My opinion on job loss articles

Lately there has been an annoying spate of articles like "10 Ways to Avoid a Layoff" . . . "5 Ways to Keep Your Job" . . . "The 17 Things You Can Do To Make Yourself Indispensable At Work."

The one in Sunday's paper says things like "Thrive in the workplace by branding yourself." "Leave a personal mark behind."

"If you're just another face at the water cooler, you run a far greater risk of ending up in the unemployment line. Branding yourself is one of the best preventive strategies . . . "

This is such garbage. Let's see. The world economy is still in meltdown phase with banks failing and companies going bankrupt and/or hacking at their workforces in a desperate attempt to cut costs in order to survive.

And somebody gets laid off, it's their fault because they didn't follow some self-improvement checklist they read in a newspaper or magazine or online financial page.

Especially with large corporations, the selection of who's going to be laid off is more like a dart game than a carefully thought-out retention of the most productive employees. It's based on things like head count in somebody's organizational turf, and making the demographics even so there's no justification for a discrimination lawsuit.

Preaching that any particular individual can buck the economic winds by shaping up their act is pathetic, if not cruel.