Dear Annie:
I
work in a small department with one "bad apple" who spends entire
workdays making personal phone calls, selling cosmetics in the office,
and looking for another job. She comes in late, leaves early, and even
fakes computer problems in order to get out of doing her job. Then
there are her two-hour lunches, her frequent "sick days," etc. My
supervisor knows all this, but is afraid to fire her, because he is
sure she will file a lawsuit for wrongful termination. What can we do?
-- Ticked Off in Tulsa
Dear Ticked Off:
Your boss
clearly doesn't understand what "wrongful termination" means. In order
to prove wrongful termination in court, an employee has to show solid
evidence that he was let go because of race, sex, creed, religion, age,
sexual orientation (applicable in some locations), or because he was a
"whistleblower" -- that is, he was fired in retaliation for having
reported company wrongdoing to the authorities. An employee who is
sacked because he comes in late, leaves early, slacks off, and in
general doesn't do the job he's being paid to do" -- well, there isn't a
lawyer in the land who would agree to take that case, because it's a
non-starter. Your supervisor needs to start documenting this person's
terrible work habits, keeping a daily record of her goofing off, and
then sit her down to discuss the situation and insist that she shape
up. If that doesn't happen, he should fire her. Any other course of
action (or rather, inaction) is grossly unfair to the rest of you.
Dear Annie:
How
does being a "contract worker" affect one's financial profile? I'm
interested in doing short-term tech projects and have been talking with
a couple of temp agencies about signing on. But my wife and I will
probably want to apply for a mortgage soon and I wonder if "temping"
will count against us. Will it?
-- Tired of Renting
Dear Tired:
Not likely. Lenders
do want to know your income, of course, and mortgage banks in
particular may ask you for a couple of years of back tax returns, but
they generally don't care if your pay is "temp" or regular (or, in IRS
lingo, if you file 1099s or W2s.) Besides, a growing trend in the temp
world is for agencies to hire people as full-time employees and then
contract them out, so your question may be moot anyway. Ask the
agencies with whom you're interviewing to clarify what your employment
status would be. In general, lenders are far more interested in how
good your credit rating has been up to now. Regardless of how you earn
your pay, lenders assume -- rightly or wrongly -- that, if you have a
pristine credit record, you'll continue to be a good risk.
Dear Annie:
Recently,
my company started a mentoring program and I was assigned to a mentor
whose advice so far has been really helpful. I just want to get your
(and your readers') thoughts on one thing: She keeps urging me to join
two trade associations, one national and one local, and be an active
participant. I understand that these groups offer great networking
opportunities and so on, but I'm hesitating because most of their
meetings are in the evenings when I need to be with my kids (I'm a
single mom) and, besides that, the annual dues are pretty steep. What
do you think? Should I make the effort anyway or can I skip it?
-- Nine to Fiver
Dear Nine to Fiver:
Well, of course
you can skip it, but are you sure you want to? Consider: A recent
Monster.com survey of hiring managers and headhunters revealed that a
whopping 79% see job applicants who are involved with professional
associations as "higher quality candidates" than those who aren't.
Still, given your time constraints, perhaps a compromise is in order.
Instead of joining both groups, why not ask your mentor which
one -- national or local -- would be most useful to you in the long run and
join that one? As for the dues, some employers reimburse people for
trade-association dues, and, even if yours doesn't, the IRS considers
them a tax-deductible expense (or so my accountant tells me). Readers,
what say you? Have you found professional association membership to be
a career booster worth the time and effort you put into it? I'd like to
hear your experiences and will pass them along in a future column.
Now,
a quick reminder: As I've mentioned before, many of your e-mail boxes
these days have marvelously efficient spam filters, and that's great.
But it's a little frustrating to spend time answering e-mails, only to
have my responses kicked back to me. If you'd like me to e-mail
you -- especially you folks with Earthlink addresses -- please add
askannie@fortunemail.com to the "approved" list in your spam filter.
Thank you! I appreciate it!
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