Read before you sign

This is a long question, so I'm going to break it into parts and answer each part separately. Oh, and Class Factotum, this is for you, since you asked for more posts. I've been busy learning German. I conducted an entire transaction in German yesterday--granted it was just dry cleaning, and I mainly said, "Ja, ja!" but importantly, I knew what she said. At least, I think I did. Maybe when I go to pick up the pants, they'll be dyed purple or something. Anyway, back to our regular topic.

My husband gave his 2 week notice on Tuesday because we have decided to move back to the UK. He found out today, Friday, that they are planning to send him home on Monday. They said they are not firing him that they accept his resignation and are moving the last day up!! This was all unofficial as the nice HR lady told him in confidence, his boss does not plan on telling him until monday a.m.!!!! That means he loses a weeks pay - can they do that?? The said he is an exempt employee so they are not obligated to pay him the remaining days if they don't want to!

I don't have any idea what being an exempt employee has to do with this. But, in the USA almost everyone is an at will employee, which means you can be terminated at any point. No severance is owed. No notice required. No cause needed. Should they pay him out his notice period? Of course. It's the right thing to do. Do they have to? Perhaps in your state, but (in my thoroughly non-lawyerly way) not in all.

The boss is a jerk with a capital J. Technically, he can probably file for unemployment, but that may be a bigger pain than it's worth.

Also, the tuition reimbursement. my husband says that they are going to try to get him to rollover his 401k to guarantee the tuition reimbursement that he owes. I don't mind paying it but in my own time please. What are his obligations to pay it on the spot!

I haven't seen the paperwork he signed for the tuition reimbursement, but I doubt it said anything about taking money from his 401k. I understand why they want him to do that--it's very difficult to get money from someone once they've quit. Please understand, he owes the money and he should pay it. But, they know that it will be nearly impossible to get it from him if he doesn't wish to pay up--especially since you are moving to a different country. The cost of legal proceedings would be too high to bother with.

Repay the amount owed according to the contract he signed. Don't let them take the 401k money. Penalties are way too high for that kind of thing.

Lastly, he works for a credit union and we have a car financed through them. The car loan is in both of our names but as an employee they gave him 2% off the regular rate. He has heard that they will increase the rate to whatever the standard rate is now. Is that legal?? I have read over the contract and no where does it state that the rate given is an employee rate!

Speaking as a non lawyer, of course that is legal--as long as it was in the loan documents signed. If it wasn't in the loan documents, then it's not legal. Easy-peasy. Pull out your documents and look.

Don't sign things you don't understand. Ask questions before signing. If your boss is a jerk while you work for him, he's likely to be a jerk when you resign. And have fun in the UK!

Our Strength Lies in Our...

Unity.

I know you thought I was going to say "our strength lies in our diversity." That (and similar messages) are prevalent. We have diversity committees, VPs of Diversity, affirmative action plans and call minority candidates "diverse candidates." (Which drives me absolutely insane, but that's another topic.)

When we moved to Switzerland we enrolled our daughter in one of the most "diverse" schools on the planet. If you were to wander down the halls you would see children with skin colors in all possible shades and colors. A map outside my daughter's classroom identifies the home country for each child in the class. Several of the children in her class spoke little to no English at the beginning of the school year.

To add to the mix, many of the children are from mixed culture marriages--mom is from one country, dad is from another, and they are living in a third country.

The school is highly successful. It has an outstanding reputation. High schoolers go on to great universities. They have less of a problem with bullying than other schools. It's all that diversity, right? Children are exposed to different cultures and therefore learn to respect others, right?

Well, sure. I love that aspect. But, in terms of true diversity (or differences), I have never been involved in a less diverse organization.

Here is how the children are the same:

• Same socio-economic class. (True, some kids have more money than others, but there is a definite floor.)
  
• Educated parents.
• All have been the "new kid" and know what that feels like.
• They have all lived outside their home country.
• Stable home life. (Definite exceptions, but a look through the school directory yields only one single parent household. My guess is that single parents don't do the international career thing as often because of custody and other issues.)
• A majority have a stay-at-home parent.
• Education is seen as a priority by the parents.
  

Yes, their native languages vary. Their skin and hair colors cover the entire range of possibilities. Religions run the gamut. There is definite diversity. But there is definite unity as well.

So is it the diversity or the unity that makes the school so successful? I'd say both. The students learn a lot from each other. Different ideas are brought out in almost all activities. But, the things that unify them are strong as well.

If you grabbed a bunch of random kids from different countries and threw them together, would you get the great results this school gets? I doubt it. You'd run into many problems that the unify factors tend to nullify.

So, what does this mean for companies and hiring? I think it means that as you are looking towards diversity as the savior of your company, you also need to look towards unity. What things make your employees unified? Is there a shared company culture? Are there goals that everyone works towards?

Sometimes we get so focused on our diversity that we forget that we need unity in order to make things work. Without that, you have an interesting dinner party, but no road map for success. With both the unifying factors and the rich diversity of experience, you can achieve greater things.

Want to know my thoughts on Brad Pitt?

Of course you do. Check out why this might help your career. Plus, make sure you read comment 2. It will inform you that I lack character and depth. But, you already knew that.

Quit or Fired?

I live in CA. I worked for a small business owner for two plus years. Just recently I gave him two weeks notice in writing. He asked me to stay and stay and stay longer and I said “okay”. That meant that I would be working for him for at least three or four more weeks, maybe more. The next work day, he told me that I did not need to come back and after the close of business I did not come back to work. I have not received my last paycheck, for that single day and do not expect that I will be paid for more than the hours worked in that one day. I have been told by others that I have been let go, fired, terminated you know all of words better than me.

If indeed I do not get paid for any more hours than the ones worked, can I legally receive CA unemployment?

He definitely owes you for for hours worked and he should have paid you already, as California law requires that.

Can you legally receive unemployment? I have no idea, but the folks at the unemployment office do. Go ask them.

But, I think that since you resigned you should just drop it and move on with life. Why did you resign only to continue working anyway? Did you not have another job lined up? Were you planning to enter a life of leisure where you eat chocolate, listen to Volkmusic and only blog occasionally? (Ahh, my life is so difficult.)

Reprogram your brain to pretend that your boss just accepted your two week's notice and that you didn't do extra work and that you left on good terms. As a small business owner he probably did a small freak out when you presented your resignation letter. When you only have a few employees you don't have a large group of cross trained individuals to help you out when someone leaves. A missing employee means you have more work poured on your head.

Your boss probably initially thought he couldn't handle it without you, but then upon reflection realized he could. And so, he let you go. He didn't do it in a professional manner (no notice and no final paycheck), but he did. (Now, if I read this wrong and you didn't work extra, he terminated you before the two week notice was up, then what you should do is the same, but my analysis of your boss changes. That's extra jerky behavior and what happens when people take business relationships personally, but that's another story.)

Missing my posts?

I don't think I've ever posted an actual link to where I write at US News, so here it is! The other bloggers over there are fantastic as well.

Just a little light reading.

And You Think You Have Problems

Since we moved to Switzerland, my husband keeps making us listen to this:

Past Transgressions

I have come across some information at work and I don't know what I should do about it. Please help!

I work in a sales environment. I have been there for over one year now and I love all of the people for the exception of the one person I work for most directly -- I will refer to her as Andrea from here on. She is loud, obnoxious, dresses far too casually, and lies about every single thing that she does, yet still seems to be the apple of upper management's eye no matter how badly she errors or how much money she costs the company.

I was searching online last week to make sure a popular search engine would direct visitors searching our names to our company website. While searching, I came across some information about my co-worker's past. It was not something I was looking for or something that I ever would have imagined that I would find. The websites that I found were public websites containing detailed information about her prior arrests and convictions of drug trafficking, drug possession (crack cocaine), and carrying illegal tools (i.e. a crack pipe). I have verified this information to be absolutely accurate and is definitely related to Andrea without any doubt whatsoever.

I have not told a single person at work about this information because I assumed that she disclosed this information on her application for employment. However, I was able to view her application (which I was allowed to do for reasons not relating to this incident) and it was not disclosed.

Here is my dilemma: I am worried as to whether or not I should bring this information to the management's attention. I do not want her to get in trouble or lose her job even though I do not like her. Everyone makes mistakes in their past (and this was ten years ago) and I truly don't think that she deserves to have all this brought up again after she's started a new career (she lost her last job and ended up in the news about it because of the nature of her previous career path), but I am worried from a liability standpoint. What if she is still consuming illegal substances and ends up injuring someone at work because she cannot control herself (or her driving, which is a huge part of what she does every day) in a particular situation? One other person at work found out about this information within one day of when I found out about it because we were both checking to see if our names were directing people to our website through a popular search engine. This person brought it to my attention but we did not discuss any of the details because I did not feel that this was appropriate, but now it is known that I, too, have this information.

If I bring this to the attention of management I do not want them to think that I am bringing this up to damage her reputation or get her fired. It is well known that we do not like each other and that we work together only for the better of the company. I simply want to do the right thing but I'm not sure what that is. I could be making this into a huge deal over nothing and perhaps the best thing to do would be to keep the information to myself. Our company policy is that we do not hire people who have prior criminal backgrounds due to the nature of the business. She signed waiver forms to have a complete background check, police report check, credit check, fingerprint scan through a national database, and a drug pre-screening (four years ago), but obviously something was overlooked somewhere. Please share your thoughts on this situation. Your guidance is appreciated.

You know, I'd really like to believe that you are altruistic and only have the company's best interest at heart.

But, I don't. Not for a second. You don't like Andrea, and dollars to donuts, neither does your co-worker who also found out about Andrea's past.. (What on earth does googling your company name have to do with googling all your co-workers? Not saying you can't do that, but puh-lease. Don't try to pass off your "what's our Google ranking" with "I wonder what I can find out about Andrea.")

You found out some nasty stuff and have "authenticated it." (How? Asking her? DNA samples? Just wondering.) And further more, I'm trying to figure out how on earth you got access to her application file? I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed to reference someone's application and I'm HR. I can't figure out what information a salesperson would need from her co-worker's application. I can't come up with a legitimate reason. (I'm sure someone has one, I just can't think of one.)

If Googling your co-worker's names was a legitimate assignment, then you would have written up a report summarizing your findings. Then it would be allowable to say, "When you Google Andrea + Company name you get police records for someone with the same name. When you google John + Company name you get a link to "who we are" page on the company website. When you Google Katie + Company name you get a link to a weight loss forum." If the offense is ten years out (and I know there wasn't anything more recent because I know you tried to find more dirt), then they probably couldn't have even considered it when they hired her. Sure, the lying on the application part is reason not to hire someone, but they did and I don't care how you authenticated the information, unless your brother was her actual crack dealer you didn't authenticate it.

You will be the person who looks bad. Andrea will look like the victim.

Leave it alone. Do not discuss this with your fellow dirt digger. Get back to work and stop surfing the web. If this information comes to light and someone comes to you and says, "how come you didn't tell us about Andrea!?!?!?!?" you can simply reply, "Our company policy is to run a background check on everyone before they are hired. I assumed that management was aware of this information. Additionally, Andrea's past is not relevant to her current performance."

My Top 10

Blogs.com takes top 10 lists from various bloggers. Now they've posted mine!

It's probably not quite what you'd expect from me, but I hope you find it amusing.

Counter Offers

I work in California and have recently been offered a similar position with a new company. I turned in my resignation letter today and my boss asked me what it would take to make me stay. I told him that if they increase my salary to match the new offer I would stay.

After he talks with his boss and HR, he tells me that they will match the offer but they want to see a hard copy first.

I'm wondering if this is violating my privacy rights to salary information. I'm also hesitant to provide a copy of the new offer because I do not want to jeopardize this new position if the negotiations fall-out. Perhaps I could mark out the name and contact information of the new company....

I think you should thank your boss for his confidence in you, and take the new job and leave.

Why?

Because you went looking for a new job for a reason and it's highly doubtful that that reason was money. Oh sure, we all want more money. Me too. But, money is rarely the reason why people start looking for a new job.

I hear screaming from the crowd. The crowd is saying, "But I just went out looking for more money! I didn't have any other reason for looking for a new job. I love my job! I do! I just want more money.!"

Sure, fine. So, why did your boss not offer you more money before you presented him with an offer from a new company? Hmmm?

I believe it was because the company you worked for did not value you any higher.

Sure, your boss would love to give you more money but company policies prevent it.

Stupid company. They need to be watching out for their best people and meeting their needs. And if you truly loved your boss you wouldn't have been out looking for a new job in the first place.

There is another reason why you went out job shopping. Think about that. Most people who accept counter offers leave within a year anyway.

If you decide you want to continue on with the negotiations, go ahead and show them the offer letter. If you are concerned that doing this will jeopardize your job offer, that means you don't trust your boss or the HR person. Why on earth are you staying with a company where you don't trust your boss not to actively screw you over?

Think about that for a moment.

Take the new job and good luck.

Team Building

A friend had to go to a mandatory "team building" event. You can probably guess my opinion of such things, but some people like them. Wasting time "building unity" by doing a silly activity such as building a raft, making a dinner or negotiating a ropes course is bad enough during business hours, but this event was held in the evening.

You remember the purpose of evenings, don't you? It's time to be at home.

During this team building activity, a nice HR person (who undoubtedly had a hand in organizing the whole event) talked about how they were having a turnover problem. The theory was that by building cohesiveness everyone would start to love their team so much they wouldn't dare leave.

I think HR should have thought, "Gee, maybe it's that whole work-life balance thing creeping up on us. Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't require people to spend their evenings at team building events!"

Sometimes we get caught up in the latest fad or program and we think, "gee, won't this be fabulous!" and we forget to ask if this is actually helping the business by truly meeting the needs of the people. Yes, the activity you came up with might be "fun," but most people consider work, work and want to find their fun elsewhere.

Or we think that for a team to be effective they need to be bonded in some significant fashion. And that perhaps trusting my coworker to catch me as I fall backwards will improve performance all around. Frankly, I'd rather trust my coworker to get her part of the project done on time. That builds team cohesiveness better than anything else, in my humble opinion.

So, next time you go implementing some sort of program, stop and think about how this will really affect business performance. Is it helping or inadvertantly hurting?

Vacation Micro Management

Need an opinion. I am an owner of a small-mid size consumer and auto finance company. We currently staff 6-7 full time employees. I was having a recent conversation with my office manager/supervisor regarding our policies on vacation. In a nut shell we offer 2 weeks of paid vacation from April through October. The supervisor has just earned a 3rd week for reaching 5 years (anniversary date) with the company. The only stipulations other than the months vacation can be scheduled is that 1 full consecutive week be taken and for those having 2 weeks, the second week can be split into a 3/2 or 2/3 day format allowing for some flexibility. I’m not a fan of that and would prefer that all vacation be taken in full one week increments M-F. I have kept the split format for the second week as a perk for my employees. Previously we also did not allow vacation to be taken at “month end” either because of the process we go through to close out our month. Due to some better and more efficient software the process is cut to a 1/3 so now we allow vacation to be scheduled around that time. Another perk in my opinion that I agreed to at my employee’s request. I also ask that vacations be posted by April 15th of each year so proper planning can be accomplished.

We recently had an employee to schedule his full week’s vacation Wed-Tues kinda screwing up two weeks if you know what I mean and now has two other split time vacations scheduled. This was an oversight on my supervisors part for not catching it but not intentional. At explaining “again” why we keep this format I restated that this is the reason I am a proponent of consecutive weeks not splits. Other wise if you’re not careful you’ll have folks out every week of the summer doing these mini vacations. I made the off color comment that it kinda goes back to them being a bit spoiled. She made the comment that this was the strictest vacation policy she had worked with before.

Sorry for the verboseness of this but I wanted to paint you a picture. In your experience as an HR professional does it sound like my vacation policies are “strict”? Being the owner and knowing that I try and perk them as much as I can in other areas too; I was quite offended at that comment and I guess am looking for an outside opinion. THANKS for your time!

I think you are thinking about this a little too much. What's the point of vacation? Honestly. Why give vacation at all? Well, because people wouldn't work for you if you didn't and because, drum roll please, people perform better if they have a break from time to time.

Now, I know nothing about the auto financing world, but I can't imagine that the winter months are so furiously busy that no one can take a single day off. So, why limit vacation time to the summer only? If part of the problem is having people out of the office, spreading it out over an entire year should help with that problem. Then you have less of a chance of two people wanting to leave at the same time.

What do you do when someone's brother-in-law decides to get married in February? Or someone's first grandchild is born in December? Are they not allowed to take any time off? Now, avoiding a gathering of inlaws might be a perk to the job, but what grandmother is going to want to hold off visiting the new baby, who happens to be in Keokuk Iowa?

On the number of days at a time, taking a week off consecutively does have some benefits, among them being an opportunity for fraud detection and a true chance to rest and relax. Requiring people to take the remaining vacation in one two and one three day chunk seems pointless.

You state that one employee "screwed" up two weeks by going Wed-Tues. Again, not knowing anything about car financing, but I can't see why this is. And what's wrong with a mini vacation? In fact, if my job is to cover for you while you are out, I'd much rather have you gone one day at a time than 3 days in a row. If you are just going to be out on Friday, most likely you'll work extra hard on Thursday and then anything that's not pressing I can just hold for you to do when you get back on Monday. If you're gone for 2, 3 or 5 days in a row, then I'm forced to do more of your job, which puts pressure on me.

I don't like more pressure on me, and neither do most of your employees.

If I were you, I'd loosen the hold on vacation. Let people take their vacation when they want to. (Although I do agree with a no vacation for the last week of the month/quarter/whatever super busy time you have, rule. That's good business sense and responsible employees wouldn't ask anyway, except in extreme circumstances.)

I think you'll find that it won't be nearly as disruptive as you fear. Most people want to do a good job and appreciate being given control over their own lives, as much as possible. You say that you spoil them. Excellent. Spoiled employees are happy employees (as long as you are also providing feedback and improvement plans and goals and all that other fun stuff that comes from being the boss). You want spoiled, but not rotten employees.

Have a marvelous vacation yourself. Switzerland is nice this time of year.

Random Swiss Fact

My computer is fixed. Yeah! It took a little longer than I thought because our friend did not have the right part. He knew what part I needed, though, so he wrote it down for me. I took it to the computer store and presented the written part number to the nice man behind the counter.

This man, by the way, spoke English, and apologized to me for his subject/verb order. "I need to work on my English!" he said. I thought that if I could get both a subject and a verb in German I wouldn't care about the proper order, I'd just be thrilled I'd communicated something.

Anyway, the computer store (and I find this amazing), does not accept credit cards. Cash or debit only. They sell computers! And big screen televisions! And fancy computer equipment.

I can only imagine that a place like that in America would go out of business if it didn't accept credit.

Fortunately, my part was only 29.90CHF, so not buying on credit wasn't a hardship. Still, I was amazed. They definitely have a different attitude towards credit over here.

Kaboom!

So, you are all wondering, what in the heck is she doing? Just sitting around and eating chocolate? Where are the posts?

Well, I am sitting around and eating chocolate. But, the reason for the lack of posting is that I blew up my computer.

Yes, smoke was coming out of the back. Yippee. Normally I would borrow my husband's computer, but he was on a business trip to New Jersey, of all places. Sigh.

My computer will (hopefully) be functional tonight. (I'm using my husband's right now.) Let's hear it for super-friendly-computer-savy computer people from church, who when he heard about my plight came over and volunteered to attempt to fix it. (He said if he's attempt doesn't work, then I would be wise to just buy a new computer as the cost to fix it would be more money than it would be worth.) I just have to say that this experience just adds to my opinion that the people of Switzerland are just so incredibly friendly.

Of course, I still don't know what people are saying to me 90% of the time, so for all I know they could be insulting my hair style, but they do it in a nice tone and with a smile, so I presume niceness all around.

You Can't Quit, I'm Firing You!

Another guy and I, used to work for a "bad boss". You know the type - he will lie, cheat, steal, etc. if so inclined. This other guy quit, and after the "non-compete" period was up, he started his own "competing" company. His company grew enough to bring on additional help, and he offered me a job. I accepted his offer and turned in my notice to HR at the old company. A week later, this "bad boss" found out I was leaving to go work for this competing ex-employee and drummed up a number of bogus reasons to fire me and I was walked out 2 days earlier than planned.

I worked for the new employer for a year before the economy slowed down and I was laid off. My problem is in applying for new jobs. They ask "Have you ever been terminated? Explain". If I say "No" and they contact the "bad boss" company, will a "He was terminated" response make me look like a liar? If I say "Yes", what do I put for the "explain" when I was really terminated for planning to work for a competitor? Will the "potential employer" get my "bad bosses" bogus reasons for my "termination?

I find this to be a fascinating question, which kind of surprises me because on the surface it doesn't seem that exotic a question. After all, it's not like the kind that Dear Abby gets ("Dear Abby, my sister-in-law didn't sit next to me at a bridal shower. True, she arrived late, and there were no chairs next to me, but she should have made an effort. I was so angry, I poisoned her punch. Then I felt guilty and knocked it out of her hand before she could drink it. It stained her shirt. She says I should pay for the cleaning. I don't think I should. What do you think?")

Here's why I think it's interesting: I would say that you've never been terminated from a position. Lots of times employers don't want you working for them once they know you are going to a competitor. It's not uncommon for someone to hand in two weeks notice and be told that today will be their last day.

But, I think I'm wrong here. This situation is different in that they came up with reasons to terminate you, didn't terminate you upon your giving notice, and will (most likely) state you were terminated if anyone should happen to call them for a reference.

The problem with references is that you don't get a chance to defend yourself. (Usually.) I know most HR types are huge fans of references, but I think there are huge flaws in the whole reference system. After all, unless I know the person giving the reference, how do I know she's not a complete whacko? That's another reason why networking is a much better system for finding a job. But, I'm digressing.

Here's what I would write: "I received an offer to work for [x] (a direct competitor), and gave two weeks' notice. Company opted to terminate me prior to the notice period ending." That sounds accurate, right? Will it compensate for a scathing reference should they call your previous company? Probably not. (See above paragraph.)

The more critical question is, will your last boss (who just laid you off) give you a good reference? I think it shows your value as a worker when someone has recruited you like he did. I think it says a lot when someone says, "I not only like working with you, I like working with you enough to hire you myself."

Good luck with your job search. Hopefully all will go well and you'll be in a fancy new job soon.

FMLA for a poor performer

I have an exempt employee on intermittant FLMA, due to a medical illness which has been confirmed by a doctor. The employee has not used all of the 12 weeks as of yet, but is getting there.

The employee is very sporadic in when he/she will work, some days the employee is fine and others not. She will work a week here and off one here and there. The doctor has cleared her to work 6 hours a day, but these six hours the work ethic is very poor, no past documentation. (I am the new HR Superintendent.)

To help you understand the situation a little better, this is a camp job, very remote, my exempt employees work 4 days on 3 off, they stay in camp 3 nights, normally work a 11-12 hour day. My worry is if I attempt to document poor work performance while the employee is under medical care, I am opening the door for the EEOC or ADA or NANA. I have offered reasonable accommodation by allowing a six hour work day. Again this is a camp job so working six hours leaves 18 hours in the employee dorm. I want to state that I cannot accommodate her 6 hours or better yet start documenting poor performance and terminate. But again I feel I am opening the door for the EEOC, ADA and NANA.

I want to say, off the bat, that I have no idea what NANA is. I hope it's not terribly important. I googled it and did not get any answers that seemed to fit the context, although I admit, I didn't look very hard.

You get, after all, what you pay for.

But, yes, you should document. You should be documenting on everyone with performance issues. If you are only documenting her issues, and not everyone elses, well then, you've got trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for pool. Which reminds me, I need to find out about swimming lessons for offspring number 1.

Anyway, your problem will probably resolve itself, if she's getting close to using all 12 weeks of FMLA. Intermittant FMLA can be extremely tricky, so I hope you have someone who is an expert advising you on this. Make sure that absences are approved under this FMLA, and not assigned to some other bucket.

Contrary to popular opinion, you can still fire someone for performance reasons, even if they are on FMLA. You can also eliminate their positions. But, you are right in that so doing opens you up for attack. It's generally guilty until proven innocent in these situations, so you have to be prepared to defend yourself.

You say you are new. Take this opportunity to do things the right way. Don't let this happen again. Frequently, people are afraid to deal with problems, because we all hope they will just go away. Problem employees rarely go away on their own accord. And, they don't get better unless they have reason to.

So, document for anyone with problems. Keep tabs on the FMLA. And, as for the six hour accommodation, since you've already approved that, I doubt that you'll be able to change that now.

Oh, and please don't just document. Keep the employee informed as to the expectations. She may be thinking, "I'm sick, therefore I don't need to do X." You may also not have a clear understanding of her limitations. Please keep an open dialogue.

Furlough

I work in a supervisory position in IT. My employer is, like everybody else, doing some belt-tightening in response to the economy. Among other things, they have announced a series of unpaid furloughs for this summer.

For scheduling purposes, they're being treated as extra (but, of course, unpaid) vacation days: the office will remain open, and individual employees will take their furloughs at different times. My question is, how do we reconcile the concept of the "unpaid furlough" with salaried employees who are usually on call for emergencies? Under normal circumstances, I'm happy to investigate, say, why the email stopped working at 4PM on Saturday. (Well, not "happy," but . . . you know what I mean.) I'd be considerably less amused to get a call on a day when I was "furloughed." The most obvious answer is to schedule things so that there's always somebody on call who's not taking their furlough (just like we do for vacations); and we will of course. But the reality is we're a small shop, and not everybody knows everything about everything. Murphy's Law suggests an inevitable situation where the "right" person to solve a problem will be on furlough. Looking forward to your Evil reply!

One of the definitions of a salaried, or exempt, employee is that they are paid for the job, not by the hour. For that reason, being on call is not a big deal for a salaried employee. (By not a big deal, I mean legally, not emotionally or in relationship to a work life balance.)

But, you're in a conundrum. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one. I'm sure someone will jump in and let us know if my advice is problematic. At least, I hope so.

Anyway, here's my advice: Let management know that if a member of your staff gets called in when they are on furlough, they will have to be paid. No ifs, ands or buts.

I think you could probably safely pay by the half day, but to be safe you may want to pay by the day. I don't think you can say, "hey it was a 15 minute phone call, we'll pay him for 15 minutes worth of work." That would be dangerously close to declaring someone to be an hourly worker, which would make that person eligible for overtime in the future. I don't think you want to do that.

Try your best to not have to call those people who are on furlough, but let everyone know that you will have to pay if they are called in.

Vacation, by the way, is different because they are getting paid on vacation. At least, that's my opinion.

Hopefully everyone will be able to pull together and the company will do better, so this won't be necessary again.

Dirty Jobs

Laurie at Punk Rock HR posted this video of Mike Rowe. She said she hoped it would go viral, so I feel like I'm doing my part.

It's brilliant and I agree with him. We get so caught up in looking for that perfect job, that perfect career, the perfect boss or perfect career path, that we've forgotten the value of hard work.

It's twenty minutes long, but well worth your time. Watch it.

Please don't give me a break

Is there a law where an employee and a company can agree to take a lunch after 8 hours and not six?

California Law states after 6 hours employee must receive a break. Can employee & company agree to change this? Please help.

Funny you should ask. My very favorite legal site, Overlawyered just posted an interesting story about a United Airlines Ticket Agent who took a break. He blames the lawyers.

I love to blame lawyers. (Except for my lawyer brother, who gives me free legal advice. He's blameless.)

This really is a situation where the company's hands are tied. (Presuming you are correct on California law, that it is six hours and not something different.) They can't authorize you to skip your break.

In theory, this is because big, bad companies would force you to work until you dropped so the big good government steps in and saves us all, except for the poor couple trying to catch a flight to Oregon. (Now, let it be said, that to the best of my knowledge there is no law stipulating that a break must be taken at a precise time, just within a certain window. If United was scheduling breaks at the last possible moment then they are as stupid as the Consumerist story makes them out to be. Further more, the ticket agent was incompetent. Yes, she's required to take a break. No, you don't argue with the customer. When it became clear that he was going to argue, you say, "I'm sorry, sir. Let me get someone who can help you." And then you walk away and get someone and then go on your break.)

I'm not a big fan of government regulations on such things. I think that there are enough people, like you, who would prefer to work 7.5 hours straight and then go home, rather than working 5 hours, take a half hour, unpaid break, and then work 2.5 more hours. I used to beg to do that, but to no avail, back in my hourly days. I think that we should acknowledge that at will employment runs two ways. If I don't like how a company is treating me, I can walk away from it. Further more, if they don't want to accommodate my break prefences, they can terminate me. We're all grown ups here.

Yes, I know about how people were treated in the coal mines and meat packing plants and I've read all about the factory fires. I think we've moved a little beyond that when we're micromanaging how breaks must be taken.

But, in short, no you can't. Take your break. Bring a good novel. And furthermore, don't work when you are on break. It causes the same problems.

How to get hired?

A reader sent me an e-mail and a link to Jason Calacanis' article: How to Hire--and Get Hired in a Recession.

Calacanis advises the candidate to make it clear that you are a super hard worker. You keep up with the industry trends. You give your all to your company. He gives 8 questions he likes to ask.

1. Do you live to work or work to live?
2. Do you consider yourself a workaholic? Do you think there is anything wrong with being a workaholic?
3. Are you able to turn it off at 6 p.m. and on Friday for the weekend? You don't get obsessed by work, do you? (Trick question!)
4. Do you consider yourself a balanced person?
5. How would you feel if we all needed to come in on the weekend to make a deadline?
6. How would you feel if this happened two weekends in a row?
7. It's a tough time right now, and we're super short-staffed—how would you feel if I
asked you to cover for [insert job lower than candidate's experience] when they're on vacation?
8. Speaking of vacation, do you bring your BlackBerry and laptop with you to check in? Or do you like to unplug completely?

He gives examples of ideal answers to questions: ("Finally, I've made a philosophy of not leaving the office until my boss does…. I think that's the honorable thing to do.")

Readers, are, predictably, in totally disagreement. He's described as pompous and out of touch.

My reader, however, agrees with this position and asks me: "Am I crazy for appreciating the sense Jason makes in his article, or is he draconian as the readers make him out to be?"

My answer is yes. Jason makes sense and he is draconian. (And yippee for the chance to use the word "draconian" in a post. Twice. Although technically one is in a quote.)

Now, first of all, I want to work with hard working people. I don't want any slackers on the same team I am working on. I've had slackers and they are not appreciated. However, getting in before everyone else and leaving after everyone else does not make one a non-slacker.

Jason is confusing "hard work" for "long hours." He places a lot of emphasis on face time.

I think face time is important to your career. I also think results are more important. Yes, there is a correlation between lots of hours and high performance. But it's just a correlation, not necessarily a causation. We all know people who put in a ton of hours, but are slow in their actual work. They take too long on the wrong things.

I had a coworker once who would spend numerous hours writing detailed criticisms on the formatting of reports. (Change this to font sized 12. Increase the thickness of the line at column G. Widen column H by 2 points. Highlight row 4, except for column B. And so on and so forth. A one page Excel report could have 25 items she wanted changed. None of them substantive.) She worked long hours. But, writing up these criticisms (which changed every month, so you could never use last month's criticism as a guide for this month's report) took longer than making the changes herself ever could.

She was about as inefficient as the day was long. Yet, she could have answered the questions to this man's questions "correctly" and received a job offer. And she would have been the first in and the last to leave and gotten no more than half the work done that an efficient employee who worked an 8 hour day did.

My point in all of this is that Calacanis is right, and Calacanis is wrong. Hard work is important. Smart work is important. Philosophies of work are important. I DON'T want employees who feel like they are tethered to their blackberries/laptops on vacation. I DO want ones that take a break. But, I also do want to be assured that if a crunch comes, everyone will be willing to come in on a weekend.

That's a culture thing. But, if crunches keep coming, well then, that's bad management. So, no I wouldn't be willing to come in every weekend.

One more note: In his example he mentions the person applying for a VP position. In my experience, smart work and long hours are both required to rise to that type of position. So, yeah, sacrifice of other things are necessary for success at that level. I don't want to be a VP of anything, so there is my bias.

I bet the readers who objected so strongly don't want to be VPs either. At least, they aren't willing to pay the price.

Fortunately, companies function best when not everyone wants to be the boss.

Fraternization Policy

Do you have anything on the above, or work rules regarding supervisors and people that report to them having a friendship outside of work. It is becoming disruptive to the workplace.

I think anti-fraternization policies are really difficult to write and police. How do you get people to stop being friends? And if you don't want supervisers to be friends with their underlings, then you can't promote from within, or you have to say, "If we promote you, you won't be able to socialize with the people you used to socialize with." Except you'd say it with better grammar.

What you are in need of is some supervisors with a clearer understanding of what is expected of them. You need to manage the results. You need to talk to the supervisors about how favoritism (presumably that's the problem here) is affecting the entire team. You need to train your supervisors how to manage.

Very few companies actually do that. Heaven knows my management training was weak. (New boss: "Hey, here are some people to supervise!" Me (outloud): "Great. I truly believe I have a lot to share and I am looking forward to taking this next step in my career." Me (silently): "Crud. I've never even had a formal performance review. Now what?")

I wouldn't focus on the friendship part. I would focus on the measurable results part. Make sure that your supervisors have good managers who have set quantitative goals for them. Make sure they understand that they need to change whatever behavior is causing the problem.

If they can't do it, they should be removed from their supervisor positions, either through demotions or firing. The latter is probably perferable, because if you've got anxiety in the ranks now, putting a disgruntled supervisor back in with his former underlings will not be pleasant.

Part of the job of managing people is realizing that you get paid more because it is harder than it looks. This sometimes means changing your relationships with others. Focus on the results and the relationship problems will be solved.