Laughing Matters: Be Ready If They Aim To Fire

My friend Rich was astonished to see a news story about a company that fired a young employee by sending her a text message. "Well, what did you think they should have done?" I asked him. "Take a digital picture of her empty desk and send it to her camera phone?"

New technologies are always used for old needs. There was probably equal excitement when the first faxed firing occurred, or the first job offer was accepted via e-mail, or the first CFO posted naked pictures of himself on the accountantsgonewild.com Web site.

Advances in technology mean that terminations can now occur over your cell phone in cryptic phrases such as "u r fired :(." It's always wise to be prepared for that possibility, because you never know when you'll get a new boss who doesn't value you or when you will be caught writing a freelance column during company time.

The smart employee is always ready to leap from the speeding train of her current job onto the cinders, rocks and weeds of unemployment, oblivious to the shocked stares of other passengers and optimistic that the spot where she lands is a place where a new employer will stop to pick up hitchhikers.