Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

Fatique Management

When it comes to napping on the job, William and Camille Anthony have written the definitive book on the subject - The Art of Napping at Work.    Bill Anthony who runs a research lab at Boston University is a passionate napper. This is his second book on the subject -- the first was just a generic book on napping but the media seized on one paragraph in that book -- a paragraph about wife Camille's habit of using her bosses couch during lunch to take a snooze.  As Anthony explains in this podcast, it was when the Today show asked if they could tape Camille napping at work that they realized they had to write a follow-up book specifically targeted to the workplace.                                           

While Anthony says the concept of napping at work has yet to hit its tipping point, there are companies that are trying to provide napping services to the walking sleep deprived. To read more about napping in the work place, check out my post at Blogher.

Notes From The Road- Planes, Buses, Cars & Trains

The gate agent explained that the new boarding procedure saves 10 minutes --After years of boarding from the back to the plane to the front, NWA is now practicing the CHAOS theory of boarding. As soon as all their ELITE passengers are save and sound in their primo seasts, the rest of us board en mass.  While it may save money it doesn't feel right--yet.

Monday was "Spare The Air Day" in San Francisco-- all BART and muni rides were free.Monday was my third day riding the BART-- a system I found confusing at best. 

They don't make it easy for out of towners. The signage is awful. The confusion starts from the gitgo and doesn't leave until you get off the train

After purchasing my ticket, I looked for a sign telling me which platform I should take to get downtown. There was no sign.--that I could see. There were a lot of people on one side of the track and so that's where I decided to go but if there hadn't been people around I certainly wouldn't have known.

It doesn't get better on the train --the sound system was so poor on the car that there was no way of hearing which stop was approaching and a few of the stops had signage so understated that it would have been easy to miss the name of the stop unless you were really looking for it. Net Net-- if you are traveling on the BART take a map-- you'll need it.

As to the MUNI -- the one I was supposed to take to 3200 California Ave  broke down  by the Embarcadero. The driver had no idea how long it would take for the next bus to get there. So instead of Sparing The Air-- I got to spend  $15 dollar for a taxi cab.

Finally, the next time I need to rent a car ,the chances of  getting lost will be greatly reduced-- just saw a commercial that I can now upload Verizon's  VZ NAVIGATOR on my phone. For those of us directionally challenged, the $9 month fee ( plus airtime) will be well worth avoiding the wrong turns, stops to gas stations and that pit in your stomach that you are lost--again.

Image Credit:  Flickr Member The Emersons

There you go again...Comcast Got It All Wrong

Last week AOL fired a customer service rep caught on audio for doing his job . A blogger had taped his conversation trying to cancel his  service.

The soundtrack became an online hit. This week's online sensation is the napping Comcast technician. If you happened to be watching Cable News this weekend, this video got a lot of coverage. But it was the wrong coverage.

They focused on the fact that Comcast fired the poor technician, who after waiting on hold for an excruciating and obviously mind numbing 90 minutes to his own office,took a nap. The technician napping, wasn't the issue.

Comcast's horrible customer service was supposed to be the butt of the joke. Unfortuneately, Comcast's knee jerk reaction was to focus on the fact that the technician nodded off.

Who wouldn't fall asleep after 90 minutes on a  Cozy Couch?

The Comcast technician didn't deserve to get fired any more than John at AOL deserved his firing earlier this month. What he deserved was a Gift card to Starbucks.

A couple of weeks ago,I encountered the working conditions of a Comcast technician. I had offered to greet the Comcast technician at my friend Myrna's house while she visited her dad in the hospital. He was working in her bedroom. I was downstairs.

After 45 minutes I went in to check on his progress. There he was, sitting on the floor with the phone cradled in his neck..on hold with Comcast. At the time I found it amusing.While I was used to being put on hold for technical support as a customer, I had no idea that the internal folks were treated the same way.

What's with that? We chatted. He said he always was put on hold for long periods of time.It was just part of the job. The guy who posted the video--Brian Finkelstein(who created his blog Snakes On A Blog for the sole purpose of being invited to the premiere of Snakes on a Plane) wasn't upset with the technician. He was upset with Comcast. That message got lost in the humor of the napping technician video. As he said on his blog,Snakes on a Blog,

At one point Comcast sent a technician to replace my cable modem/wireless router. This should have taken five minutes. Instead, when he called Comcast to activate my new modem, he was placed on hold for nearly 90 minutes. When I asked him why he was on hold for so long, he told me that phone reps were busy filling out customer service surveys. Then he fell asleep on my couch. I could have made a few suggestions for their survey. Anyway, after they missed two appointments in the last 24 hours, I’ve finally lost all hope of Comcast actually getting my internet connection working. To commemorate my miserable experience, I made this video (including footage of the technician asleep on my couch)

As expected, Comcast fixed the problem. Turns ot it was quite complicated and took at team over 5 hours to finally get his interent working. Jim Durbin, at Brandstorming also thinks that Comcast missed the point recommending that if they had had a blog they could have alleviated the bad press.

1) Link to the video from the Comcast blog. Comcast screwed up, and admitting it is the first step to take. Link the video, admit how embarassing it is, and call up Brian to personally apologize. Give him six months worth of free service.
2) Work to correct the problem. The problem is not the poor tech. It's the fact that cable service is a mockery, and everyone from sitcoms to comedians to average customers make fun of the service of cable guys. They even made a movie about it!
3) Don't fire the tech. Make him into a commercial where he drinks a lot of coffee. Turn this around. Use the guy as an example of how they are improving.
4) Highlight your successes by tracking progress. Highlight your successes. Make your improvements public.
5) Focus on other positive ways you can use blog marketing.

There's another aspect to this story. Instead of punishing the technician for taking a nap , Comcast should be applauding him --at least that's the belief of Camille & Bill Anthony of The Napping Company who are tiredlessly (because they nap) campaigning to promote work- time napping. More on that at another time -- but their point is that napping increases productivity. I hope to have an interview with them later this week. So in addition to the Starbucks for a year card, I think Comcast should also become a sponsor of National Napping Day --which always falls on the Monday after Daylight Savings starts.

Meanwhile, Comcast and AOL should rethink their firings, apologize to the booted technicians and yes, apologize to their customers.

Hat tip to Church of the Customer for leading me to Brandstorming. This is cross-posted at Blogher

Note: In the original post I had incorrectly identified Jim Durbin as Frank Durbin. Franki Durbin is his wife. The error was correct on 6/30/06.

Notes From The Road- San Francisco

First Impressions .When you think of the impression that a group of Irish students have about  the place where they are working in America  for the summer, what would you hope their take-away would be ?

That we are fair? Hard-working? Welcoming?

At least for the students I met on the BART going from the San Francisco Airport into the city, their impression is this:
 

Costco sells caskets.

The Irish students are working as food samplers at Costco.  They were quick to tell me they were not working for Costco but in Costco.  We started chatting because they had noticed me on the transit platform asking another passenger whether I was in the right place for the train into San Francisco. They asked me where I was going ,double checked their map ,and  then advised me that I should get off two stops after them.

They have been in San Francisco three weeks.   They are living in Berkley for the summer,staying at a Frat house with 25 Irish Students and a handful of Americans.They work Thurs-Sunday and each week  are sent to different Costco's to feature different food.While there is a lot that amazes them about the  Costco -- "It's so cheap and everything is in bulk,"The  thing that amazed them the most was the caskets.

Speaking to her compatriots, one of the four said in the freshest of fresh Irish Brogues,"Did you know you can buy caskets in Costco?"

They all acknowledged they were aware of this oddity and went into fits of laughter over the fact they were handing out food samples at a place where you can also shop for your casket.

They were also a bit impatient with Americans who tried to guess where they were from and either guessed Scotland or England. Their retort, " You Canadians are so funny."

Just moments before they started dissing Americans who couldn't tell an Irish brogue from a Scottish accent, I had fortunately guessed Irish , asking, " Are you from Ireland?" I made a mental note to self,"Don't guess about accents  anymore, you could be insulting someone without knowing it."

According to the students, Ireland doesn't have anything like a Costco. "We have supermarkets," explained one of the girls, but we have separate stores for food, tires, computers and  of course,caskets."

"So what food were you sampling today?"

I didn't get a chance to ask them if this All -American Snack food was popular in Ireland because they shared that after a day of handing out chips & salsa they never wanted to look at it again.

The conversation ended there. They got off the BART but they left me their map.

On another note today is the second anniversary of this blog. One of my earliest posts,Open -Toed Shoes is still the most popular, but Tattoo Lady is also a favorite.

To everyone who stops by, reads a post or two and shares some thoughts, thank you. I'm still having fun.

Credit Image: Flickr member cjanebuy

Working Like A Dog?

As the owner wrote, Burley works like a dog. In case you didn't get the memo, today is the 8th annual TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY. The organizers say that thousands of companies are participating.

While those of us who have home offices celebrate Take Your Dog To Work Day, every day, I'm curious. Just how many canines are doing the 8-5 today ?

To try to find out, I've created a very brief survey. Click here to take survey I'll share the results next week.

Meanwhile,Lisa Haneberg, who blogs about management issues at Management Craft, was promoting the day back in February in a post where she shared lots of photos and excerpts from an article published in Management Issues

Finally real evidence of what we know to be true! "Allowing staff to bring their dogs to work can be a huge competitive advantage for employers, so much so that most dog owners would work longer or even take a pay cut if they could share the office with their pets."

The pros are numerous!     * Your dog will make you take breaks and walks - lowering your stress.     * Your dog will remind you when it is time to go home.     * Your dog will listen to you practice your presentation.     * Your dog will offer a way to vent your feelings without making a fool out of yourself.

Not surprisingly, the folks at Pup Life,an online pet store with a sister blog have a post about the benefits of the day.

According to a recent SimplyHired.com poll, 49% of all dog owners polled said that they would switch their jobs if they could bring their dogs to work. 32% said they would take a 5% pay cut. And 70% said that they considered a dog-friendly company allowing them to bring their dog to work one day a week an important employee benefit. Wow. Companies of the world, are you listening? By simply allowing dogs to the office one day out of the week, you can offer your staff a huge benefit and best of all, it costs nothing! If you are looking to attract and retain quality employees, this is a great difference maker.

To celebrate the day, the folks at MainToday.com are asking readers to share how their dogs stack up against coworkers.They are invited to share a photo and a dog resume.

Burley works like a dog. His deliverables are sticks, tennis balls and socks from the hamper. And he is eager to make an impact at the office.

In the spirit of transparency, I am a dog owner. Meet Uma Thurman.She's eight months old and does spend a portion of her day in my office. I've just had her a month and am learning when she can and can't be in the office. Let's just say conference calls are not a good idea unless you can quickly get to the mute button.

Have a wonderful Dog Day Afternoon.

Image Credit: MaineToday.com

This is cross-posted at Blogher.

Did AOL's Customer Service Rep deserve to be fired?

Move over Coke Cola. After living with the dubious distinction as the most agrigous example of a company  self-imploding its own brand ( Think NEW COKE), it can now finally hand over the reign to AOL. As one person who commented on an anti-AOL blog said, "It's not 1995 anymore."

Unlike COKE ,whose undoing happened over a short, finite period of time, AOL is more like Al Pacino's character Sonny in the 1975 Classic, Dog Day Afternoon --holding innocent people hostage.

The latest AOL bru-ha-ha is over a former customer, one Vincent Ferrari ,who had the foresight to tape his call with the  unsuspecting John --an AOL customer service representative, as he tried to cancel his account. While the call may not get as many downloads as Connie Chung's "Thanks for the Memories," it is becoming an instant online hit.                                                       

For those of you who don't want to listen to the excruciating five minutes of Vinny pleading to have his account canceled, here is the gist of the conversation by way of Consumers Affairs.com

AOL: Hi, this is John at AOL. How may I help you today? Ferrari: I want to cancel my account.

AOL: OK. I mean, is there a problem with the software itself? Ferrari: No. I don't use it. I don't need it. I don't want it.

AOL: Last year, last month it was 545 hours of usage.

Ferrari: I don't know how to make it any clearer. So I'm just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, explain to me what is wrong.
Ferrari: I'm not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account. The conversation continued for another 5 minutes, ending with ...

Ferrari: Cancel my account. Cancel the account. Cancel the account.

In a not so surprising move the day after the news of the call hit the blogwaves, AOL announced it had fired our man,JOHN.

"At AOL, we have zero tolerance for customer care incidents like this -- which is deeply regrettable and also absolutely inexcusable," said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. "The employee in question violated our customer service guidelines and practices, and everything that AOL believes to be important in customer care," he said.

He then added,that AOL is

"going to learn from this -- and continue to make the necessary, positive changes to our practices. This was an aberration and a mistake, and we have to manage these incidents down to zero as best we can."

An Aberration? Not tolerate this behavior?  I would maintain that JOHN was just following company policy. And, that our man JOHN was simply doing the job he was paid to do. It's not as if AOL didn't just pay $1.25 million in fines for promoting just the behavior that JOHN demonstrated so gallantly in his call.
Firing JOHN is firing the messenger. JOHN didn't deserve to be fired.

It was less than 365 days ago that AOL agreed to the fine and promised the State of New York that it was reforming its bonus policy for customer service representatives.

Under the agreement, AOL will no longer require its customer service representatives to meet a minimum quota for customer retention in order to receive a bonus. Previously, AOL would distribute bonuses in the "tens of thousands of dollars" if representatives were able to retain half the customers who called to cancel their service, according to the attorney general.

While I don't know John personally, I'd love to hear his side of the story. I have a hunch he's singing like a jailbird to his attorneys.

Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of people who still want to cancel their AOL. Last year, Utterly Boring shared a sure fire 3 minute solution to getting your AOL account canceled. The account was reported in the NY Times.

Guy tried for better part of a week to cancel AOL. He talked to six or seven different people on six different days. Each time he was thwarted by what is apparently an AOL plot that make it next-to-impossible to cancel the service, as the representatives pretend to be concerned about you and your reasons for cancellation and give you soothing chat and reasons to continue AOL service.

Finally, weary of the runaround, he went into a "chat room" and  started threatening to kill people in the room.

His AOL account was canceled in under three minutes.

Image credit: Flickr member huberjoshua

Honey, I shrunk the World

While I still love my frequent flyer miles as much as the next person, I have not been diligent about monitoring them. My friend Nancy White has and what she has discovered is something that Northwest Airlines is apparently not sharing with their customers---in its world  the distance between two location is a lot closer.

I was checking my frequent flyer miles on Northwest Airlines and thought, hm, the total qualifying miles seems low, considering I flew from Seattle to NY, to Austin back to Seattle. Only 3,346 miles. That didn't seem right. So I went to the Flying Distance Calculator. Hm, quite a discrepancy. Considering the lower nautical mile figures, NW is crediting me about

NW Says LGA to IAH - 709 miles
Flying Distance Calculator says - 1229

Sea to Newark NW says 1201
Calculator says 2080

Houston to Seattle NW says 937
Calculator says 1626

Now if Northwest raises prices because fuel is going up, yet they are actually flying LESS miles due to some crazy math, something is wrong here. I'm losing 2088 miles (and, with my elite status, another 50% on top of that.)

This is the 25th anniversary of frequent flyer programs. There are some that say, there is now a chink in the chain of brand loyalty that frequent flyers have for their airlines. Prior to 1981 when people wanted to fly somewhere they would call a travel agent and say,

"I'd like to arrive in San Francisco around 4:00 p.m." 

However, after airlines launched frequent flyers, consumers completely changed their behavior. Instead of selecting an airline that met their schedule, they would say (still to a travel agent).."how close to 4:00 can Northwest Airlines get me to San Francisco?"

What used to be a 25 minute window of tolerance now opened to up to over 3 hours.

Dan Reed, at USA TODAY recently wrote a comprehensive article on the status of Frequent Flyer Programs.
Some of his findings:

The world's 180 million frequent-flier members - many hold memberships in multiple programs - are earning miles faster than ever. Their accounts are brimming with 14.2 trillionmileage points, up from 6.6 trillion at the end of 2000, estimates Randy Petersen, publisher of InsideFlyer magazine and WebFlyer.com. Frequent fliers earned 2.7 trillion credits in 2005 alone.

Reed also reported that while people are earning more points, airlines are giving fewer away.

Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research, says only 26% of North Americans who buy their travel online - and most of them do - profess loyalty to one carrier. Harteveldt says that frequent-flier programs have become "golden handcuffs" in which "elite status becomes a disincentive to change rather than an incentive to stay."

What went wrong? Well according to Rolfe Shellenberger, the marketing executive who brought the first frequent flyer program to American Airlines, they got "greedy."

Their purpose now is to generate more revenue" in the short term rather than maintain and build customer loyalty that will financially benefit the company over the long term, he says.

Indeed, U.S. airlines generated $4 billion in additional revenue last year by selling mileage points to partner companies at prices of up to 2 cents per mile. The partner - a credit card company, a car dealer or a mortgage firm, for example - will then use the points to reward their customers for purchases.

 

As it turns out Northwest is not the only carrier who sees the world as a much smaller place.According to Lilia Eflimora sharing a comment on Nancy's blog.

Nancy, could be legitimate reduce for the cheaper tickets. KLM resently changed to that: e.g. most of my latest flights to Russia were credited with 25% miles just because I had cheapest tickets. No gold wings anymore :(

What the world kneads now

It was with eager anticipation that I waited for my son Noah to call me last week to hear about his first day on the job. He was walking to the subway when he called.

"How did it go?" I asked
"Great. I get 21 vacation days and we close down between Christmas and New Year's so I can come home without using any vacation days."

Perks matter. When you've just graduated from college and are used to about 20 weeks of vacation-- the most important perk is usually time off.

But, for the more seasoned employee, companies need to do more than offer days off that the employee doesn't feel they can take because there is too much work to do.That's where the massage chair comes in. Seems like corporations are tripping over themselves to offer employees a 10-15 minute soother. As promoted, at the Relax & Rejuvenate website corporate massages,

makes an ideal reward for your staff and a great  idea for employee appreciation week. Whether stress-relieving seated ; chair massage or time-saving manicures, bringing wellness to your ; employees will improve productivity, boost morale and reduce health ; care costs and turnover. The morale boosting effect extends to the ; entire office in seeing their co-workers rejuvenated!

Note to marketing department: you lost me at morale boosting effect. Call me selfish, small, and a terrible team player--but the only way my morale would be boosted is if I'm the one sitting in the massage chair.

Nevertheless Relax & Rejuvenate does list their  impressive corporate client list.

• Advisory Board Co.
  Verizon
  Patton, Boggs LLP
  Drexel University
  Timberland
  Emirates Airlines
  St Jude Medical
  Price Waterhouse Coopers
  Wachovia Securities
  Celera Genomics
  

On  theThe Dynamist blog,Virginia Postrel is previewing an excerpt of her first column for The Atlantic she's written for the July-August edition of the Atlantic. It's all about the trend in  massages including massage chairs at car washes, airports and yes within the workplace.

One of the most important factors in the spread of massages was theinvention of the portable massage chair. I tracked down the inventor David Palmer.... In 1982, he was running a San Francisco massage school and worried that not enough graduates were finding jobs. If massage was so great, why didn’t more people want it?

The answer was pretty obvious: everything about the experience scared off potential clients. “If you want to make sure massage didn’t make it into the mainstream,” Palmer says, “make it as expensive, inconvenient, and scary as possible. Force people to go into a private room behind closed doors, take off all their clothes with a stranger, lie down on a table, get slathered with oil for an hour, and pay $70, $80, $90 for the privilege.”

Massage needed a form that was cheap, quick, convenient, and fully clothed. Palmer developed an acupressure-based routine, or kata, that took just fifteen minutes and was done while the client sat on a drummer’s stool.

In March, Dr.Deborah Serani wrote a post about the benefits of massage. She is a psychologist specializing in trauma and depression. While the post has some good information and links to more information about massage therapy, the most interesting aspect of the post is that it has over 40 comments.

Sonnie Dee said...

My previous work place actually pays a professional masseuse to come in for two days every week. Everyone was allowed one free massage a month but often people got two or three.

My new work place offers similar but you pay $10 towards a half hour session work pays the rest.

obviously they have seen the benefits of having a relaxed staff. Now its just getting me to one, Im like fallen angels and can't do body work at all.

Not surprisingly, theBureau of Labor Statistics says the outlook for massage therapists is better than average.

Employment for massage therapists is expected to increase faster than average over the period from 2004 to 2014 as more people learn about the benefits of massage therapy. In States that regulate massage therapy, therapists who complete formal training programs and pass the national certification exam are likely to have very good job opportunities. Because referrals are a very important source of work for massage therapists, networking will increase the number of job opportunities. Joining a State or local chapter of a professional association can also help build strong contacts and further increase the likelihood of steady work.

Massage is an increasingly popular technique for relaxation and reduction of stress. As workplaces try to distinguish themselves as employee-friendly, providing professional in-office, seated massages for employees is becoming a popular on-the-job benefit.

So my only question is, what are the job titles of folks who go corporate?  Health &Wellness Leader? Corporate Stress reducer? Corporate Masseuse?

Image Credit: Flickr Member Tomswift46

The USB Mini Drive--Weapon Of Mass Destruction

IIn 2005 it was a top 10 business give away. In 2006, it"s on the 'most wanted' list for potential corporate criminals. That's right. the oh so convenient, oh so small, oh so coveted USB Mini Drive could soon be banned in a corporation near you because it has the power to be a weapon of mass destruction.

Steve Stasiukonis ,VP and founder of  Secure Network Technologies Inc. wrote a piece in Dark Reading all about the vulnerabilities corporations because of the beloved USB Mini. Here's a clue--buy stock in SuperGlu

As part of his business Stasiukonis is hired by companies to test the security of their networks. The client in this case asked them to really push the social engineering button. Stasiukonis writes,

Typically we would hang out with the smokers, sweet-talk a receptionist, or commandeer a meeting room and jack into the network. This time I knew we had to do something different. We heard that employees were talking within the credit union and were telling each other that somebody was going to test the security of the network, including the people element.

So here is what Stasiukonis did:  He took about 20 USB and had one of his folks write a trojan that,"

" when run, would collect passwords, logins and machine-specific information from the user’s computer, and then email the findings back to us."

Early one morning he "seeded" a bunch of USB drives in strategic locations:
the parking lot, smoking area and other place employees frequented. Then he got a cup of coffee and watched.

Surveillance of the facility was worth the time involved. It was really amusing to watch the reaction of the employees who found a USB drive. You know they plugged them into their computers the minute they got to their desks.

I immediately called my guy that wrote the Trojan and asked if anything was received at his end. Slowly but surely info was being mailed back to him. I would have loved to be on the inside of the building watching as people started plugging the USB drives in, scouring through the planted image files, then unknowingly running our piece of software.

After about three days, we figured we had collected enough data. When I started to review our findings, I was amazed at the results. Of the 20 USB drives we planted, 15 were found by employees, and all had been plugged into company computers. The data we obtained helped us to compromise additional systems, and the best part of the whole scheme was its convenience. We never broke a sweat. Everything that needed to happen did, and in a way it was completely transparent to the users, the network, and credit union management.

As interesting as this possible threat to corporate systems is the ethical discussion that follows the article. Not all readers are amused at the company's tactics to test the security of their system.

As one writer suggested, the easy fix is to simply Superglue all USB ports on corporate computers.
Net Net-- don't be surprised if someone from tech support stops by your desk later today with a bucket of Superglue--why deal with the real problem, when Superglue will do.

Hat Tip to the Daily Irrelevant.

Image Credit: Flickr member, Kansir

 

Baby Love

To read the legal blogs, it would  a stretch to say that Elizabeth Vargas lost her job because of pregnancy discrimination.--there was that thing about ratings and chemistry..yada yada yada. However, there is a underpinning to Vargas' dismissal as discussed at the Feminist Law Blog

At the core of all this chatter is also an interesting and unspoken problem about pregnancy and maternity—and the ways in which women who are fully competent to do any job, at any other time—may nevertheless falter or choose to rejigger their priorities for a few years. There were days during my pregnancies when I couldn’t even rinse and spit, much less cover a major news story. When do you think I’ll be allowed to write that without setting back the feminist cause?

So while bloggers have been weighing in on the pros and cons of the Vargas case, over in Illinois a woman received a $500,000 uury award for pain and suffering, medical care, and front and back pay.settlement in what can only be classified as one of the more unusual pregnancy discrimination cases so the bloggers at The HR Cafe hypothesizes could open the door for even more lawsuits.

She felt that her supervisor, knowing she was pregnant, pushed her too hard, making her climb a rickety stairway to a mezzanine level where she had to crawl under desks to install computer equipment. She claimed her computer was sabotaged and her office moved so she couldn’t locate essential paperwork. On top of that, the supervisor gave her what she perceived to be an impossible mountain of work, and fired her when she couldn’t do it all.

She successfully sued for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The court said the jury was allowed to consider the fact that the worker was “particularly susceptible” to distress because of her pregnancy.

Different discipline
In this case, the courts ruled that a demanding boss went too far. But all companies have demanding bosses, and employees don't always agree what's reasonable and what's not. This case teaches us that criticism and discipline that might be appropriate for a male worker, or a non-pregnant female one, could be seen as inflicting an unacceptable level of distress on a pregnant colleague.

It's been nearly 10 years since actress Hunter Tylo received a $5 million award because Aaron Spelling fired her from Melrose Place when he learned she was pregnant. At the time Tylo said,

I was attacked on every side. People were telling me I would never make it, that I was hurting my career. But I came through all of it" said Tylo, following the verdict, which she pronounced as a victory "for every woman, for every child that's not born."

Sometimes, victory is fleeting.

Image Credit: Flickr member Krissypants