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> Is it fair to arrive in on Monday morning to be told that you no longer
> have a job and that you must leave the building immediately with no
> redundancy package? Would that be considered "being abused, wronged or
> otherwise maltreated", as Darren said in an earlier post? Personally, I
> would consider that it is.
Flip that around - what about the employee who walks out in a huff and
leaves his employer hanging. Is that considered abuse?
We live in a free market. In free markets, there is risk. You reduce risk
by, as the gamblers might say, hedging your bets. So if you are worried
about walking in and getting fired on Monday, you hedge your bets and
apply for work elsewhere.
You can also develop a set of technical and professional skills that will
dramatically reduce your chances of being fired. I have NEVER been laid
off from a job - EVER. Even when my entire group at Microsoft was trashed
one afternoon, one of the managers took me with him to a new group. He
took me because I had skills that nobody else did. I was invaluable. Even
when that second group got trashed, I had offers from 4 other groups
pending.
I also worked my ass off and impressed people. While other contractors
were holding bitch-sessions in the hallway and vowing to get lawyers, I
was slinging code and helping another group. While they were getting
canned, I was getting a raise. Its too bad it happened, but its their own
fault. Rather than do something about their bad situation - they just
bitched.
> How easy is it for one employee to fight management when such a decision
is
> made? What recourse do you have?
To be valuable. To possess skills, experience, and a professional attitude
that make you valuable to an organization. If you are just a drone that
shows up everyday and does the absolute bare minimum of your job - you
will get canned when things go bad.
Moreover, if you consistently go to work for crappy firms or
organizations, you will also get canned when the inept management screws
up.
You have all the control over your career. If you chose poorly, then you
will suffer the consequences of Monday Morning Massacres, like you
describe.
The only thing holding anybody back from wealth, power, and success is
themselves. And no union in the world is going to solve that little
universal truism.
Andrew Plato
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