Corporate America | Working Stiffed

American Workers are Less Productive: No Job Security, No Motivation

American workers are not feeling the love. A lack of job security, combined with increasing responsibilities (and fewer resources) has resulted in exhaustion, low morale, lack of motivation and (drum roll please)…lower productivity.

The U.S. Department of Labor said last Tuesday, that productivity fell 0.5 percent in the second quarter of 2016, while labor costs rose by 2 percent. U.S. worker productivity has been weak for the past five years and stands at 1.2 percent, less than half of what it was before the 2007 recession, when it was at 2.6 percent.

Many economists say Americans are working more to create less, because workers have outgrown existing technology. As a result, we can expect “restraining” of wage growth and more layoffs. And so the epidemic of myopic economics continues.

Don’t these geniuses realize that reducing financial incentives and increasing employee workloads as the result of layoffs will only drive productivity down further? These “experts” may know the price of everything, but they know the value of nothing.

U.S. workers today are routinely being pushed to their mental and physical breaking points. Workplaces are toxic work environments staffed by people either in the midst of a psychotic break or on the brink of one. The stench of fear and uncertainty lingers in every cubicle, assembly line, water cooler, coffeemaker and non-subsidized vending machine.

It doesn’t help that employers like Disney, Toys ‘R Us, Xerox, Pfizer, and Microsoft are turning to “insourcing” of H1-B visa workers in order to lower their payroll costs, despite posting record earnings…and then they force their poor displaced American employees to train their “guest” worker replacements or forfeit their severance.

Corporate Hunger Games?

As an unwilling participant of the gig economy, I’ve been flitting in and out of different corporate offices for the past four years. The mass psychosis and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) I see is alarming, but not surprising.

When you experience three or four (or more) reorgs a year and know that on any given day you could walk into work and be handed a severance package, even if you’ve been a rock star employee (damn those surprise mergers!), it’s bound to damage your psyche to some extent at some point. And at the end of the day, you become aware that there is no “i” in team, but there is one in “survive.”

This past year, I’ve had two assignments where the person responsible for training me held back information I needed to know in order to do my job. Both women were overworked and clearly needed my help, so I can only conclude that they felt that if I knew as much as they did, they wouldn’t survive the next reorg.

They obviously felt it was safer to be overworked to the point of mental and physical exhaustion than to have the well-trained help they desperately needed. How sick is that? Still, they survived round after round of layoffs and salary dumps, so I suppose it’s not an unrealistic fear to expect to be replaced by a contractor who probably made less than they did.

Needless to say, this epidemic of fear and loathing in workplace after workplace makes it hard to stick to a new employer, even when you do a good job under most challenging circumstances. It’s like an endless loop of different movies made with the same script. Sometimes, I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

No rest for the corporate weary

This environment of perpetual job insecurity has scared workers into being on the job 24/7. According to a study by Project Time, more than half of U.S. workers left unused vacation time in 2015. In fact, over the past 15 years, American workers have been taking less and less vacation time.

These poor souls likely feel that if they take time off, their bosses might replace them with an intern or hourly contractor…or worse, that someone of importance may decide that their department functions just fine without anyone in their role.

These are the same people who make work calls after dinner and send emails at 11 p.m. on Saturdays in an endless quest for validation and job security. It’s madness! But this is exactly the frame of mind that bipolar CEOs value in their employees.

Rising labor costs? No shit!

Hiring people costs money, and when your business model involves having a revolving door of “talent,” even if you’re replacing 20 full-time employees with 10 gig contractors or H1-B visa guest workers, you’ll end up throwing a lot of good money after bad. Recruiters, equipment and training costs add up.

And then there is the learning curve. It takes a while (sometimes years) before most employees achieve optimal knowledge of their company and/or industry. Many employers learn the hard way that inexperience can be pretty costly, especially in industries that are heavily regulated.

And how many times have employers carelessly displaced long-time employees, only to find they also unwittingly displaced a lot of company knowledge that their low-cost millennial or H1-B visa colleagues didn’t have? Too many; but they repeat the process, anyway. Einstein said the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. So, there you go.

And while we’re on the subject of insanity: If a company wants to treat employees like disposable widgets, then they should stop asking employees to participate in charitable drives in the company’s name. This is inconsiderate at best, and perverse (or even sociopathic) at worst.

Also, I’m not sure why this isn’t obvious, but it’s never a good idea to have leadership team members spew empty rhetoric about “teamwork” and “commitment” at employee or town hall meetings in the same breath that they announce layoffs. What is up with that? I can’t think of a better way to incite workplace violence or corporate espionage. Seriously.

When I worked at Philip Morris in the 90s, we were hit by lawsuits left and right while dodging regulatory challenges by the FDA. If our then CEO had followed today’s popular strategy of slashing headcount and hiring cheap labor, the company probably would have folded before the end of the millennium.

Instead, they doubled down on staffing up, paying above average salaries and they had the best benefits. They understood that if they were going to survive, they needed a knowledgeable and dedicated workforce. Not only did the company survive, but it thrived…the stock split multiple times during the 90s and they’re still around today.

If employees feel valued, enjoy support, and know that if they do a good job, they’ll not only stay employed but they can expect to be promoted and rewarded financially, well…there’s no end to the growth a company can experience. Until “leaders” rediscover the core fundamentals of entrepreneurial success, true growth and peak productivity will likely remain elusive.

Carly Fiorina’s hapless bid for the presidency should serve as a warning to all self-important corporate executives: Your hubris may not play in Peoria…or Des Moines, Iowa. The exception, of course, is Donald Trump…but then again, Trump didn’t need to slide on his belly, kneecapping smarter coworkers out of his way on his climb to the top; his daddy handed him a successful real estate empire.

After making her mark at AT&T by plowing through a (probably small) crowd of female wannabe executives (from secretary to CEO!!!), Carly Fiorina was tapped to lead Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 1999. Her bipolar self-importance, coupled with her intense, ferret-like gaze, allowed her to become an extremely well-compensated poster girl for diversity in the tech industry. How cool was she to head a company in an industry dominated by men?

Six short years and many bad (often heartless) decisions later (the Compaq acquisition and her penchant for outsourcing everyone and everything top the list), she flushed away 50 percent of the company’s value and 30,000 jobs. In the end, Carly’s greatest achievement at HP was her resignation; the stock shot up 7 percent when she announced she was leaving the company.

This former tech “mogul” didn’t even have the common sense to purchase her own domain name. Instead, one of the many former HP workers that she displaced snatched up carlyfiorina.org and used the site to mock Carly and expose the extent of her relentless need to destroy jobs…in her own words. For example, after being asked how she would handle the layoffs at HP if she had to do it again, she replied: “I would have done them all faster.” O-kay.

Carly has been running for office (and losing) ever since, trying to regain a large canvas on which to paint her human carnage. Such pluck is admired by corporate board members who love putting tenacious, self-centered people in charge of companies…people who don’t mind getting a little (or a lot of) blood on their hands to achieve “economies of scale,” but in the real world, people like Carly are rightly shunned for being the psychopaths that they are.

After a career of failure, scandal, and a complete lack of empathy for the people whose lives she carelessly destroyed as HP’s CEO, politics beckoned. As a former corporate CEO, she didn’t feel the need to start at the bottom, so she ran for senator of California against the Yoda of female politicians, Barbara Boxer (who quickly schooled the “secretary-to-CEO” upstart). And now she wants to fail up to president and become the Republican Party’s Hillary Clinton. Such hubris. The Onion humorously captured her delusional aspirations, as only they can.

I suppose it’s easy to think you’re the cat’s pajamas when you spend years addressing a captive audience of employees who applaud and laugh at your bad jokes at town hall meetings. Still, there’s a big difference between addressing an audience of employees who depend on your approval to keep their jobs and addressing American voters, such as those at the Iowa caucuses this week, who you have to depend on to get the job.

Like all bipolar CEOs, when she does face rejection, she folds like a cheap suit. After a poor showing at the Iowa caucuses, she skipped town and her own party. No need to thank the few people who worked on her behalf; it was time to move on and be a world leader pretend at the next stop on the campaign trail…the New Hampshire primary.

Carly, like Hillary Clinton, are examples of what is wrong with too many women who achieve power. As a woman myself, I have to admit that I preferred working for men. Many of the women I worked for who had high aspirations viewed me as a threat (even though I never shared their C-suite aspirations) and felt it necessary to neutralize my contributions or even to take credit for my occasional good ideas. I can honestly say that I have inadvertently helped a lot of these women move up that coveted ladder without so much as a thank you from them.

I wish I could say that all women leaders are wise, gentle souls who have an innate desire to better the world and nurture the growth and development of other women, but that hasn’t been my experience. I can’t imagine what Carly did to her female coworkers during her meteoric rise up the corporate ladder at AT&T.

On some level, you have to blame the environment…with so few opportunities for women to break through the glass ceiling, I can see how an ambitious woman can turn into a psychopath trying to squeeze through the eye of the needle of achievement. Still, until we can level the corporate and political playing fields and the Lady Macbeth syndrome becomes the exception and not the rule, voters (and employees) need to proceed with caution.

This is the problem I have with identity politics. I’d love to see a woman become president (I wish Elizabeth Warren had decided to run), but I don’t support voting for a powerful woman just because she’s a woman. Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina are flawed, power-hungry, mentally ill women. And the reality is that after a life time of stepping on other women to get ahead, well…they don’t like other women, so why give them your vote, ladies? Neither would make a suitable first female president and it troubles me that so many women are blinded by ovaries wrapped in a power suit.

While it’s easy to single out Fiorina as a narcissistic, psychotic product of corporate dysfunction, the reality is that C-suites at companies nationwide are filled with Carly Fiorinas and even more bipolar or psychologically damaged men.

I wonder how different the corporate landscape would be if leaders were selected by employees, instead of by corporate board members who see personnel as “human resources.” A little more humility and a lot less hubris in leadership would be appreciated.

Yes, it’s true. Obamacare has sentenced me to death…and financial destitution. I feel it’s important to address this issue on this, the last day we are told to register for Obamacare without incurring an unconstitutional tax penalty.

I have been without health insurance, which I cannot afford, for a year-and-a-half and I live in a state that does not extend Medicaid to people in my position. As a result, I am one serious disease or accident away from certain death.

After dutifully paying taxes for close to 40 years, helping to send other people’s kids to school (I don’t have kids) and funding food stamps and benefits for thousands of people, my government is repaying me by turning its back on me during my hour of need…and penalizing me for my new-found destitution, to boot.

How did this happen? I am a 52-year-old woman who was last employed in a full-time position with benefits four years ago; I was part of a group purge after my company was acquired by a competitor. This scenario is familiar to most of you, I’m sure. I thought I’d find another job with benefits easily, but I was wrong.

As The New York Times recently reported, women over 50 account for half of all long-term unemployed people. After remaining steadily employed in good, white collar lower management positions for more than 30 years, I was suddenly an unwilling participant in the trendy new gig economy out of necessity.

For this I owe a big thanks to Bill Clinton and NAFTA, which destroyed the American middle class by allowing companies to ship jobs overseas and import H1-B visa “guest workers.” Now, many of us find that we’re unemployable more than 20 years before we can collect a pension (if we even have one) or Social Security (if it will still exist by then).

My new reality involves going months without work, or “contracts,” and even when I do get a temporary contract position, my “clients” periodically cut my hours without warning. As a result, I made less than $10k last year.

Needless to say, I can’t afford the so-called affordable insurance Obama promised. According to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care exchange marketplace, I’d need to pay $550 a month for a policy with an $8,000 deductible. And what good is a subsidy when you go months without any income?

A low-cost, pre-Obamacare catastrophic insurance policy would be helpful right about now. Unfortunately, Obamacare-less forces me to buy an overpriced policy with a high deductible, so that I can share the privilege of paying for some dude’s Viagra prescription and pediatric dental insurance (like I said, I don’t have kids).

To make things worse, I’m about to get hit with the Obamacare penalty…and this is on top having to drain my savings and take hardship withdrawals from my 401(k) (which I am also about to be unfairly penalized for) just to survive in our “new normal” transient, gig economy that mainstream media finds so hip and trendy.

I’ve decided that if something happens to me health-wise, I’m just going to die, because if I am hospitalized, I stand to lose my home and what little I have left, so why bother sticking around?

If you like Obamacare, it’s probably because you don’t need it

I am so tired of brainwashed Obamacare defenders crowing about the 12 million Americans who couldn’t get insurance before now having coverage. Frankly, in a country of 330 million people where close to 100 million are out of the workforce (many not by choice), that’s a drop in the uninsured bucket, so bragging is totally uncalled for. Maybe they’re promoting this “success” because they know that math-challenged Common Core students are easily impressed by any number you throw at them.

Obamacare supporters are also quick to blame states that don’t extend Medicaid. Why? Should citizens of states that aren’t on board with Obamacare be penalized? There wasn’t a Medicaid referendum in any state that I am aware of.

And, if Obamacare is supposed to mandate affordable insurance for all, why didn’t it nationalize Medicaid? At the very least, it should exempt those of us who live in Medicaid-deprived states from Obamacare.

And then there’s the pre-existing condition clause. Sorry, Obamacare defenders, but I’m not down with being stuck with the rest of this ugly baby just for that one benefit. Besides, a single-payer health care solution would take care of pre-existing conditions just as effectively. As it stands, the insurance companies are offsetting their pre-existing condition “losses” with double-digit rate increases each year.

Not surprisingly, I find that the strongest supporters of this crony capitalist screw job are people who have employer-paid health insurance or at least make or have enough money to overpay for their insurance.

I know a couple of people who used to sing the praises of Obamacare….until they lost their jobs, were forced to join the gig economy, and had to actually rely on Obamacare for coverage. Needless to say, both have now joined the repeal Obamacare bandwagon.

It’s unconstitutional

The lie Obama sold us (among many) when he was promoting this travesty was access and affordability…and, of course, we couldn’t keep our doctors, after all (not that we can afford them now anyway, so I suppose this is a moot point for those of us who inhabit the Obamacare penal colony). I admit that I bought the spin. I even voted for the lying clown. What we got instead was a gun to our heads forcing us to purchase an overpriced product from PRIVATE companies or face hefty, escalating tax penalties.

No income limits were set; whether you make $10k (or less) or $100k a year, if you don’t buy insurance, you get taxed. Seriously? How is that legal? Or fair? First of all, people who make less than $30k shouldn’t pay ANY taxes, never mind have tax penalties imposed upon them.

And if Obama was so hell-bent on insuring us, why didn’t he mandate maximum premium amounts that insurers could charge? Say, $200 a month? Let’s call Obamacare what it is: a blank corporate welfare check to the insurance companies.

Not a peep from presidential candidates

NOT ONE presidential candidate has addressed this travesty. Several running for president are sitting members of Congress. They’ve taken a two year paid vacation on our tax payer dime to attend fundraisers and campaign for an office most don’t stand a chance of winning. Must be nice.

NOT ONE of them (including our socialist man of the people, Bernie Sanders) can be bothered to spare a moment to introduce legislation NOW to at least waive the “Cadillac tax” penalty. No, instead of nuking the toxic provisions of Obamacare, Congressional members voted to repeal the whole thing, knowing that the president would veto the resolution….pure theater…or political masturbation.

As a member of Congress you have a unique opportunity to demonstrate your leadership abilities through legislation, and there’s no time like the present. That’s probably the ONLY advantage you have over Donald Trump. Talk is cheap. So, why not lead by example? Because, frankly, too many of us don’t have a year to wait for action…nor do we trust empty campaign promises.

Speaking of leading by example, I invite Obamacare defenders to show me how great it is by contributing funds to pay my Obamacare tax penalty and/or my monthly insurance premiums. On second thought, the way our economy is going, maybe you should hang on to your money…you’ll probably need it to pay for your own “affordable” Obamacare insurance someday.

It’s become obvious to me that the mission statement of most mid- or large-sized companies in the U.S. is : “Know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” How else to explain the epidemic of underemployed and unemployed people over 40?

A Business Journal contributing writer recently explained why companies don’t want to hire people over 40. Below are the reasons he was given by people who hire:

If they hire an experienced, mature worker at a salary that is clearly below what he/she should earn (should being the operative word here) they’ll be gone as soon as something better comes along

Working Stiffed response: So…pay them what they should earn…duh! How much money do companies lose because of the sometimes expensive mistakes made be less experienced, “cheaper” employees? Besides, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a few mature, experienced workers around who can mentor younger talent?

For that matter, what should companies expect if they underpay anyone, young or old? Do they think people will stick around for the pleasure of their manager’s company or to admire how effectively the CEO spends all the money he/she gets to keep by underpaying their employees??? Good luck with that.

If an experienced, mature worker accepts a lower salary than he/she should be earning (should…there’s that word again) there’s probably something wrong with him/her

Working Stiffed response: There is something wrong with unemployed mature workers; they are out of work for no good reason. I’d argue that there is really something wrong with short-nearsighted hiring managers and business owners who leave valuable talent at the interview table because of greed and ageism.

Job candidates over 40 who don’t get the job may sue for age discrimination

Working Stiffed response: And they should, if that is the only reason they are not being considered for the job, but the reality is they probably won’t sue you. In an environment where unions are routinely demonized and destroyed, few workers expect to find a sympathetic ear in the courts (and recent regulations have only reinforced employer-favored outcomes).

Besides, such an action would dash any hope of finding work, and finding a job when you’re over 40 is hard enough without having a failed age discrimination lawsuit to contend with during interviews.

Companies want someone who will stay for a while, and someone over 40 might retire sooner than they want

Working Stiffed response: As best as I can tell, most companies don’t want people to stick around, unless they’re young, cheap and don’t screw up too much. If a business is sincerely looking for long-term employees, they should prefer generation-Xers and baby boomers; they are more inclined to stick around and work hard, if they can land a decent job where they are appreciated.

Most millennials will tell you that they are not obsessed with money and they also don’t want to spend up to 80 hours a week trapped in an office. Thanks to all the zombie, vampire and doomsday scenario entertainment they grew up with, many are focused on having as many invigorating life experiences as they can before the zombie apocalypse, so good luck with your youth-focused succession planning, Mr. or Ms. Hiring Manager.

Besides, who can afford to retire these days? I swear I saw a former VP I worked with bagging groceries at Publix the other day.

Workers over 40 are too set in their ways

Working Stiffed response: Not necessarily; we’re just used to doing things the right way. What some people call “set in their ways” others call avoiding mistakes learned through trial and error. But don’t worry; we have the maturity to sit on the sidelines and let the young guns try out “awesome” out-of-the-box ideas, even if we know these sparks of innovation will turn into a waste of time and money.

The value of workers over 40

I’m sure the writer of the Business Article meant well; after all he was trying to sell the virtues of hiring mature employees. Unfortunately, the emphasis of the article was to inform companies that they have an opportunity to benefit from hiring experienced older workers at any crap salary they choose by exploiting the fact that many are now broke and desperate after being forced out of the workforce. It’s hard to appreciate such support when your alleged sole virtue is that you’re a bargain who should be fished out of the clearance bin.

Instead of focusing on the reasons to avoid hiring experienced workers, let’s look at the benefits of hiring qualified people over 40 (and, no, saving money by underpaying them isn’t a sound strategy):

If you pay us what we’re worth, we will likely MORE than earn our salary

We’ve already learned from our mistakes, so we won’t make them on your dime. Plus, we can hit the ground running and we’re more likely to have the emotional maturity needed to build relationships with stakeholders and to work well with others (that go-getter ego a lot of young managers have often works against getting the job done efficiently or effectively).

If you hire us at a salary worthy of our experience, you’re also likely to get a hard worker who is less likely to jump to another opportunity

Young people know that the only way they are going boost their pay is by jumping to other companies. And if they’re valued at one company, the odds are they’ll be appealing to another company…maybe even a competitor.

A mature employee is more likely to keep their wisdom and hard work ethic around longer, especially if they are paid what they are worth and are appreciated, because they know their job jumping days are behind them.

You need experienced workers to mentor your young talent

When I entered the white collar workforce after graduating from college, I had the benefit of working in a fully staffed department (back before “economies of scale” shrunk every operation to the bone). I learned a lot from my older, experienced coworkers. I don’t think I would have become as skilled in my field without their guidance.

If you have several employees, it’s a good idea to have at least one seasoned veteran to show them the ropes. And if you have limited resources for staffing, you probably don’t have the budget for costly trial and error, so if it comes down to hiring young and cheap or shelling out a little more for an experienced over 40 worker, you’re better off erring on the side of experience.

You get what you pay for

The last year I was employed as a full-time marketing manager, I generated more than 30 times my salary in revenue for my company. When I lost my position after my company was acquired by a competitor, my job was eliminated in favor of the acquiring company’s young, inexperienced manager.

Because she had little hands-on experience, in the year following my departure, she spent more than four times her salary on outside firms and consultants (which I never needed to do); and not only could she not replicate the success I achieved during my tenure with the company, but she allowed the leads and momentum I was building to evaporate.

In the four years since my departure, several former colleagues told me that the company’s marketing efforts are failing miserably, even as they keep adding more young marketing executives.

So, to all the hiring managers and business owners out there, I say keep hiring (and underpaying) inexperienced talent at your own risk. Sure, youthful innovation has it’s place, but so does experience. And the money you save in salary now may end up costing you your job or hurting your business tomorrow.

If you went back in time 20 or more years ago and told the people back then that in the near future employers would force them to take a blood test or they would lose their health insurance coverage, I’m sure they’d laugh and assume you were citing some obscure subplot from Orwell’s 1984.

You see, not too long ago, if such a widespread policy was proposed, people would have been outraged and protests would have broken out nationwide to put an end to such a blatant invasion of privacy.

Not so in 21^st century America. It looks like all the GMOs we eat, the fluoride in our water and the toxic mercury- and formaldehyde-laced vaccines we take willingly (or not so willingly, if you live in California) has left us brain damaged and semi-comatose.

We know our smartphones and TVs have taken a chunk out of our IQs, which may explain why 10 percent of college grads now believe that Judge Judy is a Supreme Court justice and some Americans think that Martin Luther King was the first black man on the moon. How else can we explain this epidemic of apathy and ignorance when it comes to our rights and freedoms?

We should have known we were in trouble when poor Edward Snowden hung his life out on the line to warn us about the criminal intrusiveness of our government only to have many Americans just shrug and say, “So what? I’ve got nothing to hide.” Hell, these pod people even parroted the government propaganda that he was a traitor.

I’m sure Snowden was even more shocked by our zombie-like reaction to our government’s widespread violation of the Fourth Amendment than he was when he discovered the extent of U.S. government surveillance. He obviously overestimated our present capacity for outrage and action.

So it should come as no surprise that corporate America wants to get in on the invasive fun. And why not? With health insurance premiums skyrocketing, it was only a matter of time before they would exploit our complacent idiocy by persuading employees to willingly submit to biometric screenings that measure blood pressure, weight, waist size, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol levels and other health vitals, or risk paying health coverage surcharges (as smokers already do) or losing coverage altogether.

So what if these wellness programs violate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws or the protected health information (PHI) provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)? You’ve got nothing to hide, right? And, gee, what’s wrong with getting healthy and getting a discount on your employer health insurance coverage?

The Gift of Obamacare: Making Private Health Information Public

As if the Patient Protection and “Affordable” Care Act (ACA) wasn’t bad (and unconstitutional) enough by forcing you to buy health insurance from a private company under threat of tax penalties (?), we can also blame Obamacare for the explosion of invasive employee wellness screenings.

Surprised? Don’t be. After all, the ACA was written by the insurance companies and Jonathan Gruber, an arrogant, elitist jerk from MIT who laughed and admitted that the stupidity of American voters made this mess possible.

One would have thought that the Gruber fiasco would have been enough to inspire public outrage and force a repeal of Obamacare…but, again, you’d be overestimating the pod people who have body-snatched millions of once spirited, freedom-loving Americans.

The ACA helped advance the notion that healthy lifestyles would control health care costs; what seemed like harmless, even positive, rhetoric at the time has now been exposed as just another privacy-invading, money-making venture. It’s always about taking your money and invading your privacy with these clowns.

Anyone who has had a screening or physical in recent years knows that these examinations are designed to do one thing and one thing only…to make you a lifelong dependent on some hideously overpriced pharmaceutical drug that has 29 potentially lethal side effects (and the more drugs they can prescribe, safely or not, the better).

In 2014, 95 percent of employers had a health risk assessment, biometric screening or some type of wellness screening program in place, and 74 percent of the programs dangled an incentive carrot to get employees to participate (comply) usually a modest discount in health plan premiums.

Such high adoption rates by employers mean that these programs will now likely determine the course of your career. Good luck climbing the corporate ladder after your boss learns that you’re on an anti-psychotic and three blood pressure medications.

It’s Voluntary…Until it’s Not

Even if your company’s wellness plan is voluntary now, don’t be fooled. That’s how it always starts. Like a lot companies, Flambeau, a Wisconsin-based plastic maker, introduced their “voluntary” wellness program as a way to lower their health care costs and cut down on employee sick days.

But since wellness programs need high participation rates in order to get the best bang for the corporate buck, when participation rates are low, some companies are motivated to take off the kid gloves and make it a requirement for keeping insurance coverage. That’s what Flambeu did, and one employee who refused to participate in Flambeau’s program filed a complaint with the EEOC.

The Flambeu lawsuit is one of several such cases working their way through the legal system these days. The EEOC’s main argument in the Flambeu suit, and others like it, is that forcing employees to participate in wellness programs, especially when they involve biometic screening or health assessments, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA prohibits companies from obtaining personal health information from employees or requiring that they submit to a medical exam. End of story, right?

Not so fast. For some reason, the U.S. District Court in Wisconsin didn’t see it that way. They ruled that data collected through wellness programs doesn’t violate the ADA. The EEOC is reviewing the decision, whatever that means.

Biometric Gene-ings and GINA

While the EEOC is leveraging ADA protections in its wellness program lawsuits, it’s also citing the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), as it did in its suit on behalf of employees of Honeywell. Under GINA, employers are prohibited from requesting genetic information from employees, especially when that information is tied to health insurance coverage.

Honeywell employees turned to the EEOC after they balked at participating in the company’s wellness program and were slapped with a fat insurance premium surcharge. Employee spouses weren’t spared either; they were hit with a $1,000 tobacco surcharge for not coughing up their DNA, whether they smoked or not (guilty until proving innocent?).

Smokers know a thing or two about health insurance tyranny. Our poor, nicotine-addicted social pariah friends are always convenient canaries in the coal mine when it comes to test driving civil rights violations.

The EEOC cited both the ADA and GINA in the Honeywell case. And while the Minnesota District Court denied the EEOC’s request to issue a temporary restraining order against Honeywell’s wellness program, in its decision, the court expressed some concern as to how the ACA wellness directive would jibe with the ADA, GINA and other privacy laws. Ya think?

The courts are all over the place in these decisions (lower courts have handed out victories to both sides) and it’s hard to say when, or if, definitive judicial determination will ever emerge.

Employee Wellness Programs Can Hurt Your Credit Rating?

Another consideration: you may have noticed that your company hired an outside company to administer their wellness program. In addition to worrying that your boss will learn that you have high blood pressure, should you also be concerned that your info will be sold to a credit monitoring company or third-party marketer…and that your screening could affect your ability to get a car loan or mortgage in the future?

As it turns out, yes, you should be concerned, because wellness program vendors are not bound by HIPAA privacy protections.

If you read the fine print in their terms & conditions, you’ll find that many of these contractors have policies that allow them to share “identifiable data” with unidentified third parties “working to improve employee health.” Also, “de-identified” group health results are regularly shared with employers and researchers, and it’s been proven that this data can easily by “re-identified” and used for credit screening, marketing…or even… job displacement?

Think that Fitbit or other wearable fitness device makes you look cool? It turns out it also makes data mining your vitals that much easier. Nice, huh?

Health Care Employees VOLUNTEER their Protected Health Information

As an uninsured, underemployed freelancer, wellness programs didn’t ping my radar until recently when my client, a prestigious regional health care system, needed me to craft some employee communications regarding their wellness program.

The last time I was a full-time, salaried employee, employee wellness programs were strictly voluntary, so I didn’t give it a second thought. I quickly learned how much the ACA changed things.

Having worked in health care in some capacity for nearly two decades, I couldn’t believe that hospital personnel would agree to this madness. After all, these people would be terminated immediately if they violated a patient’s private health information, so why would they surrender their own private information? Shockingly, I learned many did just that.

I’m sure many workers realize this is a violation of their privacy, but they’re scared that if they don’t participate, they’ll end up on some undesirable human resources list (unfortunately, they’re probably right).

Others, who see themselves as being fit and healthy, may comply because they feel that they…wait for it… have nothing to hide. Good for them, but what if someone has a condition that they have a right to hide from the world?

What if you’re bipolar or diabetic, for example? Or, what if you have either condition, but don’t know it yet? Would you feel comfortable having your boss find out at the same time that you do? And how confident are you that you’d survive the next mass layoff if your biometric screening places you outside “normal” health levels in one or more categories? After all, there’s no way to prove that your condition would have had anything to do with your termination.

Don’t think for one minute that today’s corporate tightwads won’t weigh your health status when deciding if they want, or need, to part company with you, especially if they know that your fat medical bills will go with you.

Unfortunately, these days, the government and large employers don’t have to try too hard to push us toward controlled serfdom; they’ve handed us the shovel and we’re digging our way there ourselves, thank you. The powers that be have no need to fear torch and pitchfork mobs in the U.S. anymore.

No, the freeze-dried American zombie masses are content to drink beer, obsess over football and reality TV (our modern day bread and circuses) and to silently go along to get along. I guess as long as we have “nothing to hide” and Judge Judy is sitting on the Supreme Court, we have nothing to worry about.

It’s less than a week before Christmas, so it must be time for Congress to perform yet another hate crime against the American people…the people they were hired to represent (but rarely do). As always, they try to slip through the most revolting legislation in the dead of night, preferably on a holiday, when they hope most of us will be too drunk on eggnog to pay attention. I’m surprised they didn’t pull this latest legislative abomination on Christmas Eve, actually. Maybe they were counting on all of us to be blinded by light sabers after watching the latest Star Wars sequel.

At 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, Paul Ryan, unveiled a trillion dollar omnibus spending bill to his colleagues that included a number of jaw-dropping provisions; many of which further assaulted U.S. workers and our ability to find and retain meaningful employment. Basically, the bill:

Strips protections for low-wage American workers
Quadruples the number of foreign workers in the U.S. through the H2-B visa program

Meet the new boss…same as the old boss…

Paul Ryan, the overwhelming choice for House Speaker (by both democrats and republicans) after John Boehner was “smoked out” a few months ago, has now ably demonstrated that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

If they ever consider making another “Despicable Me” sequel, Paulie can throw on a gender-neutral, yellow minion costume and drag on Boehner’s nicotine- and alcohol-stained coattails, while obediently squeaking incoherently.

Wedged into the 2,000 page bill was a provision that allows employers to import up to 264,000 low-wage foreign workers under the H2-B “guest worker” program; this more than quadruples the 2015 maximum of 66,000. The program allows these low-skilled “seasonal” workers to stay for up to 10 months.

Apparently, Congress thinks that there are an awful lot of jobs that Americans won’t do. We know otherwise. Up to 200,000 blue collar hotel, construction and other service industry workers could find themselves out of work without re-employment options. The omnibus bill not only allows employers to set migrant worker wages, it also allows them to cut the hourly wages paid to American workers. How’s that for representation?

The bill was passed by the House (by a 2-1 margin) just days after the Pew Research Center reported that the American middle class is indeed shrinking, and just weeks after another recent Pew Research poll found that 83 percent of American voters want to see the level of immigration frozen or reduced.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), expressed his exasperation in a passionate speech on the House floor; he chided his colleagues for readily supporting the bill, despite the fact that the nation’s labor force participation rate is at just 62 percent.

“The people sent us here (Washington) to protect their interests,” Sessions said. “They did not send us here to bow down to the president’s lawless immigration policies or to line the pockets of special interests in big business.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBqrWL3h9-g

Sadly, Mr. Sessions…that’s just what they did. The hubris of this group is unbelievable. How long will we allow this to go on?

Being a freelancer these days has a lot of perks: you make your own work schedule and you can work from the comfort of your home, thus you can avoid messy office politics, getting stuck in commuter traffic and blowing your ever-shrinking “gig economy” earnings on a “business casual” wardrobe and workplace lunches.

Sure, there are some challenges to freelancing, like convincing clients that your rates are reasonable while they plead poverty or hide behind budget cuts, or getting them to pay you on time (or at all), or having to diplomatically push back on their requests for additional revisions or input that they don’t feel they should have to pay extra for.

Still, the biggest challenge I’ve found as a freelancer is my lack of psychic ability.

If you’re a freelancer, you may have noticed that your clients tend to fall into two categories:

Small businesses that need to hire you because they don’t have the in-house talent to do what you do (e.g., marketing, Web development, etc.).

Middle managers in mid- to large-size companies that have downsized their marketing or IT departments into oblivion who need you to help them get the work done (without having to offer you a steady salary or benefits).

Champagne Dreams on a Spam Budget

Small business clients don’t like budgeting for anything outside of their company’s inventory, so when they reach the painful conclusion that they need to hire you to help increase their brand’s visibility, your biggest challenge is usually managing their expectations.

Even if you find yourself pricing their projects on the low end of your rate scale and they can only offer you a limited amount of work, some clients will expect your handiwork to deliver astounding results in record time.

This is when the fun starts. With some small business clients, you can expect one or both of the following outcomes:

(a) You will spend the next three months asking for your money.

(b) Your client will continue to ask/expect you to do more work outside of the scope of your original agreement until they feel they got an adequate return on their investment. Some of us foolishly keep feeding this beast in the hope that someday these clients will actually pay us for the original work.

If you were psychic, you could avoid a lot of aggravation by knowing ahead of time who won’t pay you or who will likely run you into the ground making you “earn” your money.

I May Not Know What I Want…But I Know What I Don’t Want

Sometimes it’s easier to work with mid- or large-size businesses, because the manager who hires you is more likely to process your invoice…unless they are so overworked that they keep forgetting to do so (which happens more often than is acceptable). Still, as long as they have the budget, you’re not likely to get any push-back or experience unreasonable haggling.

The biggest challenge of freelancing for larger companies is that the mid-level managers who tend to hire you are so overworked that even though they desperately need your help, they often don’t have the time to provide you with what you need to do the job right.

As their hired gun, you’re priority No. 59 on their long to-do lists…way below assisting their VPs and other important business stakeholders, planning the company United Way drive, booking their vacations, arranging their bimonthly date nights with their spouses, finding babysitters for their children or getting their dogs groomed.

Sometimes these clients don’t even know what they’re asking for, while other times all they know is what they don’t want. And woe to the freelancer who receives limited guidance and inadvertently submits what they don’t want.

These clients expect you to have the skill to write or develop exactly what they would, if they only had the time. So what if they’ve had months or years to become well-acquainted with their company’s business objectives, and to attend company-sponsored training and meetings on a regular basis when you haven’t? You oughta know what they’re looking for, anyway, dammit!

The Phantom Lucrative Project

Another potential pitfall of being hired by a large company is one I call “the phantom lucrative project.” A typical scenario involves you blocking out weeks to do a job after being hired by a large, reputable company. Sometimes, you’ll be so happy you got the gig that you’ll celebrate by going on a shopping spree for laptops, patio furniture…or food, if things have been tight for you financially of late.

Then, you hear nothing more from them. When you contact your client, you are given excuses as to why the project is being delayed (e.g., they were on vacation, the project still needs approvals that your client wasn’t aware weren’t in place when he or she hired you, etc.).

The fact that you turned down smaller projects to work on their mega-project doesn’t resonate with them. After all, these people get paid even when they’re working on their tans in Cabo.

Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, you’ll wait for weeks to start the project only to be told that it’s been canceled (again, for any number of reasons from budget cuts, to the need to move resources to a more important project, or the project has been mothballed so long it’s actually now irrelevant…or the sponsor was terminated).

Having the psychic intuition to avoid these phantom projects would help keep you that much further away from financial ruin.

Having a pay-or-play deal in place would also help. Unfortunately, unless you have a waiting list of clients or you’re regularly profiled by the top trade media in your field, that ship won’t sail. Your prospective client will just move on to another freelancer who will agree to grant the company the option of leaving them hanging without compensation. Ah, the joys of working in the “gig economy.”

Since I wasn’t born with psychic ability, I’ve decided that the best gift I can receive this Christmas is a crystal ball that can offset my psychic shortcomings…or better yet, a winning mega-jackpot lottery ticket that would get me out from under the freelancer-client bus for good.

I have a friend who works for CSX, one of the nation’s largest rail and transport companies. Like a lot of companies today, CSX won’t provide most of their employees with company cell phones, but it still expects workers to have access to their work email at all times; in the spirit of “BYOB” (bring your own booze), this cost-effective trend is called “bring your own device” (BYOD).

You might be saying, “What’s wrong with that? We’ve had our work email on our cell phones for years.” Well, in their zeal to keep employees tethered to the job around the clock without incurring the cost of providing them with a company cell phone, CSX, like many companies, want their employees to add a mobile device management (MDM) platform to their personal devices that violates their right to privacy….all for the sake of protecting their corporate data.

Yes, CSX is considering having their employees sign on to an Orwellian corporate mobility policy that gives their IT department explicit consent to potentially install apps, monitor usage, track, wipe data, oh…and collect personal information from their phones or tablets.

So…that Tinder app…those embarrassing Pinterest or Facebook pictures you posted when you were drunk? Guess what CSX’s (or your company’s) HR department may be perusing when they’re bored?

Having access to your personal information could be helpful when a mass layoff is necessary. Was your inclusion in the culled herd really nothing personal, or did an offensive app on your phone do you in? You’ll never know.

Your phone, your data? Not necessarily

Privacy is only one consideration when it comes to BYOD; there’s always the potential for data wipes. A man in Texas is currently suing his former employer for doing just that. Saman Rajaee had registered his iPhone with his employer’s Microsoft Exchange server.

A few days after giving two weeks’ notice, the company, Design Tech, wiped out all of the business and personal data on his phone…without warning, he lost more than 600 business and personal contacts, family photos, business records, and passwords. How’s that for a sendoff?

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed the federal charges brought by Rajaee, saying that Design Tech had not violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) when they nuked all of the data on his phone. The state charges of misappropriation of confidential information, violation of the Texas Theft Liability Act, negligence, and conversion, are still pending.

MDM software development companies like MobileIron are holding this case up as a warning to companies that they better CYA on the BYOD by getting their employees to sign ironclad BYOD consent forms….oh, and to promote the fact that their software helps companies delete only business data on employee devices.

Employee apathy vs. convenience

Why do so many of us willingly embrace BYOD programs, despite the risks involved, especially when it’s common knowledge that most MDM platforms can access personal information from a user’s device? Is convenience that important?

According to a 2013 Harris Interactive survey, only 15 percent of those surveyed were concerned about privacy issues, although, four out of five respondents were concerned that MDM software would be used to track them.

We’ve been so systematically conditioned to having our privacy violated routinely, Snowden be damned, that we don’t even blink when CSX and other companies disregard our most precious right in order to protect their data.

Look at the permissions that most mobile apps request now. They want access to your microphone, your camera, your Bluetooth connection information, your device & app history, your location, SMS, photos/media/files, and your Wi-Fi connection…even when the app in question has no need for any of these functions.

Many of us just blindly accept these terms, because we have to have Instagram, Snapchat, or Tinder on our phones or tablets. Don’t even get me started on the privacy sins of Google+ and Facebook.

How many well-publicized, massive security breaches will it take before we realize that granting intrusive (and often unnecessary) permissions without giving it a second thought may not be such a good idea? Are we ever going to wake up and draw a line in the sand? We better.

It’s bad enough to make your phone or tablet vulnerable to some criminal app developer or offshore hacker, but when your privacy is violated by your employer, the pee isn’t coming out of that swimming pool, so BYOD at your own risk.

I like a good scary story as much as the next person, but I can’t think of any piece of horror fiction in recent memory that has frightened me more than last week’s New York Times feature article about Amazon.

Anyone who has had a white collar job within the last 10 years is familiar with some of the workplace hazards alluded to in the article:

the annoying coworkers who like to email people at 2 am on weekends to prove/time stamp their dedication;
others who show up at the office at the crack of dawn and/or stay late;
the busybodies who like to provide unsolicited “feedback” (usually negative) about colleagues to superiors; or
colleagues who feel that humiliating you in meetings will spur you to achieve workplace excellence (this is usually the public explanation; the real reason is they either resent you or don’t like you).

Individually, these behaviors are annoying, but when they are ALL part of a company’s corporate culture…even codified in the employee handbook (check out Amazon’s 14 leadership principals), then you’re hitting horror story territory.

Bezos responded to fallout from the Times article by saying that he wouldn’t want to work for a company like the one described in the article. One can argue that he doesn’t, really, since as CEO, he isn’t subjected to the annual “culling” of staff, and no one in their right mind would dream of submitting secret feedback about him via the company’s Orwellian Anytime Feedback Tool (a widget in the company’s directory that employees are encouraged to use to submit praise or criticism about colleagues to management). Of course, Feedback Tool submissions are factored into the decision-making at the annual culling of Amazon’s overworked herd. Double-plus ungood.

Bezos likes his Feedback Tool so much, he’s invested in an HR software company that makes a similar product. So, in the near future, if you find yourself on the wrong end of a crappy performance review and lose your job, it may just be because the office psycho who doesn’t like you colluded with other office misfits to funnel tons of real-time negative feedback about you to your boss. Creepy, huh? Get ready; it’s coming.

So, is Bezos a driven visionary…a textbook bipolar CEO…a sadist…or all of the above? Who can say for sure? What is obvious is that, in his infinite, algorithm-loving mania, Bezos (whose name literally means “kisses” in Spanish) has reworked the KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid) to mean, Keep it Stressful, Stupid. His fiefdom is truly a Darwinian dystopia on steroids.

I guess while we wait for the robots to take our jobs, corporate overlords like Bezos are going to bide their time by making us work like robots. That way, they can literally work us to death and we won’t be around to complain about losing our jobs to C-3PO in the near future. A recent study shows this isn’t that farfetched a concept.

A stroke of bad luck?

In recent years, we’ve been hearing more and more about uncharacteristically young people…folks in their thirties and forties…having strokes. Why, we wondered? Well, it turns out that Amazon’s top performers aren’t thinking long term when it comes to embracing the 80-hour workweeks that are the hallmark of Amazonian excellence.

Less than a week after the Times/Amazon article appeared, the London Guardian reported that scientists at University College London found that if you put in more than 55 hours a week at work, you have a 33 percent higher stroke risk and a 13 percent higher risk of having a heart attack than “slackers” who work only 35-40 hours a week.

What I want to know is, if you stroke out at your desk at Amazon, will Bezos offer you free shipping to the funeral home of your choice?

The average person who suffers from bipolar disorder endures a lifelong struggle with mood swings and fluctuating energy levels, all while trying to maintain stable personal and professional relationships; not easy to achieve, to be sure.

Fortunately, many find relief with medication and the support of loved ones, and they can lead successful, fulfilling lives.

But what happens when a bipolar person is in a position of power and/or has achieved an impressive level of entrepreneurial success? Would you feel comfortable suggesting that they need to take their meds, if they feel they don’t…or to lash out at them if they call you at 3 a.m. to discuss their latest great idea?

If they sign your paycheck or you’re dependent on them financially in some way, odds are you wouldn’t. A LOT of CEOs, executives, and entrepreneurs are bipolar, and they are just as likely to be proud of it and acknowledge that their mania is the reason they are successful.

What they don’t always acknowledge is the collateral damage they often leave in their manic wake. But, hey, you gotta crack some eggs to make an omelet, right? Sadly, those of us who have had the misfortune of toiling for manic depressive leaders have been those eggs, and the yolk is often on us.

I’ve worked for more than my share of bipolar CEOs and executives, so it’s safe to say I had to reach for the Maalox more than once.

Bipolar giveth and bipolar taketh away

One manic depressive executive I worked under early in my career—let’s call her Dara—had my whole department in such a perpetual state of flux that we checked in with her executive assistant each morning to find out if Dara was up or down that day. Needless to say, no one approached her on “down” days, even when it was necessary.

The C-suite loved Dara, though…she was a straight-shooter…a risk taker….and she didn’t need (or want) to be micromanaged. Not surprisingly, those were not traits she ever wanted to see in us. Those who were foolish enough to try to emulate her were swiftly terminated.

We were paralyzed by her inconsistent direction and her fluctuating mood swings. Still, those of us who survived her manic meat grinder intuitively found a way to succeed, inadvertently ensuring that she remain gainfully employed.

What else could we do? Her bosses never bothered to investigate the psychological minefield that was her department.

The day did come, however, when she popped a wheelie on national TV and the powers that be got a very public glimpse at the personality we had struggled to manage for years. And just like that, she was gone, and we all heaved a spontaneously sigh of relief and broke out into a chorus of “Ding, dong, the witch is dead…”

Of course, on some level, we felt bad for her, because we knew she was ill, but then again, she had pushed many of us to the brink of mental illness. And in our results-at-an-cost corporate culture, her impact on our mental and emotional well-being was low priority.

The CEO’s Disease

Years ago, psychologists labelled bipolar disorder “the CEO’s disease,” with reason. Numerous studies have found that the manic stage of the disease tends to breed successful entrepreneurs. A recent joint study between Stanford University and the University of Denmark confirmed earlier research, finding that successful people who are bipolar tend to be uber-successful, often earning much more than their peers.

The study also confirmed that the opposite is true for those who can’t effortlessly slide up the corporate ladder through nepotism or who don’t catch a lucky entrepreneurial brake: average bipolar Joes and Janes tend to make much less than their colleagues.

Donald Trump: The Elvis of bipolar CEOs

Unless you live in an underground bunker with no Wi-Fi, you’ve no doubt been exposed to the clown show that is Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy. Having grown up in New York City, I am more than familiar with this bloviator in a Mafia Don’s clothes.

Trump is a self-made business tycoon…because he tells you he is, but if you scratch off the cheap, gold paint (found in abundance at any Trump-owned property) you’ll find a string of failures and bankruptcies. He’s not even self-made; his father, a wealthy Brooklyn slumlord, greased his entrepreneurial wheels.

Trump parlayed his hubris and Rapunzel-like comb-over into mainstream success with “The Apprentice,” a TV show that allowed him to yell, “You’re fired!” at some hapless participant on each episode. One person’s humiliation became a control freak’s wet dream…and the nation was enthralled!

Now he has a significant lead over the cattle car full of Republican/globalist hand puppets running for president. And, why not? Unlike the others, he is a straight-shooter…a risk taker….a guy who says what many of us think, but won’t admit in polite company. Plus, he’s running on his own dime! Like the honey badger…the Donald don’t care.

This is a dangerous trap, because when it comes to this Elvis of bipolar entrepreneurs, rest assured, that for every one thing you like about him, there will be ten things that you will find appalling.

Bipolar CEOs are often adept at consensus building. If gifted with sufficient charm, they can get us so focused on their cause when in the throes of their mania, that we’re blinded by the toxic lead under the cheap paint.

This is why so many boardrooms end up putting these literal maniacs in charge of their companies, leaving those of us who owe our livelihoods to these human pendulums to cringe in uncertainty, and to live with the reality that today’s promotion can easily turn into tomorrow’s termination. Not fun.

Tag: corporate america

American Workers are Less Productive: No Job Security, No Motivation

Carly Fiorina: From HP Board Meetings to Iowa Bored Meetings

Overqualified and Over 40: You Don’t Get What You Don’t Pay For

Employee Wellness Program Privacy: Biometric Screening Tyranny

American Workers Thrown Under the Omnibus Spending Bill

Psychic Ability: The Best Skill a Freelancer Can Have

Big Brother and the BYOD Privacy Holding Company

No Bezos (kisses) at Amazon

The Curse of the Bipolar CEO