Re: An ugly job incident

[Elna Tymes <etymes -at- LTS -dot- COM>]

Anonymous -

Several posters to this thread have predictably overreacted as to what's
personal and what belongs to the company, one in particular claiming that you
had virtually no rights to anything, up to and including your severance pay.

Balderdash!

Any competent labor relations lawyer will tell you that all things are
negotiable, including the definitions of what belongs to the company, your
severance package, the kinds of recommendation letters they'll give you, etc.
No matter how firmly it may be stated that you files and all work you did on
company time, as well as all equipment, belongs to the company, the truth is
that most severance arrangements that are aided by the intervention of a lawyer
contain allowances for actions and possessions that are seemingly prohibited by
the stated policies of the company.

Granted, retaining such legal assistance can get expensive.  However in many
cases the legal fees are built into the settlement agreement, so that you come
out with more than you initially worried you might get.  Sometimes a lot more.

The particular boss and scenario you mention sounds so strongly like someone I
know that I wonder if she's turning up in other places, passing herself off as
an instructional designer when in fact her experience has been as pubs manager,
and a really bad one at that.  (The person I know did her hired writers so
wrong that she's cost the company close to $1M in settlement damanges thus far,
with the clock still running in two cases; obviously, she's no longer at that
company.)

One of the unfortunate truisms in this business is that we all get yanked
around by the internal politics of organizations, sooner or later. And the more
expensive you get, the more likely you are to run into politics. Face it: it's
easier to blame the expensive employees/contractors when things go wrong, and
to say that the problem - whatever it was - was fixed by firing/laying off the
expensive one.

The important lesson is to not take it personally.  You know the value of your
work and you probably have samples to show the next interviewer.  And to be
honest, I'd rather hire a senior writer who has a couple of war stories than a
senior writer who still thinks that all people are fair and honest all the
time.Someone who's been a little singed around the edges is more likely to
recognize the early warning signs of a project going bad or other problems, and
is perhaps more able to suggest strategies for saving things before they get
out of control.

A tech writer friend of mine got laid off about two months ago, after he'd
spent some 13 years at the company, and shortly after he'd proposed integrating
the seven technical writers at four different locations into one virtual
group.  Management had not only been pleased with his proposal, they'd actively
encouraged him to submit it.  They then 'rewarded' him by including him and a
bunch of other very senior people in an unannounced layoff.  He'd groused to
me, but not to others, about the management's stupidity in several other
decisions over the last several years, but his group had met all their
deadlines and worked diligently with the engineers, and he'd taken on extra
responsibilities for ISO-9000 projects.  In short - he didn't deserve the
layoff either. I urged him to talk to a lawyer since it appears that there was
a pattern of laying off people who were within a year or two of collecting
their company pensions, but he decided not to because of a clause in the
severance agreeement saying that the package would be reduced if legal counsel
challenged it in any way (a clause that would not hold up in court, but was
enough to make him stop and evaluate just what he wanted to do with his time).
He elected to just get on with his life, and within several weeks landed a
wonderful consulting assignment that, after a period of learning the system,
will allow him to work from home and for a truly wonderful company and pubs
group.

Were I in Anonymous' shoes, I'd sulk for a day or two, maybe indulge myself in
a bit of chocolate or some sort of reward for being a good person, and then get
my resume out there again.  I'd also see a labor relations lawyer right away,
and I wouldn't sign any severance agreement or any other kind of agreement
without legal eyes approving it.  "Defamation of character" is not something
I'd try to prove, but I'd certainly let my legal representative know that I
wanted the company effectively prevented from saying anything negative about
me. In my experience, the accusations made by the manager are probably simply
attempts at intimidation and have no legal legs to stand on.

Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems

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