Employee Security: Don't Let Layoffs Go From Bad To Worse

Layoffs, terminations and firings are never easy -- but they also shouldn't expose your company, network and equipment to more risk than they have to.I had dinner last with an old friend who told me a horror story (at least potentially.)

Seems an acquaintance of his who'd been with same company for twenty years, and had ridden out a recent round of layoffs and cutbacks, got an e-mail from a supervisor the other night, the gist of which was:

Meet me tomorrow morning at nine, and bring your company laptop.

In the name of common company courtesy, a twenty-year employee deserves more than an e-mail invitation to his behading.

And in the name of common sense you should never signal a layoff or firing by giving the employee a night to stew -- with that "company laptop" (and, no doubt, network access) close at hand... along with disks for copying sensitive material or, for that matter, a hammer for showing the company what he thinks of their laptop.

And yet it's the bonehead supervisor who keeps his job?

Incredible!