If you feel like your boss has suddenly started hassling you about tiny, and seemingly irrelevant aspects of your job, then a red flag should go up in your mind. This is another tell-tale sign that your boss is on the hunt for an employee to terminate -- you. Your boss may be trying to "build a record" of documented mistakes you have made, in order to justify terminating you. Your boss probably has not given you any negative feedback for years, if ever. And when the boss evaluates the major parts of your job -- everything is fine. So, instead of noting your solid performance and moving on, your boss redoubles his or her efforts to find something, anything, that you are doing wrong. This leads your boss into the tiny minutiae of your job -- items that you can't really say are … [Read more...]
STEP 5 of Walking The Plank Toward Termination: Is Your Boss Hassling You About Tiny Aspects of Your Work?
Avoiding the Axe (Pt. 1) — By Jenn S.
It is with great pride that I introduce a new attorney and columnist to the community of UndercoverLawyer.com. Jenn S. is a small town employment lawyer who has been a big city employment lawyer, big corporation H.R. Rep, and for a time was even a rock music journalist! She brings all these different backgrounds to her columns. I met Jenn when we were both employed at a large law firm. We've both since moved on to greener pastures (almost literally for her), but we've kept in touch due to a friendship forged in the trenches law firm life. I'd say we both learned a LOT in those early years of our legal careers, but we're both happy to be elsewhere now. Jenn lives in a beautiful spot some where in the Mountain Time Zone; she has one young son, a husband, and a great sense of … [Read more...]
10 Steps of Walking the Plank Toward Termination: STEP 4 Your Boss Switches From Harassing You In-Person to Harassing You In Writing
When your boss goes to Human Resources and asks "Can I fire this employee right now?", do you know what the H.R. Rep always answers? H.R. says, "What documentation do you have that shows your employee is not doing their job?" You know what happens next? Your boss looks down at his or her own feet, and their face starts turning red. Then they look back up at the H.R. Person and say something like "Goddamnit, don't we have at-will employment in this state?! It used to be if someone didn't do their job they got fired! Plain and simple. How come all you ever say is 'no'? Why don't you ever help us get things done around here, instead of just putting up road blocks all the time?!" The H.R. Rep responds to this tirade with something like, "I take it you have done no … [Read more...]
10 Steps of Walking the Plank Toward Termination: STEP 3, Your Good Work Gets No Rewards
A law firm partner who wanted me fired used to sing my praises, calling me a "golden boy" and going on and on about how I seemed to have a "magic wand" that would solve all the partner's problems. Now, this partner's inability to remember to take all their pills each morning was not my doing, but it was nearly my undoing (ever had a boss like this?). One day I had obtained an especially good result for a demanding client in a challenging case. I was exuberant as I bounded into my boss's doorway and blurted out "Did you hear how the judge ruled on our Rule 11 motions? Granted! We got them!" I fully expected my boss to jump out of their chair and hug me, or at least shake my hand and offer to call the client and give me credit for the victory. Instead I got a cold emotionless … [Read more...]
10 Steps of Walking the Plank Toward Termination: Step 2 You Have a New Supervisor
Note: If you missed Step 1 in this series you can read it HERE. If a new supervisor takes over your department, brace yourself. New supervisors change everything, and employees HATE that. What you need to understand is that it is unthinkable to a new supervisor to not change everything. A new supervisor feels like they need to PROVE that they were the right person for the job. How do they prove it? By making changes. It doesn't matter to your new supervisor that everything was working just fine, thank you very much. Your new supervisor is going to make changes for change's sake. Your supervisor believes that their changes prove that they are making their mark, shaking things up, raising the bar, blah blah blah. In your new supervisor's mind, this is now their … [Read more...]
10 Steps of Walking the Plank Toward Termination: Step 1 Your Industry Is Sputtering
Many people have written about "Signs You're Getting Terminated," but all those articles miss the natural progression that usually occurs. These signs don't appear scatter shot around you like the pellets of a shotgun blast. No, it's more ordered than that. There are a series of steps that occur before you are terminated. One leads to the next, like the steps of "walking the plank" toward termination and falling into the cold ocean of unemployment. Through my decade of practicing employment law and through my previous years in human resources, I came to recognize a pattern that almost always occurs, with only slight variations, anytime an employee is fired. Due to these rough economic times, I've added a step at the beginning which is not always there, but certainly increases … [Read more...]
Can Complaining About Job Harassment Save You From Layoffs?
How many news stories have you seen or read lately that blare dark and stormy stories of our slowing economy, banks going bankrupt, and workers facing wave after wave of mass layoffs? Have you noticed, too, how people act out during stressful times? Sometimes they act out in stupid ways. A male co-worker acted stupidly toward Jessica Houston, when she was sharing a half-time scheduler position at an Indianapolis hospital. But the male co-worker wasn't the only bad actor in this case; Jessica's manager got involved too. There was plenty of stupid to go around. Real Life Case: The male co-worker was 52, and Jessica was 22. Two times he found her in a break room or lunch room, sat down in her lap, and whispered in her ear "You're beautiful." Houston felt ashamed and … [Read more...]
