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…

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.

The U.S. government woke up yesterday morning and realized our nation has been in a recession for the last year. Many of you out there already knew that.

So many people are struggling to find jobs.

Just yesterday, I got a flood of emails like this.

Mrs. C.A. from Grand Prairie, Texas, writes: “Until my first layoff in 2002, I had worked every day with this company and was making decent money, able to pay bills on time. Since then, I have been laid off 4 times; including now.”

Peter from New York was just notified that he was being laid off from his job the middle of this month; and in August, Ava was laid off from her job as Controller from a manufacturing company in Indiana.

The emails came in response to my column this week on MSNBC.com where I offer people a layoff primer on what they’re entitled to if they are laid off or about to be laid off.

I got about 100 emails yesterday asking for advice from people who lost their jobs and needed help. This past year emails like this have be escalating at a scary pace.

Now the government is acknowledging things are pretty bad.

This from the Wall Street Journal today:

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke laid out new steps the Fed might take to lift the economy, as the panel that monitors the U.S. business cycle said the nation has been in recession for a year — the longest downturn in a quarter century. The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that America entered recession in December 2007.

“The economic outlook looks fairly bleak,” said Harvard professor Jeffrey Frankel, who serves on the NBER’s recession-dating committee, but said he wasn’t speaking for the committee. “Forecasts that the trough would be sometime in the middle of next year don’t strike me as especially pessimistic given the current situation.”

It does look bleak, but the main thing to do is concentrate on your own job, or lack of job, situation. How can you land a new job, or keep your existing gig?

I’ll be answering readers emails in my blog and also my MSNBC column in the weeks ahead. If you have any questions about your particular situation please email me at TellEve@gmail.com.

UPDATE below

It boggles the mind that the biggest retailer on the planet would send a poorly trained, temporary worker to the front line of retail’s most treacherous annual war – Black Friday.

But that seems to be what Wal-Mart Stores Inc. did this past Friday and it ended in tragedy.

Poor Jdimytai Damour, a maintenance temp at Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., didn’t really know what he was up against.

Shoppers hungry for deals are a scary lot and I would think a seasoned retail worker would probably have known better than to put his body in the line of roll-back pricing fire.

Damour was crushed to death by a shopping mob and now everyone is trying to figure out what the heck happened and who was to blame.

Yes, there could have been more security. Yes, the shoppers should have shown restraint.

But I think this is a good time to look at the issue of temporary workers. They are often poorly trained, poorly paid, and they end up working the worst hours during the busiest times of the year.

This is a recipe for disaster if the employer they work for doesn’t spend some time making sure the best employee is sent to do the right job, or give intense training to people who will be asked to do intense work.

According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health:

Workers in retail trade are increasingly contract, temporary, and part-time workers with low levels of education; all of which have been used as rationales for not providing sufficient safety and health training for jobs in the trade sector.

And according to a NIOSH report released earlier this year:

Studies in the United States and Europe suggest that contingent workers such as part-time, temporary, or contract workers are at higher risk for occupational injuries and illnesses than workers in traditional employment situations.

Among the evidence for higher risk among contingent workers, are the following data and reports from the United States, the researchers said:

* The rate of fatal occupational injuries among self-employed workers is twice the national average for all workers, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
* The rate of needlestick injuries among temporary nurses caring for AIDS patients in 11 U.S. hospitals was 1.65 times higher than the rate for staff nurses working in the same units.
* A 2004 survey of day laborers in the U.S. found that 19 percent of the day laborers reported work-related injuries that required medical attention in the previous year, compared with less than 5 percent of workers in all private industries and about 6 percent of all workers in construction.

At a time when unemployment is rising and many of you are out of work, you need to think long and hard about the temp gigs you take just to make some extra cash.

I’m not totally disregarding temporary assignments. They can be a great way to get your foot in the door, or to get you some money when times are tough. And some temps I’ve interviewed just love the idea of moving from company to company, not being tied down to anyone employer.

But there are also things to keep in mind.

Often times temp workers are brought in during the busiest time of the year, especially in retail. And that means lots of hard work, and clearly, as witnessed by the Wal-Mart tragedy, dangerous work. Too often it’s the work that full-time workers don’t want to do, so you could end up getting the grunt, crummy work piled on by coworkers, not just managers.

Make sure you understand what you’re getting into. One thing people looking for temp work don’t do is approach the interview and job opportunity just like you would a permanent gig. Talk to people who work at the company. Read websites that include information about the prospective employer and how other workers are treated. Even though it’s temporary, find out all you can about what the job entails.

An investigation is going on right now into the Wal-Mart death, so time will tell what actually happened on that fateful day.

Maybe managers at the store figured Damour could handle a big crowd. He was a big guy, about 270 pounds, according to a New York Times article.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

It’s time we stopped treating temps like second-class workers. They are doing the job, which is what matters. Give these people a break already.

Here’s a link to more of the Wal-Mart stampede photos from the New York Daily News. Warning: these photos of disturbing and show what a volatile situation these Black Friday rushes can be. And folks, this is not unusual. I have covered retail for many years in my career during good and bad economies, and this is indeed par for the course. Retailers know and expect this type of melee.

UPDATE

Time for the CareerDiva to toot her own horn. I called Wal-Mart yesterday morning to find out what kind of training temps get for Black Friday and I still haven’t heard back.
Now I know why. Turns out police are now saying that Damour’s had no training in crowd control.

This from the Associated Press today:

A worker trampled to death when customers stormed a Wal-Mart for bargains on the day after Thanksgiving had no experience in crowd control and was placed at the entrance because of his hulking frame, police and a lawyer said Monday.

The details about the deadly stampede came out as police pored over video surveillance provided by the store while considering possible criminal charges. Lawyers were also preparing to sue over the episode.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey noted that the worker, Jdimytai Damour, was 6 feet 5 and 270 pounds, making the trampling all the more stunning. He was killed when a crowd estimated at 2,000 strong broke down the electronic doors in frantic pursuit of bargains on big-screen TVs, clothing and other items.

It was an irresponsible decision to throw this poor guy into the crush of Black Friday.

It’s hard not to get nervous when the industry you work in is cutting long-time, kick-ass journalists all around you for no good reason.

Every few days now I get a call or email from a colleague telling me they’ve lost their job or may be about to lose their job.

That’s why I’m fueling up my private jet and heading to Washington so I can plead the bailout case for journalists everywhere.

First it was the banking sector begging for tax dollars to shore up the industry. Now we have the auto executives and even home builders looking for some money to keep their firms going. Why can’t newspapers and other media outlets come a knockin’? The taxpayer portfolio needs to be diversified, no?

OK, I don’t have a private jet. I actually have a nine year old Passat that is now making a funny knocking noise and is pulling to the right.

And MSNBC.com hasn’t told me my career column will be ending any time soon.

But these are dire times in my industry. Not unlike many of your industries.

I’m not one of those journalists that believes the Internet killed newspapers. I think the Internet would have made newspapers even better, and actually boosted readership, but the bozos that run many of these newspapers panicked. Content is king on the Web and newspapers had plenty of that. But instead of using the seasoned reporters they had in their midst to provide great content and lure readers to their sites everyday, they started firing the very people they needed to keep them relevant.

Now, given the economic downturn, the layoffs of great journalists are reaching fever pitch.

Just today, a career blogger for the New York Times, Marci Alboher, announced that the paper was giving her the big heave-ho.

Her blog was one of the best career blogs around..thoughtful, insightful, well researched.

It’s hard to know what the Times editors were thinking, if they were thinking at all. Why would you cut a career blog in the midst of a recession when all anyone wants to read about, other than Jolie and Pitt, is the jobs’ market and how they can keep or find a new job?

One thing this situation proves is that there really is no rhyme or reason when it comes to pink slips. Everyone is trying to cut costs and sincere thought is rarely part of the equation.

Chances are the economy probably wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in today if people spent some time thinking about the ramifications for their actions. Subprime loans, gas guzzling cars, McMansions. All these things seem pretty stupid right about now. Surely someone in banking, autos or real estate suspected this.

So I’m putting out a plea to businesses everywhere right now. Don’t just slash and burn your workforces. A LITTLE FORETHOUGHT PEOPLE!

There also needs to be a public outcry over the destruction of our nation’s newsrooms. And I’m talking real journalism folks.

I know everyone and his brother has a website or a blog today talking about their relationship problems or what their cat ate for brunch. But real journalism is about uncovering information that will help people make better decisions in their lives, it’s about exposing corruption, about reporting on life’s injustices.

It seems ludicrous to be cutting reporters at a time when we need good journalism more than ever to help untangle the economic and political mess we find ourselves in.

So I’m watching “Tropic Thunder” last night and it got me thinking about what’s happening right now in workplaces across the country.

Tropic Thunder is a funny and twisted spoof on fake war with some of my favorite stars, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black and Ben Stiller. It depicts five prima donna Hollywood actors who are in a Vietnam war movie and throws them into a real life war, in this case a drug war.

Suddenly these bozos have to use their fake guns and grenades to help save each others lives, even though they really didn’t know each other that well and really didn’t like each other either.

Maybe some of you a scratching your heads thinking “Did Eve not get enough sleep last night?”

Well, maybe not — rarely get enough sleep these days. But I do have a point to make.

Lately I’ve been getting lots of emails from readers worried that they could be laid off at any moment. Most of you want to know how you can keep your head off the chopping block, and I’ve written a couple of MSNBC.com columns recently to address this issue. (Check this one and this one.)

But one thing I’ve noticed is that people are feeling more and more isolated. There is a hunker-down mentality out there and instead of turning to your colleagues for help, everyone is keeping to themselves and viewing coworkers almost as competition. Others don’t want to get too chummy right now because you never know who’ll be pink slipped next and then you’ll have to deal with the poor sap.

I’m hearing more and more stories of how workplaces are taking on this war-like atmosphere and everyone is afraid of getting shot down, aka fired.

Well, in war there will be casualties, but if you alienate those around you there’s a higher likelihood you’ll blow up your own career with a Oozie. You need your coworkers to help you in the trenches and you should be helping them as well.

“It’s about having camaraderie to get through the tough times,” says Wendy Kaufman, president of Balancing Life’s Issues Inc., a work-life balance training company.

Fear, she adds, is the greatest demotivater and the way you alleviate it is by talking about it. And what better person to talk to about it than someone who’s going through what you’re going through — your coworker.

And reaching out to those around you during tough times is the right thing to do, Kaufman maintains. “The people that do the right thing have less stress.”

Avoiding office or factory friendships because you look at colleagues as merely competition for your job is paranoid, she stresses. “If you’re proud of who we are, done the best you can do, you’re going to feel secure.”

Studies support the fact that a well-balanced life is one filled with friends, she adds, and what better place to build those friendship but at work.

I know, it’s getting hard now to have socialization opportunities with coworkers. Your company may have already canceled the holiday party and maybe team building sessions have also been dropped. Not to mention our own tight wallets, which probably means fewer lunches or martinis after work.

But Wendy advises workers still find ways to connect. It might be a good time to meet up with coworkers to talk about strategies just in case layoffs do come down. Bring your resume and give each other feed back. Maybe a cup of coffee or a potluck dinner is a more cost-effective get together.

“Misery loves company,” she says, but means that in the best of ways. “Together you can learn to laugh about it and say, ‘we don’t know what’s going to happen.’”

You also can’t diminish the importance of how friendships today can also turn into networking opportunities tomorrow. Your friends will remember you and help out when the ax falls and you should be prepared to reciprocate.

In Tropic Thunder Robert Downey Jr., who plays a convincing old black man, comes back to save Ben Stiller because that’s what friends do. It also made for a perfect “Platoon” spoof moment.

Stiller collapses, arms stretched out like Willem Defoe in Platoon, as shots ring out behind him and Downey Jr., reluctantly at first, comes to his rescue.

The not-fake, fake war movie ends, and life goes on for all the fake soldiers.

Now go out there and invite a buddy to a war strategy meeting and laugh a little. You could also rent Tropic Thunder.

Do white coats make you stupid?

When I go into my doctor’s office with an ailment, for some reason I lose almost all my reporter’s sense. I sit there like a lump on a log, listening to everything she says and rarely asking good probing questions. Typically when I return home I regret not having asked more about a medicine she prescribed or a plan for treatment.

I call this “I-put-my-life-in-your-hands” syndrome, and this very thing often happens to workers when they’re in a boss’ office, offered a job by a hiring manager, or sitting down with a human resource employee.

You guys go into stun mode and sometimes just go along with things these people say. Why? You want to keep your job, land a job, or get the severance you were promised. So you do things like sign forms put in front of you without really reading or thinking about the ramifications.

Stop! Take the mass of papers you’re given and read them. Please.

My column this week is on noncompete agreements. Workers are often asked to sign these and most employees blindly provide their John Hancock because they’re so happy to have been offered a gig. But folks, if you get laid off a non-compete agreement can tie your hands when it comes to working for a competitor in town or starting a similar business. The laws vary depending on where you live. Florida for example is tough on employees who sign these agreements, but California doesn’t enforce them. But, if you are in a state where these accords are upheld you’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you leave your job.

Here are some things to think about before you sign a noncompete:

It’s a good idea to contact your local labor department to find out if noncompete clauses are applicable in your state. If they are, Daniel Levine, an employment attorney with Shapiro, Blasi, Wasserman & Gora in Boca Raton, Fla., advises employees to spend some time reading the document and maybe even have a lawyer take a look so you fully understand what you’re agreeing to.

If you decide not to sign a noncompete agreement, an employer can decide not to hire you. That is within their legal rights, he says.

If you’re laid off, he adds, you could try and negotiate a severance package so that you’re not in financial dire straits during the period you’re not allowed to compete.

You also have to take into consideration the scope of the agreement is. In many cases if a noncompete clause is too broad it won’t hold up in court, legal experts say.

And nothing precludes you from altering the noncompete agreement before you sign it. An employer may not accept it, but what do you have to lose?

Another form that workers are often asked to sign, and I’ve been getting emails about this more lately, is a “I-won’t-sue-you” document.

Here’s a letter I just got from Diane who lives in California:

I am being laid off at the end of this year. I was notified in June that I had 60 days (in compliance with the WARN Act) to work and that if I continued my employment for the next 60 days in good standing my company would reward me with an extra 30 days pay. I was later notified that my termination date had been extended until December 31, 2008, but the same conditions would apply. The extra 30 days pay is in addition to what I will have earned by working and my earned, but unused Paid Time Off (PTO). The extra 30 days pay comes with a string attached: the string is, that I must sign a ‘waiver’ that states I give up my right to sue my company and if I do not sign, they do not release the 30 days pay to me.

I am very suspicious of ‘waiving’ or giving up any of my rights. This feels like a couple of things: first, a bribe and second, that the company may be doing something illegal for which they could be sued if the waiver is not signed. However, without a job and the current economic climate, I do need the extra pay, so I do not feel that not signing is an option.

Is this legal in the state of California? Can I sign, noting ‘signed under duress’, and if so, are they then obligated to release my extra 30 days pay to me, since they do actually have my signature?

Again, do not rush to sign anything. I’m not big on giving up my rights to anything. But just asking workers to sign such a waiver doesn’t mean they are hiding skeletons in their business closet.

First off, the WARN Act has nothing to do with whether you sign a lawsuit waiver. The Act only applies to employers giving workers 60 day notice before they implement mass layoffs. You don’t have to sign a waiver in order to get the notice.

Before you sign anything it’s a good idea to get some legal help, says Barbara Poole, CEO of Employaid, an online resource for employees and HR executives.

She suggests you “contact an employee rights attorney who offers free consultation. Another resource are online legal services such as Law Guru to research and/or ask her question. Still another resource are the wonderful folks at Nolo, the peoples’ law resource for many years. As a California company, their concentration is heavily in CA employee rights.”

Having another person in the room as a witness such as another employee or an HR representative, she adds, when holding pay or layoff provision talks may also be an option.

But bottomline, many of these lawsuit-waiver forms are standards, she notes.

She is being asked to sign a General Release and Waiver Agreement which is standard practice when awarding any kind of extension of pay benefits (severance) subsequent to a layoff. It is a legal document put together by the company’s internal or external legal team. In essence it says, ‘in exchange for this additional payment…..we want you to waive and release any known or unknown causes of action, claims or liabilities of any kind……arising out of or related to your employment’. So, it’s purpose is to give her something (in this case, 30 days pay) in exchange for her promise not to file a law suit related to…discrimination, wrongful termination charges, mental anguish charges, violation of personnel policies/handbooks by the company (you name it).

If she doesn’t feel she has anything to take them to court on, then no point in not signing it. If she does feel she has any kind of a case, then she shouldn’t sign it. The important point here is company isn’t making her do anything–they are just extending additional pay for a waiver and it is legal as it is her choice. Signing ‘under duress won’t be acceptable and defeats whole purpose of company presenting the doc. Under law, she has a certain amount of time to sign and can have her attorney look at the doc which would help eliminate her suspicions.

So, it’s all about being cautious and thinking before you sign any employment form. You don’t want it coming back to haunt you, especially in this economy.

And by the way, I’m getting better at asking my doctor questions. Now I bring a list with me.

VS

Maybe if Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had been a former CEO of General Motors instead of a former CEO of financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs, this tale of two bailouts would be playing out differently.

There seems to be little sympathy in this country for the U.S. auto industry right now.

“Let the sick patient die already,” seems to be the refrain among politicians, pundits and economists. The big three automakers want bailout money just like their banking counterparts but the bar seems to have been set way higher for the Motor City than it was for Wall Street.

“They’re a dinosaur,” Richard Shelby, senator from Alabama, told Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, about why the auto industry should be allowed to fail. And an analysis in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday titled “Just Say No to Detroit” by renowned economist David Yermack suggests: “We would do better to set this money on fire rather than using it to keep these dying firms on life support.”

Strong words for an industry that has in many ways created the middle class in this country.

Clearly, the auto industry has made some bad mistakes in the past 20 years, most notably, not moving fast enough to compete with foreign auto makers who made better cars.

But the banking sector — that almost everyone acknowledges created its own disaster because of greed that led to the subprime mess the whole country is now suffering from — got better treatment when it put its hand out for billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

When the $700 billion bailout was proposed, few went after the fat paychecks or retirement plans of the mortgage brokers or financial traders who helped navigate the mess. And CEOs — well they had to keep the millions they already pocketed and get the money they were promised because they had contracts with the companies they ran.

On the flip side, it seems to be open season on the compensation of middle class auto workers, with many suggesting union contracts should be renogotiated and payments slashed for existing workers if a bailout were to happen.

To that, United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger, told a Detroit TV station over the weekend:

“Let’s go to AIG, Bear Stearns, active and retired workers: Did anybody go in and ask them to give back wages and benefit levels? What about the bond traders? Did anybody ask them? What about the cleaners in the building? Why would the UAW be any different?”

“We made an agreement, and we made major concessions,” he said. “So how can you blame the autoworkers?”

It’s an interesting question.

What do you all think? No matter where you stand on whether we should be bailing out corporations at all, do you think there is a double standard here?

Adding insult to injury, in his Wall Street Journal piece, Yermack — a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business — actually suggests the government should just cut a $10,000 check to the workers instead of trying to bailout GM, Ford and Chrysler.

I’m not sure if Yermack has checked lately but veteran assembly line workers make about $1,200 a week and many own their own homes and are able to send their kids to college. While newer workers entering the industry will make less than that, there are few places in our economy where these people will be able to find equivalent paychecks.

Someone should inform Yermack that his generous $10,000 offer would mean little if these men and women lose their well-paying manufacturing jobs, jobs that are already few and far between in this country.

It blows my mind that no one thought it would be difficult for large financial institutions to quickly merge with other large financial institutions.

There’s been hardly any government oversight of the merger mania going on in banking. And the head honchos at these financial firms have pretty much thrown due diligence out the window in their scramble to gobble up as many ailing banks as possible.

Merger sense is in the toilet. What once took months, even years to figure out, now happens hastily, sometimes over a weekend. And few questions are asked about whether a merger is really a good idea.

Well, in most cases, mergers are not good ideas, and the people that get hurt are not just shareholders but employees as well.

The statistics on success rates for mergers are dismal.

Sales growth post merger actually declines for both entities, according to a Federal Trade Commission report, “The Effects of Mergers and Post-Merger Integration.” And one of the major reasons mergers sputter is a failure to successfully combine the two work groups.

Most top executives underestimate how difficult it will be to integrate two different workforce cultures. And that’s when they have time to think about a merger and its after effects.

Not surprisingly, an article in the Wall Street Journal today talks about the employee “Culture Clash” following the merger of “the Wal-Mart of banking” Bank of America and financial fancy pants Merrill Lynch.

The culture clash may be most pronounced with Merrill’s “thundering herd” of nearly 17,000 stockbrokers, a group with a fierce independent streak that isn’t afraid to gripe to extract better terms from an employer.

For the denizens of the 94-year-old Merrill Lynch, which long prided itself on its fleet of top-producing brokers, it has been hard stomaching the new edicts from the Charlotte, North Carolina, bank. BofA prides itself on a Main Street approach, having expanded via $US110 billion ($167 billion) worth of acquisitions over the past five years, making it the nation’s largest bank by assets.

Merrill staffers joke nervously that Bank of America employees are recognisable in the elevators by their less expensive attire and American-flag lapel pins.

Ouch!

Merrill employees may be looking down on their new owners, but the reality is most of these joksters have little choice right now but to stay with Bank of America. Jobs are few and far between on Wall Street. Some of the Merrill crew were offered bonuses and to date, according to the WSJ, about 90 percent of the brokers have signed up with Bank of America.

Now comes the hard part. How the heck will all these employees be able to play nice in the banking sandbox? And how will workers there ensure their careers will not sputter at the new combined entity, or keep from being pink-slipped?

For Merrill brokers, they are in a good position because the company obviously values them enough to offer bonuses in a crummy market. But that doesn’t mean any of you should be sitting on your hands. Most of the banking experts I’ve spoken with say Bank of America is just starting to look closely at all its new operations and will do what it can to create a lean, mean, streamlined banking machine. Right now you may be on the star list, but tomorrow you could end up on that other “S” list.

And for you Bank of America veterans, just being employed by the last company standing doesn’t guarantee your job, according to most post-merger statistics. While you have a better chance than your counterparts at the other firm, today’s economic environment means managers will be more ruthless when it comes to keeping those workers who have the most customers, are most productive, and bring in the most business.

So, here are some things to keep in mind that I’ve boiled down from a recent MSNBC column I wrote on surviving and thriving a merger:

* The management at the acquiring firm often relies on the leaders of major divisions at the company they’ve bought to tell them who should stay and who should go. If you’re the top banana at a profitable division within a company, often the new managers will want to keep things intact at that unit, even if they do impose their own manager to oversee the operation. For everyone else, it’s time to do more than just your job.

* Paula Kosin, career consultant for Career Vision, advises employees to “put your CEO hat on” and figure out what the top leaders would want from a business standpoint. “They want to make the merger a success and they are not looking to rape and pillage and destroy things. They want to make sure what is going well in the acquired company continues, but they are also looking at what they can do as far as creating efficiencies.”

* Go to every meeting you’re invited to. You need to start connecting with the new management and get your name out there so you can snag a seat at the integration table.

* You can even make calls or send e-mails to key officials when you have an appropriate opening so you can get to know them — and they can get to know you. Talk about what your unit is doing and outline your responsibilities. And offer suggestions on how to make things better, or how to compliment an existing project, or how to grow a division, experts say. But do this all with real information about the new company and its business strategies and goals.

It may also be a good time to start building your personal brand as well. While I don’t think everyone should have their own blog or be endlessly updating their Facebook page, there are some positions that can benefit from doing more to build your brand in your industry. Some customers will definitely feel more confident if their money gal or guy writes an authoritative blog, or has a well-done LinkedIn page with hundreds of contacts and recommendations.

I’m always a big fan of mentoring folks. Almost every CEO I’ve interviewed had a mentor at some point in their careers; and following a merger, the insights of someone with a bigger title than you will only help.

And keep the doom and gloom, and snide remarks at home. Everyone probably bitched about the merger right after it happened and each side probably thinks they’re better than the other, but now is the time to start concentrating on work and not how much things blow. One high level executive I talked to recently told me when she was deciding who to keep and who to fire, a positive attitude was always one of the top traits she looked for in an employee.

I know, it sucks that things are moving so quickly today that you might get lost in the shuffle even though you’re one of the best at your job. But this is the reality we all have to live in. Let’s stop licking our wounds.

In closing, I want to offer all you corner-office dudes some merger words of wisdom about why you should all think long and hard about culture integration.

A while ago I did a story for Workforce Management magazine about the US Airways and America West merger, and a merger expert I talked to then summed it up well.

Mitchell Marks, president of Joining Force.org and author “Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers and Acquisitions” said under managing the melding of cultures can lead to discontent among the employees, a loss of productivity and retention issues as employees wonder what the future holds. “In mergers,” he added, “culture is a lot like breathing. You don’t have to think about breathing until something threatens your ability to breath. That’s the same thing with cultures in a merger.”