Firing Back: Power Strategies for Cutting the Best Deal When You're about to Lose Your Job

FIRING BACK is extraordinarily well-written and is a great development tool even if your job is not in jeopardy. It helps you keep good records, to know what could be problematic for your employer and what could potentially be problematic for you. It gives you great ideas about how to avoid defaming the character of another (even unintentionally), and why it's important to keep notes so that you can negotiate without excessive emotion. It also points out that a separation agreement isn't one sided (p. 3), and if you're leaving your job, you have tools at your disposal to negotiate even when it's a mutual decision. This gives practical, real-life examples to help you calculate your next step on your career path, too. It has a great Q & A section. Even though Galos is an attorney, she and her co-author do not automatically steer you toward the legal profession. In fact, they show examples where that might poison the negotiations and how to decide whether or not legal action is really necessary. The authors teach you strategies for dealing with unpleasant things in a classy manner. I was impressed with how they acknowledged that a desire for revenge was valid but that it is more important to keep acrimony out of negotiations.

I really liked this book primarily because it addresses my specific situation. My employer promised us separation pay instead of severance pay. The book explained separation pay vs severance pay very well. I can't believe that businesses can do this to people and get away with it. I know where I stand and that I am not going to get any separation pay because the company is not legally obligated to pay me anything. In my case they are eliminating my position and sending my job to the Phillipines. Separation pay is a way for companies to promise you a lump sum payment and not pay you anything.

Jodie-Beth Galos and Sandy McIntosh have written an extremely useful book for those who have been unjustly fired or "downsized." The authors provide a comprehensive plan for deciding what the terminated (or soon to be terminated) employee wishes to accomplish, what s/he can, in fact, accomplish, how, precisely, to enter into negotiations and pursue and monitor each phase of the process, how to reach a satisfactory settlement, and, finally, how to manage money while out of work. This clearly and elegantly written book features a balance of realistic stories about firing and negotiation processes and appropriately technical and involved legal and financial information.

This book takes the reader from a position of helplessness in the firing process to that of equals negotiating the best transition out of a work situation. While nothing will ever make the process of losing your job pleasant, this book covers all of the ins and outs of making sure that you get the best exit deal that you can, and that you don't fall apart in the time between jobs. Covering the time from before you lose your job (Yes, Virginia, there may be signs that it is coming) through the process of negotiating your exit, and what to do after it's all over, this book gives a solid, sensible approach to handling yourself in the one crisis few of us anticipate. This book tells you what to do, and more importantly, what not to do when you are being fired. Most people don't think about being fired until it's all over. Get the book and be prepared. It can happen to you.

When a client faces a daunting task of pulling his life together after being fired, usually the last thing he wants to do is "deal" with the ex-employer. This book effeciently steps the employee through the maze of beaurocratic nightmares that must be addressed. --Pam Pearson, [email protected]