Archive for March, 2009

“What’s my line? I’m happy cleaning windows…I
Take my time, I’ll see you when my love grows…
I’m a working man in my prime, cleaning windows.”
-Van Morrison”

“Cleaning Windows” is one of my favorite songs about work. What’s yours?

Lynn Hazan, a Chicago-based recruiter lists some old favorites:

• Working Nine to Five

• I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

• Whistle While You Work

Submit your favorite lyric or verse and your name will be entered in a drawing  for  a free copy of The Good Girl’s Guide to Negotiating.

Dear Readers,

Which is a safer position for a pregnant woman who works the midnight shift in New York City: armed and sitting at a desk in a secure location or standing in a tollbooth on a bridge, outfitted with handcuffs, pepper spray and a baton?

If you said “desk job,” you would agree with Lori Ann DiPalo, the 36-year old Metropolitan Transit Authority Bridge and Tunnels officer. She was transferred as soon as her employer learned she was pregnant from a desk to a tollbooth, where arrests for drunk driving and other illegal activity are not uncommon. After two unsuccessful union grievances, DiPalo filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the first step toward a federal lawsuit.

Blatant discrimination, such as firing women or denying them a promotion simply because they are pregnant, has become less common since the 1978 passage of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. But unfair treatment of mothers-to-be has perhaps become more insidious. Since 1992, the EEOC has seen a 39 percent increase in pregnancy discrimination charges.

The rise is due at least partly to women’s increasing understanding of their rights and willingness to enforce them, says Gillian Thomas, DiPalo’s lawyer at Legal Momentum (formerly NOW’s Legal and Education Defense Fund). With more women taking on physically demanding jobs and staying on the job longer into their pregnancies, employers need now more than ever to make sure their policies and actions are gender neutral.

DiPalo’s doctor declared her fit to continue working in her usual position after taking two weeks off early in her pregnancy. Nevertheless, her employer’s doctor initiated the tollbooth transfer, citing potential difficulty “securing her weapon” (even though she was only 10 weeks pregnant) and the possibility of “abdominal trauma.” But an employer cannot legally override the determination of the pregnant employee and her physician when it comes to health concerns, according to Thomas. “The law is very clear that medical decisions are up to her [a pregnant employee] and her doctor.”

Valerie Finn, a Port Huron, Mich., a firefighter and certified paramedic, claims to have faced an entirely different form of discrimination during pregnancy. Advised by her doctor to avoid physically demanding duties for the remainder of her pregnancy, she requested one of the many light duty assignments in the firehouse. Her request denied, she felt she had no choice but to begin her unpaid leave well before she was due to deliver.

The fire department’s refusal rested on its policy of extending light duty only to employees who are injured on the job. Because only women get pregnant and therefore may need light duty accommodation unrelated to the job, the policy is discriminatory, says Thomas, also Finn’s lawyer.

Employers are increasingly being asked to walk a tightrope: acknowledging a major difference in women’s biology – they can get pregnant while men can’t – without discriminating on the basis of that difference. Fortunately, because pregnancy is extremely common, fairly predictable and always short-term, it should not be all that precarious. “It’s a hurdle we need to overcome if we are to continue using talents [of pregnant women] both when they are still fully capable of working and during the time they may need some temporary job modification,” says Thomas. Not to mention looking out for the most basic needs of our families, which ultimately enriches our entire society.
© CTW Features
Do you have questions about your job or the best way to handle a workplace challenge? Leslie Whitaker would like to hear from you. E-mail Leslie@ctwfeature.com and join the conversation at her Web site, www.lesliewhitaker.com.

Dear Reader,

What do you know about the people you need to please at work? How can you use that information to your advantage?

Before you can successfully answer those questions, think strategically about each of your individual goals. Only then can you identify the people who may play a role in your attempts to move forward, decision-makers who have the power to hold you back, remain neutral, or push you ahead.

If you are a waitress hoping for a good tip, for example, your customers are first on your mind. But the maitre d’ and the cook also may play critical roles since you rely on them for the best table assignments and tasty dishes to serve. If your goal is keeping your job, your immediate supervisor might be on top of your current list, or perhaps it’s your boss and your boss’s boss. An assistant professor hoping for tenure has to think about her department chair, her dean and even peers across the country who may be invited to review her scholarship and weigh in on the decision. Whatever your profession, there are probably plenty of people you would benefit from knowing better.

“To know me is to love me” is a useful mantra when thinking about what other people want, which is central to impressing or pleasing them. Symen Kooy thinks in broad terms. As owner of Blossom Florist and Gifts in Dennis, Mass., he knows that about four percent of his customers will register some sort of dissatisfaction. That’s why his business strategy includes “taking care of people who complain,” often by sending out a second batch of flowers. He also competes for his customers’ affection by “giving more flowers than expected.” If most florists send 10 flowers in a vase, “I give them 13,” he says.

Getting to know your clients personally can also be extremely useful. Any waiter can guess that his customers are hungry and thirsty and want quick service. This will do for someone he expects to see only once. But repeat customers require more attention, and the outstanding server will note things like food preferences and favorite topics, ranging from politics to the weather, for future reference.

Envelope entrepreneur and salesman extraordinaire Harvey Mackay, author of bestseller “Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive” (HarperCollins, 2005), is a persuasive advocate about the importance of getting to know your customers. The master networker has turned gathering information about his customers into a fine art. His customer profile, published in “Swim with the Sharks,” has 66 questions that are far more detailed than mere contact information. Among the information he collects:

• Education, extracurricular college activities, fraternity or sorority
• Marital status, spouse’s name, spouse’s education
• Professional association memberships and names of mentors
• Smoking and drinking habits
• Whether competitors know more about the customer than he does

In his book, Mackay discloses that his sales from one buyer skyrocketed once he realized that they both had graduated from the same high school. “We both had the fabled Miss Malmon for English. The yarns we told were fabulous; the envelopes he bought were even more fabulous.” Mackay subsequently sold his former classmate millions of dollars worth of envelopes. “I wonder why?” he quips.
© CTW Features

Do you have questions about your job or the best way to handle a workplace challenge? Leslie Whitaker would like to hear from you. E-mail Leslie@ctwfeature.com and join the conversation at her Web site, www.lesliewhitaker.com.

Hi Leslie,
Can you help me with this problem?
I am looking for a full-time job and I always get asked, “Why did you leave your last job?”
The truth is I disliked working there very much and put up with it for 2-1/2 years. Poor management, if any, was a big problem.
I know you can’t tell a prospective employer the truth (never bad mouth a past employer) so I just say I needed a change without telling all the negative stuff.
What is the best answer in this situation?

Dear Reader,
You’re absolutely right to keep your complaints about your former employer to yourself. It’s only natural when someone complains to us about others to wonder whether they will trash us, too, if given the chance. An interviewer will most likely list your complaints in the negative side of the equation as she weighs the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of offering you a job.
Saying you needed a change is better than complaining, but if you aren’t more specific than that, you may be raising more questions in the interviewer’s mind than you are answering. That’s not the best strategy. Instead, in advance of your next interview, come up with a couple of sentences that indicate that you left your last job for the best possible reason: to pursue a more fulfilling position. Follow that up quickly with the ways in which you expect the job you desire to fit the bill. Perhaps it is more opportunity to put your skills to use – and be specific about which skills were underutilized and the ways in which you believe they will be useful to her organization. Or perhaps you wanted to switch to a growth industry, and then show off your knowledge about your prospective employer’s advantages in the marketplace.
These are only two suggestions. You’ll have to tailor your message to show off your strengths and the way they will serve the organization you want to hire you. You may have to say slightly different things to different employers. But whatever you say, make sure it reflects your desire to be an employee who makes a significant positive impact from Day 1.

“There’s a hole in daddy’s arm, where all the money goes”

I can’t get that lyric out of my head about a returning vet-turned-drug addict. John Prine sang last night in Milwaukee, and this song is once again more current than it should be.

Also timely:

“I headed up to New York City;

Where a man can make some loot;

I got hired Monday morning;

Downsized that afternoon.”