Carol K,

My corporation DID hit me where it hurt (my family), by eliminating my position while I was out on leave - and vulnerable on two fronts. First, my husband still worked for a different division of the same company, so they knew I wouldn't make trouble and risk their retaliation against him. Second, my son was hospitalized at the time (for a psychotic episode) and on the company insurance plan; having dual insurance saved us a huge amount of money on his very expensive care.

When the depression hit me, they said, "Well, let's dump this one before she costs us any more money," and added my name (obviously as an afterthought; it was typed in at the bottom of a computer printout) to the list of people who were considered no longer necessary. Several others on the list were within a year or two of retirement, and they lost everything. None of them had the money to hire lawyers to sue. (Neither did we.)

I worked in Personnel, so I knew the history of dirty deeds that had come before ... mainly multiple women "laid off" while on maternity or disability leave. I was the one who prepared the data for an EEOC audit to prove that there was not a "glass ceiling" within the corporation, and when I asked my manager why two women's statistics were to be omitted from the report, was told, "because I said so." (By the way, the EEOC was NOT interested in hearing from me after I was let go, and my complaints to other government agencies fell on deaf ears.)

I had been warned that Personnel was a dirty business, but never believed it until that year.