It used to be that we poor, run-ragged employees could routinely expect ongoing intimidation from our bosses for a long litany of reasons, quaking in our boots those bleak mornings when we had to call in sick (even when legitimate!), quivering at the knees while pleading for a much-deserved, long-overdue raise, wishing for simple praise for a job well done but winding up instead with constructive feedback. Even taking time off for a joyous trip to the dentist or (God forbid!) picking our children up at school might provoke visions of the gods raining hellfire down upon us the very moment we dared to asked for permission.

So my, my, my, how times have changed! Now its employers and bosses who wrestle with such delicate issues of communication. Today its they who carefully phrase their wishes and requests to employees, lest the best and brightest (even the so-so!) get upset, belch brimstone, storm out the door. Certainly if its you who are today waging this very battle yourself, I realize you would love it if I could offer you some kind of answer to help you out. And I am, but am also certain my advice will be somewhat unexpected: try a little understanding and acceptance!

Look around at the entire business community for a moment with a wider-focus lens than usual to help you look. Heres a truth: What goes around, comes around. Karma is currently in full swing. Sweet revenge is in the air. Justice prevails, the dogs are having their day, chickens (legions of them) have come home to roost. Choose your favorite clich but please get this: Too many decades and centuries have now passed in which employers have enjoyed bountiful opportunities to mishandle their workers. Entire firms have treated their people like expendable chattel, roughing them up verbally, occasionally even physically, chewing and spitting them out, tossing them away. Layoffs, downsizing, terminations, rightsizingyou name it! But this game has now shifted dramatically.

Its become increasingly common, for example, for employees to, just all of a sudden, call it quits. They might bolt away to start new venture, or a family, or adopt a new career or new employer. This of course leaves YOU, their immediate manager, swinging in the breeze. You may have just spent six months-- nay six years! -- grooming a staffer, perhaps for some pivotal strategic play in a top-seeded project, or maybe for a smart, upper-level executive slot. Then poof! She or he is gone.

And if you ask them to stay a week or two longer, to help ease the transition of someone new, you may be faced then with demands for bonus incentives to stay for a few more days, or with a proposal-plus-invoice for a lucrative consulting fee. And should they be leaving on any negative terms at all, better run for the hills: Your HR managers ears will burn, baby, burn at that exit of all exit interviews as will yours.

The only potential advice here may be to grin and bare it, praying for some karmic reckoning that runs it course as things eventually level out the playing field. Acceptance is the first step to riding the situation out! The workers are in charge of the asylum now although its basic dynamics havent changed. After so many abrupt, merciless, mass terminations in the 80s and 90s, what else might we expect?