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Layoffs & Firings

How to lose your job ...

There must be fifty ways to leave your employer...

Slip in to work late, Jake.
Be too loud in your cubby, Lovie.
Back-stab all your co-workers, Bertha.
Just listen to me.
Serf the Internet, Brett.
Get drunk at the Christmas Party, Marty!
Just miss that deadline, Leigh,
And they'll set you free...

There is a joke in my industry that you have to basically be dead to be let go, it is that hard to get fired. So they said.
Leave it to me to be the anomaly.

The sad truth is, anyone is disposable, no one is indispensable, and everyone can be replaced by a string of ones just as hard working as you! There are a few items I've seen in various job reviews (mine as well as others') that have taken the employee by surprise. So, here's a short list of very real issues that can turn you into the office pariah...

1) The Tardy Factor. The office hours are what they are. If you come in late and even if you make it up on the back end of the day, you are forcing your co-workers to potentially cover for your job during regular office hours. Not being a morning person is no excuse! Then get a third shift job!
2) The Suck Up. Seems like you like your boss a little bit too much? This can alienate you from your co-workers and you never know, that boss might leave, turning today's peer into tomorrow's boss. The memory is long on this kind of thing. And if you go and try to suck up the new boss, don't be surprised if you find the door firmly shut in your face.
3) You are known by the company you keep. This is true in life. If you align yourself with someone that management does not like and they lose their job, you could be next. I know about this from personal experience. No, it's not fair. Life's not fair.
4) Miss deadlines more than once. There had better be a GOOD excuse for missing them at all if others are counting on you. Do what you must, work late, come in early, but make those deadlines. If something is just unreasonable, calmly explain to your boss why the time-line won't work. If you have an unreasonable boss who won't care and will want you to produce anyway, have a solution in mind as an alternative.
5) Be the company gossip. No boss likes to find out things after some underling in the office. If you have a secret source of information, keep it secret. In other words, don't share it, unless it is to your boss only and for a good reason. Keep the He-said-she-said stuff far far away from your boss. Boss's tend to think


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