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Are you truly prepared to navigate the treacherous waters of your workplace? In this eye-opening episode of the Employee Survival Guide®, Mark Carey unveils the essential survival skills every employee needs to thrive in today’s complex work environment. With a focus on employee rights, vigilance and self-awareness, Carey reminds us to “watch your back” and stay alert to the often-overlooked nuances of workplace dynamics. Understanding the 'rules of engagement' is paramount; whether it’s identifying discrimination or recognizing wage violations, knowledge is your best defense.
Negotiation emerges as a critical employee rights skill that can make or break your career. Carey passionately encourages listeners to advocate for themselves effectively, emphasizing that understanding how to negotiate severance can empower you in times of uncertainty. He dives deep into the importance of thorough documentation in professional interactions, a vital strategy for protecting your rights in any employment law dispute. From hostile work environments to retaliation and discrimination—be it sexual harassment, age discrimination, or race discrimination—being informed is your first line of defense.
Carey also discusses the art of playing the room to your advantage. By being of service to your colleagues, even in challenging situations, you can foster a supportive workplace culture that benefits everyone. This episode is not just about survival; it’s about thriving in your career. Learn how to adopt a mindset akin to that of a boss and cultivate a proactive attitude towards career advancement. With insights on performance reviews, performance monitoring, and performance improvement plans, you will be equipped with the job survival skills necessary to navigate the complexities of employment.
Whether you’re dealing with employment discrimination, navigating remote work challenges, or seeking legal advice for employees, this episode offers invaluable insights. Mark Carey’s expertise shines through as he provides insider tips for employees eager to understand their employee rights and responsibilities in the workplace. From the intricacies of employment contracts to the nuances of employee benefits, this podcast is a treasure trove of knowledge designed to empower you.
Join us on the Employee Survival Guide® as we tackle the pressing issues of today’s workforce, equipping you with the tools to navigate workplace policies and advocate for yourself effectively. Don’t just survive—thrive and take charge of your career path with the strategies shared in this episode!
If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States.
For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.
Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:37):
Do you have survival skills?
I've never really done thisepisode, but it's been obviously
on my mind for quite some time.
So I'll just start it off withnumber one.
These are not in any importanceof order, just things that I
thought about.
Number one was watch your backat all times.
How do I come up with this one?
I'm in federal court a lot.
I'm around a lot of U.S.
Marshals.
I've seen Secret Service and howthey act.
(00:58):
And if you didn't know it,they're always looking for the
things you're just taking forgranted.
They're looking at exits,they're looking at
possibilities, and they'recalculating.
And it's, you know, probably apretty good thing to understand
how to do.
And are you watching your backat all times at work?
You know, let's, for example, aclose colleague, friend.
Maybe they're uh angling foryour position in the future.
(01:18):
Maybe they're trying to get apromotion, whatever it is.
You know, can you trust peopleat work?
And these days, I don't thinkyou can.
I think you can have areasonable degree of trust, but
with a lot of boundaries and alot of protection about
yourself, about how you go aboutwhat you're doing.
And what I ask you to do is whydon't you look at the the
(01:39):
connections you have with peopleat work?
How strong are they?
Are they are these reliablepeople you can rely on in a
pinch when something hits thefan?
Maybe you've seen things in thepast, circumstances that took
place.
How do people react?
All this stuff should be in yourcalculus when you're going about
your everyday activities,watching yourself.
Watch how you act towardspeople.
(02:00):
That's really important.
A lot of people just take thatfor granted.
I'll get that into in a second.
But watch your back when youwhen you're in the office or
you're engaging with people.
Look and listen for the signs,the tells, like poker game that
people have.
And people have a lot of tells.
If you look at them long enough,you get to know them, they can
tell you whether they're lying,whether they can be relied upon,
whether they'll be trusted.
(02:21):
So watch your back.
That's number one.
Number two, learn the rules ofengagement.
I can't express this enough.
People do not think about therules of engagement.
What do I mean?
Well, when you go to your job,it's the most important thing
you have besides maybe yourmortgage.
It produces income for you.
It allows you to go to do thefun things you like to do in
life.
But how do you protect it?
(02:42):
You know, what are you doing toprotect your job?
I mean, these skills I'm givingyou right now are going to help
you protect your job, but youknow, what are the rules of
engagement?
What is discrimination?
What does it look like?
If you're a woman and you'reabout to be deciding upon having
a family, why don't you read upon what pregnancy discrimination
is?
It happens all the time.
It's actually the second highestEEOC charge, I believe, that's
(03:06):
filed.
So it's my favorite because it'sso easy to spot and figure out.
So look at the rules ofengagement of you know, what is
discrimination?
What is wage violations, what isa non-compete.
Look at these things before youjust jump in, drop in, it's a
phrase I learned this morning,to some circumstance you have
that you're contemplating, butyou drop in with blindfolds.
(03:28):
You don't do that.
You do this with everything inyour life.
You do this with relationships,you try to, you know, learn as
much as you possibly can.
But people, I can tell you, donot learn about the rules of
engagement, about their jobs.
How do I know that?
Because I can see in the factpatterns when people write them
for us in their cases, when theydecide to hire us to go after
their employers, you can say youcan tell whether they at what
(03:48):
errors they have committed alongthe way.
Now, in large part, people aregood advocates for their cause,
but they do make mistakes.
So learn the rules ofengagement, what is a
discrimination claim, how toperfect it, how to go about it,
how to build it.
I'm not asking you to be alawyer, just you know, keep
coming back to this podcast andlearning the things that I'm I'm
advocating here on the episodes,and you'll begin to change your
(04:11):
learning curve will change uhvery quickly to spot the issues,
and that's really what you wantyou to do is spot issues and
then figure out how do younavigate around those issues.
So learning the rules ofengagement are critical to
navigating around the office andaround people who can be, you
know, assholes.
Bosses can be assholes.
People and bosses, by the way,aren't trained to be bosses.
(04:32):
They're just people.
They learn by experience.
And it's unfortunate, but youknow, people have uh they have
all their dark secrets.
You don't want to find out or beon the back end of somebody's,
you know, bad situation becausethey're having a bad day.
So learn the rules ofengagement.
That's critical.
So learn about employmentdiscrimination and what it
means.
Learn about contracts and how tonegotiate them.
(04:54):
But the third job survival skillis negotiation is king.
If you can't negotiate foryourself in a meaningful way to
get what you want, you'remissing something here.
You can negotiate even foroutwill jobs, you can negotiate
a lot of things.
It really depends upon youtaking stock of what you bring
to the table to your employerand you know, understanding what
(05:16):
value you bring.
Get the fear out of the picture,okay?
A lot of people operate withfear like because they don't
want to negotiate.
It's like, you know, it's likespeaking in public.
Well, get over it, okay?
Because, you know, I did.
I everyone has a sphere ofspeaking in public.
How about walking into a federalcourtroom, you know, really
palatial place like the SouthernDistrict of New York, wood
(05:36):
paneling, it's just austere,it's beautiful, or even the
Second Circuit Court of Appealsin the uh the grand uh
courtroom.
It's an amazing place to be.
And you gotta speak on thestupid microphone.
Well, get over it, because yougot a job to do.
And your job is to negotiatesomething.
In this case, when I'm in court,I'm obviously arguing for
(05:57):
something, but negotiation is anargument.
You're preparing yourself inadvance, you're walking in, you
have your notes, but you you'vegot this thing down cold.
And you've done negotiation isabout knowing who your opponent
is, knowing what the opponentwants, and knowing what you
want.
And figuring that out iscritical to a job successful job
career.
And if you don't understandthat, start looking at uh all
(06:20):
books of things that you can getyour hands on about, you know,
getting to yes or which is kindof old, but negotiation is
critical.
I've done it on a negotiationpodcast episode in this podcast.
I'm not done with it yet becausethere's a lot to talk about.
So negotiation is king.
Number three.
Number four, document the shitout of your job.
I mean, let me repeat that.
Document the shit out of yourjob.
(06:41):
What I mean, you are on emailall day long.
That email belongs to youremployer.
Where does the email go?
Well, it has a timestamp to it.
Well, that's critical.
You get to create a diary ofemail timestamped that's there
and actually, if you don't knowthis, email's backed up.
So you have a conversation withyour boss about a performance or
(07:01):
a personal one-on-one check-in,document the email saying,
here's what we talked aboutduring the meeting, here's what
I advocated for, here's what Iunderstand you said, you know,
effective listening.
Document everything that'shappening.
If you feel that you're in thethroes of a downward spiral of
your employer doing this to youbecause you've not done it,
because you know the survivalskills, that somebody's doing
(07:22):
something to you and setting youup.
You want to document the shitout of what's happening.
And you can't document enough.
Now, you can save that thing,that email you send by making a
journal entry in your privatejournal, okay, and writing down
I sent I sent an email on thisdate, and this is what I said,
and maybe this person respondedback and you put it in quotes.
That's yours.
You get to keep that on yourperson.
(07:43):
It's not your employer.
They don't own that piece ofjournal entry you put.
So document the crap out of yourjob.
When something's happening toyou, you can have a reason why
you do this is you want to giveyour lawyer the full narrative
according to what you thoughthappened in real time about what
happened, and you can create thestoryline narrative that favors
(08:05):
your point of view because youremployer, by the time you hit
the lawyering part of things,they're trying to angle to uh
set you up for your loss becausethey don't want you to win, and
you're trying to win.
So documenting things over theentire time period uh will help
you essentially perfect yourcase.
It'll help me understand, youknow, do you have a case or not?
So if you learn the rules ofengagement, what you know is
(08:28):
discrimination, you'll start tounderstand what to put in that
narrative.
The issues will pop in your facesaying, well, that's important.
I remember reading about that.
So document the crap out of yourjob.
Now, number five, learn how toplay the room.
People don't understand thisone.
I guess skillful negotiators,public speakers, politicians,
you know, they know how to playthe room.
What I mean by this is that whenyou walk into a room, for
(08:51):
example, in a new meeting, andyou know the characters there,
and you know what the meeting'sabout in content, listen to what
people are saying and try tofigure out, you know, what is
the move you know the momentumof the meeting?
What are people not coming upwith?
Are they not coming up with theidea that you thought of?
Do your research in advance ofthe meeting, of course, but know
the the the the play the roomand try to play so that it
(09:14):
things are are advocating inyour direction or for a
particular cause you have, butlearn to play the room.
What you should not do, and I Istrongly say this to you, is
that people make mistakes, andand I how I know this all,
because people write narrativesfor us and we can read them.
People say a lot of stupid shitduring meetings or let their
they let their guard down andthey get baited into arguments
(09:37):
by people who are trying to setthem up.
So learn how to play the room toyour advantage.
If you are in the crosshairs ofperformance improvement plan,
you're already on the bad listtrying to set you up for
failure.
You know that.
And even at that juncture, youcan still play the room with
understanding about, okay, youknow, I don't have to be
reactive here.
I can actually, yeah, I'll takethat under advisement.
(09:59):
Thank you for saying that.
I'll take that under advisementtoo.
And you can ask pertinentquestions about certain things,
but play the room.
Don't be fearful and scaredabout what's happening to you
because your employer and yourbosses will feed off it like
sharks, and it's it's ugly.
So play the know how to play theroom, how to compose yourself in
that situation.
(10:19):
Number six, become your ownself-advocate.
I mean, it's all the things Ijust talked about in the last
five skill sets.
You know how to play the game,you know how to play the room,
you know how to negotiate,you're watching your back
because you don't want to getyour ass kicked, and you want to
become your own self-advocate.
How do you do that?
Am I asking to be a lawyer?
No, I'm asking you to reallyunderstand what's taking place
(10:42):
and don't do this.
Don't, and I mean don't, and Ijust underline this extensively,
don't cry the victim.
Because when you cry the victimto yourself, you're letting
yourself down.
You're not you're you're notputting your best foot forward,
you're not trying 110%, you'rejust blaming others for
something that happened.
(11:02):
I mean, I know men who are intheir 60s who do do the shit.
And it's really actuallyembarrassing once you spot it.
And it's kind of comical becausethey don't want to accept the
fact they're the cause of whathappened.
So don't be the cause ofsomething.
Be the self-advocate forsomebody else doing something to
you, but advocate your position.
(11:22):
Understand rules, what'shappening to you, what the play
is like.
You know, if you need to haveyour playbook in your head, get
one and figure out how to beyour own self-advocate by, let's
say you need to, I don't know,set your boss up.
You ever think about this?
Setting your boss up becausethey've done something, and you
can entrap them in conversationsbecause they're not smart enough
to figure it out.
(11:43):
You can do that.
You can actually set people upand make have them make and say
things either by in writing orotherwise that they otherwise
would not say.
And it's really about artfuladvocacy, asking a ton of
questions, and really being onthe money in terms of what the
mission is.
The mission is to save your job,or the mission is to get a
better severance package.
And you do that by being incontrol, in composure.
(12:06):
Don't let them see your otherside, your emotional side, don't
let them see the victim.
But be the best advocate you canwithout not asking you to be a
whistleblower, I'm just askingyou to be self-advocate, taking
a strong position, but knowingwhy you're doing it.
And then also, if you need tocomplain, you know, the word
know the rules of engagementthat you can complain at HR.
And once you do that, using nomagic words, I was treated
(12:29):
differently because of, theylaws of protections of
retaliation favor you.
And the employer is aware ofthat.
And if they're not, they'restupid, uh, and you begin to set
them up.
And it builds a case forseverance negotiation, which
I'll talk about in a second.
So be your own self-advocate.
Don't be the victim.
Please, don't be the victim.
Learn how to play this gamebecause it is a game.
(12:51):
I know it's emotional for you,but step outside of that.
And if you can't, get acolleague to help you or get a
lawyer.
But be your self-advocate in theoffice space because a lawyer
can't be there with you.
You know, most people don'tunderstand that.
Well, I got an email yesterdayfrom a person who says, I wasn't
denied, I was denied a counselorin the meeting.
I'm like, did you know it?
Uh you know, I didn't speak tothis person, but most people
(13:11):
think that they can bring theirlawyers into meetings.
That's not true.
Private self-governments andpublic employers obviously are
government employers.
But companies like Oracle orMicrosoft or Bridgewater or you
name it, these are privategovernments onto themselves, and
they operate with their ownrules.
So no, lawyers can't be uhpresent there.
Number seven, kind of similarhere in the vein of what I'm
(13:33):
talking about, but there's anold Saturday Night Live skit.
I don't know how far back, butit's about no whiners, and it's
just the funniest thing you eversaw.
But in the workspace, no onelikes, not even from my
childhood playground, no oneliked the whiner.
Okay, the wanker.
The wanker, you're gonna getyou're it's basically putting
that sticker on the back saying,kick me.
(13:54):
Why are you going to do this?
People do this all the time.
I we get a lot of correspondencefrom people who potential
clients want to be potentialclients with our artists.
And it's surprising howvictimized they are.
They're they're they're notrealizing that's not the way,
the the path to take.
And they and they get reallyself-righteous about their
victimization and like, youknow, wrong done to them, and
(14:14):
like, well, you need to hire anattorney.
Well, I can't afford one.
Well, that is that my problem?
No, it's the people are uh theyjust don't be a whiner.
A whiner is it's kind of a copout, like, you know, you deserve
something, you're entitled tosomething.
Everybody doesn't like a whiner,okay?
There's something you there'ssomething better you can be, you
can be a self-advocate.
You can learn the rules ofengagement, you can learn how to
(14:35):
negotiate, stand up foryourself, get a strong back in
this process.
It remove the fear of what uhthe unknown here.
It's critically importantbecause this is your job.
It pays your income.
You know, don't make a stupidmistake about being a whiner.
It's I know it sounds, you know,incredible to say that to you,
but people they operate in acesspool at work, a cesspool of
(14:57):
psychology, and it's it's notreally regulated, and people
cast judgments all the time.
The easiest people to pick offis the whiner, okay?
Or the victim.
Just it's not the role you wantto play.
You wanna if you want to sprotect your job, you wanna
basically create a sevenspackage.
If you if you can't stay in yourjob, you don't want to be the
whiner, okay?
Please just remove that cap andthat the that character,
(15:19):
whatever it is.
Number eight, be of service toothers even if you don't want
to.
I put this on the list.
You know, team play, all thatgood stuff they throw at you,
you know, maybe the poster onthe wall, you know, the you know
what I'm talking about.
It's like, you know, team playor whatever they say.
But everyone really likes whensomebody does something nice to
them and they remember it, andthey remember you in an act of
(15:40):
kindness.
Maybe you had a bad day, but youstill give me an act of
kindness.
So try to figure out in yourhead about your daily workday
how you can be selfless, meaningyou can do things for other
people that may not necessarilyget things for you, but you can
be helpful to others.
People skip this thing all thetime, but it goes a long way.
(16:02):
A selfless person who's actingin the interest of other people
and interested in their careers,you're paying a dividend in the
future that's going to returnback to you.
You just don't know it.
If it's in the religiouscontext, you're tithing you know
money to the church orsomething, and it you know,
brings something back to you.
But be of service to people,even when you don't want to,
even the person you really don'tlike at the office, it might
(16:24):
make you feel better about youknow doing maybe just helping
them out instead of you knowholding a grudge and removing
that negative thought from yourhead.
And maybe it makes your job go alittle easier.
So it's just a little thoughtthere.
People actually recognize it,and at least I do.
I recognize it all the time.
So it's a good thing to do.
It's just try it out.
Uh, number nine, know how tonegotiate severance.
(16:44):
I've devoted a lot of time aboutseverance negotiations, either
in in writing or podcastepisodes.
It is a straightforwardapproach.
I'm gonna nail it down realquickly.
It's a skill set you need toknow about.
And if you don't know, come backto this podcast or and and find
out or read about it.
It's simply two takes two forms.
The first is the kind of thegoodwill performan uh
(17:05):
performance aspect, where you'renegotiating upon the things
you've done that made thecompany money, and you are
trying to leverage that goodwillwith the employer.
It doesn't go that far.
It's you can try it.
Most people laud theiraccomplishments like the like
like we all know them.
And then listen, everybody hasaccomplishments, okay?
We all do.
Don't don't stick it out therein our faces like we should
(17:27):
admire you about it.
I mean, everybody hasaccomplishments.
But here's the trick employersdon't reward that in severance
for your accomplishments.
I mean, some do, but in majorityof my experience over the years,
going on 30, which is kind ofridiculous, it's a it's a fail.
Well, what's your plan B?
Plan B is, you know, either youhave a number one, an ERISA plan
(17:48):
that governs, you know, pays foryears of service for your
signing or release of waiverclaims in order to get the
money.
Uh so that's like a two-week orfour-week four-year service type
of thing, depending upon theplan.
A plan means an ERISA plan.
Ooh, it's a funky acronym.
Employee Retirement IncomeSecurity Act, ERISA.
It's pretty easy law tounderstand regarding severance.
(18:09):
You just got to sign your rightsaway in exchange for money.
You obviously have to be aparticipant in a plan.
And you would know that bylooking at your HR portal and
saying, you know, are you partof that plan?
You can also go to a site calledfreearissa.com and you can find
a free membership to look upyour company whether they have
an ERISA plan.
I think it's the item I on theyou'll you'll find it, but you
(18:30):
have to do some research to findit or the HR portal.
The other way you can getseverance is through a contract.
Most people don't have thesenegotiated in advance of their
employment, but some people do.
We negotiate them for them, andit's basically a year severance
for typically an executivelevel, and they get paid
severance in exchange for arelease of claims.
Now, if they're fired for cause,they don't get severance.
(18:52):
No one gets severance whenyou're fired for cause, unless
you've got some leverage againstyour employer.
Now, the majority of theseverance negotiations uh that
occur in the in the UnitedStates go like this.
It's you whipping up a claimbecause you documented the shit
out of the case.
You know the rules ofengagement, so your narrative is
pretty tight, and you got it,you know, you got the goods on
the employer by your ownwriting.
(19:13):
Now you're like, well, I don'thave any you know recorded
evidence of anything andwhatever.
I'm like, you know that I'mthat's fine, that's like smoking
evidence, but that smoking gunevidence is really kind of, you
know, 5% or less of the time.
That's direct evidence.
Majority of these cases we dealwith are circumstantial, meaning
your narrative, the power ofyour narrative is king here.
And you're negotiating herethrough severance negotiations.
(19:35):
You're essentially policing theemployer saying, I got this
affidavit that says, forexample, you discriminated
against me because I'm a womanand because of my race, because
I'm black, and you said or didthings that treated me
differently because of both ofthose things or one of those
things.
And by the way, I also foundthat you were, I don't know,
stealing secrets from anothercompany or something.
It could be anything.
(19:56):
It's just whatever you can writein your narrative that is
factually supported that theemployer can also check.
We would then take it to theemployer.
We obviously would notarize thedocument for you and present it
to the employer along with ademand and saying, we're going
to negotiate X amount of dollarshere as a starting point, and
the employer says, okay, you gotus, you know, we'll we'll start
(20:17):
to negotiate, but they also hemand haw, they want to pay as
little as possible.
But that's a negotiation.
But you're bringing to the tableleverage, leverage in the form
of potential legal claims.
And remember something thatpeople don't understand.
The best cases are alwayssettled, always settled, okay?
The cases that go to litigationare the ones that are 50-50 on
the on the border, or theemployers are stupid enough,
just downright stupid enough totry to defend itself because
(20:40):
maybe defense counsel said youneed to defend itself because
defense counsel need to makemoney.
I mean, it's part of thelitigation machinery here.
It's like, you know, the lawfirms make money.
Severage negotiations aboutbringing leverage to the table.
We help people do that.
And at the end of the day, youwould sign a release of claims,
just like you would under aRISTA plan, and you would get
paid a sum of money.
(21:00):
Typically, it's W-2 income.
Um, it's never not W-2 income.
It's sometimes it's$10.99,depending upon how we split it
up.
Uh the next one, the last one isis number 10, be the boss.
Be the boss, I borrowed thisfrom Chevy Chase in an old
movie, so be the ball.
You want to be the ball.
You want to be the boss becauseyou want to think like the boss
thinks about you and how theboss thinks about I run a
(21:23):
company and how I think aboutrunning the company, how I treat
employees, how do I, you know,what a and maybe if you don't
have that experience about beingthe boss or being an
entrepreneur about runningcompanies, figure it out.
Begin to research what it's liketo run companies so you can get
information about what motivatesan employer.
Typically it's profit, making aprofit, providing payroll,
(21:45):
providing benefits, that have anadvantage in the market space,
law firm or not, or it's Amazonor anything else.
It's about running a company,being successful at it.
So if you think and act like aboss would act or like a CEO
would act, you're on your way toessentially being promoted in
the future because they have tofind the new leaders in the
company, and that's really theimportance of it.
But it's also to promoteyourself to people saying, this
(22:09):
person has what I think it takesto be, you know, the next
manager or whatever it is.
But just people make thismistake all the time.
They go to work, they bringtheir shit from the outside into
work, and they just let it flylike it's whatever.
You gotta control yourself.
You really have to think likethe boss thinks about the job.
It really has it goes a long wayabout improving your appearance
(22:31):
before your colleagues, beforeyour managers, before the the
owners of the company.
People see it.
I don't know if you know this,but people are watching you, and
you better start to understandthat.
They're they see what you'redoing, and they can see what
your potential is if you showsigns of that.
So, you know, bosses do watch.
(22:52):
They watch a lot because they'retrying to also, at their level,
bring the company to its nextlevel of success, and that's
through their employees.
So, you know, I could say a lotof different survival skills,
but these are the things Ithought about that would be very
helpful for you.
They're common sense items.
There are also some uh itemshere that will help you in your
legal engagement if you had todo it.
(23:12):
I hope you enjoyed this.
Remember, fear is just what'sthe unknown.
Get over it, learn about whatthe unknown is, and you won't
have any more fear.
Keep coming back to the uhpodcast.
I'll keep putting out more.
But other than that, have agreat week.
Do you have survival skills?
I've never really done thisepisode, but it's been obviously
on my mind for quite some time.
So I'll just start it off withnumber one.
These are not in any importanceof order, just things that I
thought about.
Number one was watch your backat all times.
How do I come up with this one?
I'm in federal court a lot.
I'm around a lot of U.S.
Marshals.
I've seen Secret Service and howthey act.
(00:58):
And if you didn't know it,they're always looking for the
things you're just taking forgranted.
They're looking at exits,they're looking at
possibilities, and they'recalculating.
And it's, you know, probably apretty good thing to understand
how to do.
And are you watching your backat all times at work?
You know, let's, for example, aclose colleague, friend.
Maybe they're uh angling foryour position in the future.
(01:18):
Maybe they're trying to get apromotion, whatever it is.
You know, can you trust peopleat work?
And these days, I don't thinkyou can.
I think you can have areasonable degree of trust, but
with a lot of boundaries and alot of protection about
yourself, about how you go aboutwhat you're doing.
And what I ask you to do is whydon't you look at the the
(01:39):
connections you have with peopleat work?
How strong are they?
Are they are these reliablepeople you can rely on in a
pinch when something hits thefan?
Maybe you've seen things in thepast, circumstances that took
place.
How do people react?
All this stuff should be in yourcalculus when you're going about
your everyday activities,watching yourself.
Watch how you act towardspeople.
(02:00):
That's really important.
A lot of people just take thatfor granted.
I'll get that into in a second.
But watch your back when youwhen you're in the office or
you're engaging with people.
Look and listen for the signs,the tells, like poker game that
people have.
And people have a lot of tells.
If you look at them long enough,you get to know them, they can
tell you whether they're lying,whether they can be relied upon,
whether they'll be trusted.
(02:21):
So watch your back.
That's number one.
Number two, learn the rules ofengagement.
I can't express this enough.
People do not think about therules of engagement.
What do I mean?
Well, when you go to your job,it's the most important thing
you have besides maybe yourmortgage.
It produces income for you.
It allows you to go to do thefun things you like to do in
life.
But how do you protect it?
(02:42):
You know, what are you doing toprotect your job?
I mean, these skills I'm givingyou right now are going to help
you protect your job, but youknow, what are the rules of
engagement?
What is discrimination?
What does it look like?
If you're a woman and you'reabout to be deciding upon having
a family, why don't you read upon what pregnancy discrimination
is?
It happens all the time.
It's actually the second highestEEOC charge, I believe, that's
(03:06):
filed.
So it's my favorite because it'sso easy to spot and figure out.
So look at the rules ofengagement of you know, what is
discrimination?
What is wage violations, what isa non-compete.
Look at these things before youjust jump in, drop in, it's a
phrase I learned this morning,to some circumstance you have
that you're contemplating, butyou drop in with blindfolds.
(03:28):
You don't do that.
You do this with everything inyour life.
You do this with relationships,you try to, you know, learn as
much as you possibly can.
But people, I can tell you, donot learn about the rules of
engagement, about their jobs.
How do I know that?
Because I can see in the factpatterns when people write them
for us in their cases, when theydecide to hire us to go after
their employers, you can say youcan tell whether they at what
(03:48):
errors they have committed alongthe way.
Now, in large part, people aregood advocates for their cause,
but they do make mistakes.
So learn the rules ofengagement, what is a
discrimination claim, how toperfect it, how to go about it,
how to build it.
I'm not asking you to be alawyer, just you know, keep
coming back to this podcast andlearning the things that I'm I'm
advocating here on the episodes,and you'll begin to change your
(04:11):
learning curve will change uhvery quickly to spot the issues,
and that's really what you wantyou to do is spot issues and
then figure out how do younavigate around those issues.
So learning the rules ofengagement are critical to
navigating around the office andaround people who can be, you
know, assholes.
Bosses can be assholes.
People and bosses, by the way,aren't trained to be bosses.
(04:32):
They're just people.
They learn by experience.
And it's unfortunate, but youknow, people have uh they have
all their dark secrets.
You don't want to find out or beon the back end of somebody's,
you know, bad situation becausethey're having a bad day.
So learn the rules ofengagement.
That's critical.
So learn about employmentdiscrimination and what it
means.
Learn about contracts and how tonegotiate them.
(04:54):
But the third job survival skillis negotiation is king.
If you can't negotiate foryourself in a meaningful way to
get what you want, you'remissing something here.
You can negotiate even foroutwill jobs, you can negotiate
a lot of things.
It really depends upon youtaking stock of what you bring
to the table to your employerand you know, understanding what
(05:16):
value you bring.
Get the fear out of the picture,okay?
A lot of people operate withfear like because they don't
want to negotiate.
It's like, you know, it's likespeaking in public.
Well, get over it, okay?
Because, you know, I did.
I everyone has a sphere ofspeaking in public.
How about walking into a federalcourtroom, you know, really
palatial place like the SouthernDistrict of New York, wood
(05:36):
paneling, it's just austere,it's beautiful, or even the
Second Circuit Court of Appealsin the uh the grand uh
courtroom.
It's an amazing place to be.
And you gotta speak on thestupid microphone.
Well, get over it, because yougot a job to do.
And your job is to negotiatesomething.
In this case, when I'm in court,I'm obviously arguing for
(05:57):
something, but negotiation is anargument.
You're preparing yourself inadvance, you're walking in, you
have your notes, but you you'vegot this thing down cold.
And you've done negotiation isabout knowing who your opponent
is, knowing what the opponentwants, and knowing what you
want.
And figuring that out iscritical to a job successful job
career.
And if you don't understandthat, start looking at uh all
(06:20):
books of things that you can getyour hands on about, you know,
getting to yes or which is kindof old, but negotiation is
critical.
I've done it on a negotiationpodcast episode in this podcast.
I'm not done with it yet becausethere's a lot to talk about.
So negotiation is king.
Number three.
Number four, document the shitout of your job.
I mean, let me repeat that.
Document the shit out of yourjob.
(06:41):
What I mean, you are on emailall day long.
That email belongs to youremployer.
Where does the email go?
Well, it has a timestamp to it.
Well, that's critical.
You get to create a diary ofemail timestamped that's there
and actually, if you don't knowthis, email's backed up.
So you have a conversation withyour boss about a performance or
(07:01):
a personal one-on-one check-in,document the email saying,
here's what we talked aboutduring the meeting, here's what
I advocated for, here's what Iunderstand you said, you know,
effective listening.
Document everything that'shappening.
If you feel that you're in thethroes of a downward spiral of
your employer doing this to youbecause you've not done it,
because you know the survivalskills, that somebody's doing
(07:22):
something to you and setting youup.
You want to document the shitout of what's happening.
And you can't document enough.
Now, you can save that thing,that email you send by making a
journal entry in your privatejournal, okay, and writing down
I sent I sent an email on thisdate, and this is what I said,
and maybe this person respondedback and you put it in quotes.
That's yours.
You get to keep that on yourperson.
(07:43):
It's not your employer.
They don't own that piece ofjournal entry you put.
So document the crap out of yourjob.
When something's happening toyou, you can have a reason why
you do this is you want to giveyour lawyer the full narrative
according to what you thoughthappened in real time about what
happened, and you can create thestoryline narrative that favors
(08:05):
your point of view because youremployer, by the time you hit
the lawyering part of things,they're trying to angle to uh
set you up for your loss becausethey don't want you to win, and
you're trying to win.
So documenting things over theentire time period uh will help
you essentially perfect yourcase.
It'll help me understand, youknow, do you have a case or not?
So if you learn the rules ofengagement, what you know is
(08:28):
discrimination, you'll start tounderstand what to put in that
narrative.
The issues will pop in your facesaying, well, that's important.
I remember reading about that.
So document the crap out of yourjob.
Now, number five, learn how toplay the room.
People don't understand thisone.
I guess skillful negotiators,public speakers, politicians,
you know, they know how to playthe room.
What I mean by this is that whenyou walk into a room, for
(08:51):
example, in a new meeting, andyou know the characters there,
and you know what the meeting'sabout in content, listen to what
people are saying and try tofigure out, you know, what is
the move you know the momentumof the meeting?
What are people not coming upwith?
Are they not coming up with theidea that you thought of?
Do your research in advance ofthe meeting, of course, but know
the the the the play the roomand try to play so that it
(09:14):
things are are advocating inyour direction or for a
particular cause you have, butlearn to play the room.
What you should not do, and I Istrongly say this to you, is
that people make mistakes, andand I how I know this all,
because people write narrativesfor us and we can read them.
People say a lot of stupid shitduring meetings or let their
they let their guard down andthey get baited into arguments
(09:37):
by people who are trying to setthem up.
So learn how to play the room toyour advantage.
If you are in the crosshairs ofperformance improvement plan,
you're already on the bad listtrying to set you up for
failure.
You know that.
And even at that juncture, youcan still play the room with
understanding about, okay, youknow, I don't have to be
reactive here.
I can actually, yeah, I'll takethat under advisement.
(09:59):
Thank you for saying that.
I'll take that under advisementtoo.
And you can ask pertinentquestions about certain things,
but play the room.
Don't be fearful and scaredabout what's happening to you
because your employer and yourbosses will feed off it like
sharks, and it's it's ugly.
So play the know how to play theroom, how to compose yourself in
that situation.
(10:19):
Number six, become your ownself-advocate.
I mean, it's all the things Ijust talked about in the last
five skill sets.
You know how to play the game,you know how to play the room,
you know how to negotiate,you're watching your back
because you don't want to getyour ass kicked, and you want to
become your own self-advocate.
How do you do that?
Am I asking to be a lawyer?
No, I'm asking you to reallyunderstand what's taking place
(10:42):
and don't do this.
Don't, and I mean don't, and Ijust underline this extensively,
don't cry the victim.
Because when you cry the victimto yourself, you're letting
yourself down.
You're not you're you're notputting your best foot forward,
you're not trying 110%, you'rejust blaming others for
something that happened.
(11:02):
I mean, I know men who are intheir 60s who do do the shit.
And it's really actuallyembarrassing once you spot it.
And it's kind of comical becausethey don't want to accept the
fact they're the cause of whathappened.
So don't be the cause ofsomething.
Be the self-advocate forsomebody else doing something to
you, but advocate your position.
(11:22):
Understand rules, what'shappening to you, what the play
is like.
You know, if you need to haveyour playbook in your head, get
one and figure out how to beyour own self-advocate by, let's
say you need to, I don't know,set your boss up.
You ever think about this?
Setting your boss up becausethey've done something, and you
can entrap them in conversationsbecause they're not smart enough
to figure it out.
(11:43):
You can do that.
You can actually set people upand make have them make and say
things either by in writing orotherwise that they otherwise
would not say.
And it's really about artfuladvocacy, asking a ton of
questions, and really being onthe money in terms of what the
mission is.
The mission is to save your job,or the mission is to get a
better severance package.
And you do that by being incontrol, in composure.
(12:06):
Don't let them see your otherside, your emotional side, don't
let them see the victim.
But be the best advocate you canwithout not asking you to be a
whistleblower, I'm just askingyou to be self-advocate, taking
a strong position, but knowingwhy you're doing it.
And then also, if you need tocomplain, you know, the word
know the rules of engagementthat you can complain at HR.
And once you do that, using nomagic words, I was treated
(12:29):
differently because of, theylaws of protections of
retaliation favor you.
And the employer is aware ofthat.
And if they're not, they'restupid, uh, and you begin to set
them up.
And it builds a case forseverance negotiation, which
I'll talk about in a second.
So be your own self-advocate.
Don't be the victim.
Please, don't be the victim.
Learn how to play this gamebecause it is a game.
(12:51):
I know it's emotional for you,but step outside of that.
And if you can't, get acolleague to help you or get a
lawyer.
But be your self-advocate in theoffice space because a lawyer
can't be there with you.
You know, most people don'tunderstand that.
Well, I got an email yesterdayfrom a person who says, I wasn't
denied, I was denied a counselorin the meeting.
I'm like, did you know it?
Uh you know, I didn't speak tothis person, but most people
(13:11):
think that they can bring theirlawyers into meetings.
That's not true.
Private self-governments andpublic employers obviously are
government employers.
But companies like Oracle orMicrosoft or Bridgewater or you
name it, these are privategovernments onto themselves, and
they operate with their ownrules.
So no, lawyers can't be uhpresent there.
Number seven, kind of similarhere in the vein of what I'm
(13:33):
talking about, but there's anold Saturday Night Live skit.
I don't know how far back, butit's about no whiners, and it's
just the funniest thing you eversaw.
But in the workspace, no onelikes, not even from my
childhood playground, no oneliked the whiner.
Okay, the wanker.
The wanker, you're gonna getyou're it's basically putting
that sticker on the back saying,kick me.
(13:54):
Why are you going to do this?
People do this all the time.
I we get a lot of correspondencefrom people who potential
clients want to be potentialclients with our artists.
And it's surprising howvictimized they are.
They're they're they're notrealizing that's not the way,
the the path to take.
And they and they get reallyself-righteous about their
victimization and like, youknow, wrong done to them, and
(14:14):
like, well, you need to hire anattorney.
Well, I can't afford one.
Well, that is that my problem?
No, it's the people are uh theyjust don't be a whiner.
A whiner is it's kind of a copout, like, you know, you deserve
something, you're entitled tosomething.
Everybody doesn't like a whiner,okay?
There's something you there'ssomething better you can be, you
can be a self-advocate.
You can learn the rules ofengagement, you can learn how to
(14:35):
negotiate, stand up foryourself, get a strong back in
this process.
It remove the fear of what uhthe unknown here.
It's critically importantbecause this is your job.
It pays your income.
You know, don't make a stupidmistake about being a whiner.
It's I know it sounds, you know,incredible to say that to you,
but people they operate in acesspool at work, a cesspool of
(14:57):
psychology, and it's it's notreally regulated, and people
cast judgments all the time.
The easiest people to pick offis the whiner, okay?
Or the victim.
Just it's not the role you wantto play.
You wanna if you want to sprotect your job, you wanna
basically create a sevenspackage.
If you if you can't stay in yourjob, you don't want to be the
whiner, okay?
Please just remove that cap andthat the that character,
(15:19):
whatever it is.
Number eight, be of service toothers even if you don't want
to.
I put this on the list.
You know, team play, all thatgood stuff they throw at you,
you know, maybe the poster onthe wall, you know, the you know
what I'm talking about.
It's like, you know, team playor whatever they say.
But everyone really likes whensomebody does something nice to
them and they remember it, andthey remember you in an act of
(15:40):
kindness.
Maybe you had a bad day, but youstill give me an act of
kindness.
So try to figure out in yourhead about your daily workday
how you can be selfless, meaningyou can do things for other
people that may not necessarilyget things for you, but you can
be helpful to others.
People skip this thing all thetime, but it goes a long way.
(16:02):
A selfless person who's actingin the interest of other people
and interested in their careers,you're paying a dividend in the
future that's going to returnback to you.
You just don't know it.
If it's in the religiouscontext, you're tithing you know
money to the church orsomething, and it you know,
brings something back to you.
But be of service to people,even when you don't want to,
even the person you really don'tlike at the office, it might
(16:24):
make you feel better about youknow doing maybe just helping
them out instead of you knowholding a grudge and removing
that negative thought from yourhead.
And maybe it makes your job go alittle easier.
So it's just a little thoughtthere.
People actually recognize it,and at least I do.
I recognize it all the time.
So it's a good thing to do.
It's just try it out.
Uh, number nine, know how tonegotiate severance.
(16:44):
I've devoted a lot of time aboutseverance negotiations, either
in in writing or podcastepisodes.
It is a straightforwardapproach.
I'm gonna nail it down realquickly.
It's a skill set you need toknow about.
And if you don't know, come backto this podcast or and and find
out or read about it.
It's simply two takes two forms.
The first is the kind of thegoodwill performan uh
(17:05):
performance aspect, where you'renegotiating upon the things
you've done that made thecompany money, and you are
trying to leverage that goodwillwith the employer.
It doesn't go that far.
It's you can try it.
Most people laud theiraccomplishments like the like
like we all know them.
And then listen, everybody hasaccomplishments, okay?
We all do.
Don't don't stick it out therein our faces like we should
(17:27):
admire you about it.
I mean, everybody hasaccomplishments.
But here's the trick employersdon't reward that in severance
for your accomplishments.
I mean, some do, but in majorityof my experience over the years,
going on 30, which is kind ofridiculous, it's a it's a fail.
Well, what's your plan B?
Plan B is, you know, either youhave a number one, an ERISA plan
(17:48):
that governs, you know, pays foryears of service for your
signing or release of waiverclaims in order to get the
money.
Uh so that's like a two-week orfour-week four-year service type
of thing, depending upon theplan.
A plan means an ERISA plan.
Ooh, it's a funky acronym.
Employee Retirement IncomeSecurity Act, ERISA.
It's pretty easy law tounderstand regarding severance.
(18:09):
You just got to sign your rightsaway in exchange for money.
You obviously have to be aparticipant in a plan.
And you would know that bylooking at your HR portal and
saying, you know, are you partof that plan?
You can also go to a site calledfreearissa.com and you can find
a free membership to look upyour company whether they have
an ERISA plan.
I think it's the item I on theyou'll you'll find it, but you
(18:30):
have to do some research to findit or the HR portal.
The other way you can getseverance is through a contract.
Most people don't have thesenegotiated in advance of their
employment, but some people do.
We negotiate them for them, andit's basically a year severance
for typically an executivelevel, and they get paid
severance in exchange for arelease of claims.
Now, if they're fired for cause,they don't get severance.
(18:52):
No one gets severance whenyou're fired for cause, unless
you've got some leverage againstyour employer.
Now, the majority of theseverance negotiations uh that
occur in the in the UnitedStates go like this.
It's you whipping up a claimbecause you documented the shit
out of the case.
You know the rules ofengagement, so your narrative is
pretty tight, and you got it,you know, you got the goods on
the employer by your ownwriting.
(19:13):
Now you're like, well, I don'thave any you know recorded
evidence of anything andwhatever.
I'm like, you know that I'mthat's fine, that's like smoking
evidence, but that smoking gunevidence is really kind of, you
know, 5% or less of the time.
That's direct evidence.
Majority of these cases we dealwith are circumstantial, meaning
your narrative, the power ofyour narrative is king here.
And you're negotiating herethrough severance negotiations.
(19:35):
You're essentially policing theemployer saying, I got this
affidavit that says, forexample, you discriminated
against me because I'm a womanand because of my race, because
I'm black, and you said or didthings that treated me
differently because of both ofthose things or one of those
things.
And by the way, I also foundthat you were, I don't know,
stealing secrets from anothercompany or something.
It could be anything.
(19:56):
It's just whatever you can writein your narrative that is
factually supported that theemployer can also check.
We would then take it to theemployer.
We obviously would notarize thedocument for you and present it
to the employer along with ademand and saying, we're going
to negotiate X amount of dollarshere as a starting point, and
the employer says, okay, you gotus, you know, we'll we'll start
(20:17):
to negotiate, but they also hemand haw, they want to pay as
little as possible.
But that's a negotiation.
But you're bringing to the tableleverage, leverage in the form
of potential legal claims.
And remember something thatpeople don't understand.
The best cases are alwayssettled, always settled, okay?
The cases that go to litigationare the ones that are 50-50 on
the on the border, or theemployers are stupid enough,
just downright stupid enough totry to defend itself because
(20:40):
maybe defense counsel said youneed to defend itself because
defense counsel need to makemoney.
I mean, it's part of thelitigation machinery here.
It's like, you know, the lawfirms make money.
Severage negotiations aboutbringing leverage to the table.
We help people do that.
And at the end of the day, youwould sign a release of claims,
just like you would under aRISTA plan, and you would get
paid a sum of money.
(21:00):
Typically, it's W-2 income.
Um, it's never not W-2 income.
It's sometimes it's$10.99,depending upon how we split it
up.
Uh the next one, the last one isis number 10, be the boss.
Be the boss, I borrowed thisfrom Chevy Chase in an old
movie, so be the ball.
You want to be the ball.
You want to be the boss becauseyou want to think like the boss
thinks about you and how theboss thinks about I run a
(21:23):
company and how I think aboutrunning the company, how I treat
employees, how do I, you know,what a and maybe if you don't
have that experience about beingthe boss or being an
entrepreneur about runningcompanies, figure it out.
Begin to research what it's liketo run companies so you can get
information about what motivatesan employer.
Typically it's profit, making aprofit, providing payroll,
(21:45):
providing benefits, that have anadvantage in the market space,
law firm or not, or it's Amazonor anything else.
It's about running a company,being successful at it.
So if you think and act like aboss would act or like a CEO
would act, you're on your way toessentially being promoted in
the future because they have tofind the new leaders in the
company, and that's really theimportance of it.
But it's also to promoteyourself to people saying, this
(22:09):
person has what I think it takesto be, you know, the next
manager or whatever it is.
But just people make thismistake all the time.
They go to work, they bringtheir shit from the outside into
work, and they just let it flylike it's whatever.
You gotta control yourself.
You really have to think likethe boss thinks about the job.
It really has it goes a long wayabout improving your appearance
(22:31):
before your colleagues, beforeyour managers, before the the
owners of the company.
People see it.
I don't know if you know this,but people are watching you, and
you better start to understandthat.
They're they see what you'redoing, and they can see what
your potential is if you showsigns of that.
So, you know, bosses do watch.
(22:52):
They watch a lot because they'retrying to also, at their level,
bring the company to its nextlevel of success, and that's
through their employees.
So, you know, I could say a lotof different survival skills,
but these are the things Ithought about that would be very
helpful for you.
They're common sense items.
There are also some uh itemshere that will help you in your
legal engagement if you had todo it.
(23:12):
I hope you enjoyed this.
Remember, fear is just what'sthe unknown.
Get over it, learn about whatthe unknown is, and you won't
have any more fear.
Keep coming back to the uhpodcast.
I'll keep putting out more.
But other than that, have agreat week.
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