Dear Joyce: At age 27, I am employed at a company with an overly strict policy on attendance and punctuality. For example, if an employee is late for work due to bad weather, heavy traffic or vehicle failure problems, the company counts that against him. Even if an employee calls the supervisor to say he is going to be late due to uncontrollable circumstances, it's to no avail. A tardy mark remains in an employee's file for one year, and 10 tardy marks trigger termination. I plan to find a better company to work for. What do you think of such a company? -- G.C.

Dear G.C.: I think Judge Judy must be on the company's board and that the company's bosses are exhausted with hearing reasons why "I was late for work because... ."

In times recently past, bad weather and heavy traffic automatically meant you started out early enough to compensate for the transit delay. The employee owned the lost time. If the employee's car wouldn't start at the last minute, the boss would understand if it happened a few times, but not routinely.

New Boss Book Illuminates Ownership of lost transit time could be a metaphor for today's transmuted dynamics between employer and employee. In G.C.'s view, the employer has ownership of the minutes and hours frittered away in commuter mishaps. While that perspective differs from opinions held by most members of older generations, G.C. is hardly the Lone Ranger in his attitudes. So who wins and who loses in today's workplace dynamics?

No one has to lose, says popular "Working Wounded" columnist Bob Rosner in a new book for bosses. Employers and employees can both win when a business recognizes and acts on the fact that a boss no longer has "your father's management job."

Rosner is joined by workforce consultant Allan Halcrow and labor lawyer Alan Levins in writing an entertaining and best-selling how-to book of 430 uncrowded pages (my eyes say thank you), "The Boss's Survival Guide."

Swatch World Changeover Styled in the one-minute-manager mode, "The Boss's Survival Guide" authors remember that until the downsizing, loyalty-busting bloodbaths began in the 1980s, employee loyalty meant a gold-watch outlook. It meant punching the same time clock from diploma to grave. The boss was the boss, no argument.

In contrast to that gold-watch outlook, today's workers have an expectation of impermanence, which can be compared to those fashion watches that allow wearers to switch colored bands to match their moods. ("Switch" plus "watch" becomes "Swatch.")

As the authors observe: "What we have is Swatch employees; watches and jobs are of the moment, not for a lifetime. No wonder the average job tenure is now 3.5 years and shrinking."

A faster tempo and rising employee expectations haven't been easy on managers. According to Rosner, Halcrow and Levins:

"Now you pray through the morning rush hour that your best people haven't scored a better deal overnight ... You hope that security checks briefcases for cocaine and guns, and you go to parties wondering whether your peers will be talking about their new severance packages ... Your labor lawyer is a speed-dial on your cell phone, and a kid half your age is apt to look right at you and ask, 'How do I know you won't screw it up?'"

Retention Concerns This is a practical work that cuts to the chase on the best methods of handling 65 vexing issues that litter a manager's work life. While its philosophical conclusion is that bosses are people too and that the rest of us shouldn't beat up on them before walking in their tight, pinching shoes, its clear message is that managers must treat people right if they want to hang on to top performers. Employee retention has become the name of the game because a huge labor shortage looms -- as many as 32 million fewer workers to fill America's jobs -- as baby boomers retire and the job market becomes employee-driven again.

When demographic imperatives shake up the power mix in the workplace, a company and its employees will commonly share ownership of lost transit time -- if both are the best. G.C., can you hang on until then?

Send career questions for possible use in this column to Joyce Lain Kennedy at Box 368, Cardiff, CA 92007, or e-mail her at jlk@sunfeatures.com. Sorry, the volume of mail makes personal replies impossible.

©2001 Tribune Media Services, Inc.