One attorney once told me that “employment law is the most PERSONAL law you will ever deal with!”. Interestingly so, he was right.
When you go to work, you are not merely ‘punching a clock’ as you would like to believe. Your job and your ability to do your job has a profound impact on you personally, professionally, emotionally, and psychologically:
1) Personally! Face facts. Your job is responsible for a great many things that are related to your life. Your job pays your bills. Your job puts clothes on your kids backs and puts your kids through college. You can’t drive a car without gas and you can’t have gas without money. It is a necessary part of your existence.
2) Professionally! One attorney once told me “You spend a lifetime developing your reputation and you can lose it in 60 seconds or less!”. We all take our jobs personally but we take greater pride if the reputation we establish for ourselves. If we are good at what we do, we take pride in the world knowing it.
3) Emotionally! Anything that happens to your job, happens to you and your family. If your company is going bankrupt, you are not put in the position of wondering what the future may hold for you. You will be stressed. You will be anxious. You will be scared.
4) Psychologically! If something happens to you AT your job, you can’t merely walk away from that feeling. Think about it, you spend 40 hours a week in front of the same people. So if your boss writes you up or a co-worker cusses you out, you can’t just write them off. You have to see those people tomorrow. More importantly, those feelings will linger as long as you are there.
So you can imagine the power and concern when you find yourself in a position where you have been terminated or let go. This single event is the most devastating event in most people’s lives. No one wants to go through the situation of being ‘let go’. The simple fact of the matter is that we are all control freaks to a degree and NO ONE wants to leave a siuation on terms other than their own.
So you can imagine how all of the things that I mentioned above could come into play. You now have to figure out how you are going to pay your bills. You now have to figure out how you are going to find a new job. If you are terminated, you wonder if it is because of you or something that you have done. Now, you wonder how other employers will view you being terminated.
A million different emotions go running through your head. What’s even worse is that when you have to leave, it may not be a sexy leave because there are some predisposed thoughts that you may have floating through your mind:
1) Computer. Let me tell you something. If it’s personal, don’t put it on your computer. The simple fact of the matter is that your computer is your COMPANY’s computer. So you don’t want to have this misguided thought that you are entitled to get your information off of your computer. Because in reality, the computer is NOT yours!
2) Employee File. Check the laws in your states but some people have a sense of ‘ownership’ when the employer maintains an employee file. As an employee, you think “Hey, it’s my information about me! Why can’t I have it? It’s MY employee file!”. Back up a second. Depending on the state, these ‘employee files’ are merely kept as a means to maintaining records about you and your activities with the employer. In essence, the employee file is the property of the EMPLOYER! Think about it like this, if employers knew that they had to give their employees the employee files, they may not maintain them. Why? If you ask for your employee file, what are you REALLY looking for in the file?? That’s right! Something that you can use against the employer, if possible. Don’t suck your teeth. You know what I’m talking about!
3) Employee Friends v. Friends Friends. I know that sounds crazy but so many times, when we leave our jobs in a ‘blaze of glory’, we think that those same people who we used to ‘vent’ to about our jobs will be our biggest allies if we need them. Hey, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but we are in a tough economy so you just can’t predict what an employee will do. And you can’t hold it against them. Friends are friends but business is business. They have the same families to feed like you so they may have to make the tough decision to not put themselves out there.
Understand this, my friends, jobs are tough and our connections to our jobs are even tougher. In this tough economy, alot of us are finding ourselves in the position of having to determine what we need to do in order to survive. I know it’s hard to separate one from another but you must in order to move forward.
