at a dollar store in Queens yesterday.

It all started when she mistakenly took the male patron, who was in his late 60s, for a dollar store employee because he appeared to be rearranging items on a shelf.

“Do you work here?” my mom asked innocently.

“NO,” the customer shouted. “Do I look like I work here?”

He said this within earshot of a few actual employees of the store who were gathering now because everyone likes to watch two old people fight.

Despite the entertainment value, this encounter points to an interesting phenomenon in this country — the I’m-too-good-to-be-working-in-retail mentality. Even people who hold retail jobs often disparage the gigs.

But in this economy, and in the years ahead, some of the biggest job growth is expected to be in these derided retail positions.

“Retail salespersons and cashiers were the two largest occupations in May 2009, representing nearly 1 out of every 17 jobs,” according to the Department of Labor.

And, the stats show, while so many occupations are shrinking in numbers, retail jobs are expected to grow by 8 percent through 2018.

“Given the size of this occupation, about 374,700 new retail salesperson jobs will arise over the projections decade—more jobs than will be generated in almost any other occupation,” noted a DOL report.

Whether you view them as survival jobs while you’re between gigs in the profession you’re proud of, or you support yourself and your family with such work for decades, we all may have to start feeling a bit better about the retail ranks.

So what is it about retail jobs, especially those at discount stores, that garners such disdain? (more…)

What is the definition of an ideal worker?

“It’s someone who is always available when the employer needs them,” says Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hasting College of Law. And unfortunately, she adds, someone with family responsibilities doesn’t quite fit the mold.

The whole model of the work world today is designed around a husband with a stay-at-home wife, maintains Williams, who is author of the forthcoming book, “Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter.”

So, it turns out we’ve evolved beyond the farmer and his wife, but maybe that agrarian model was more modern than what we have today. Everything is all well and good for employees who have a spouse at home baking bread and tending to the farm, but if you don’t, tough luck.

Seriously folks, if an individual has to take time off to care for a child or ailing family member, there are few if any laws that protect them. Family responsibilities discrimination, aka “FRD,” is OK.

Basically, parenthood, among other hoods, is largely unprotected under our nation’s labor laws. (more…)

So I wrote this column for MSNBC.com recently on how women can be bitchy to each other and I got a lot of nasty comments on how I’m perpetuating a stereo type.

Well, recent comments by a comedian I have enjoyed and respected in the past prove that bitchy is alive and well in gal land.

Kathy Griffin, the comedian, actually called the two young daughters of Scott Brown, the Republican senator from Massachusetts, prostitutes. Yes, that was her retort during a recent skit on CNN. I say skit because clearly this wasn’t news.

Here’s the video:

I love comedy and I’m all for poking fun at politicians, but with her comment she hit below the belt. And this is the kind of stuff that keeps women down folks.

Let’s hope there is tons of outrage over this out there. If not, what hope do women have of ever getting equal footing with men? We undermine each other, back-stab each other, and seem to think if we don’t agree with someone politically we can even attack their children.

Well, this was a cheap shot. How do we think women will ever get a seat at the leadership table if we keep pulling the chair out on each other?