There are some very important things you can’t prepare for as you enter the job market.

Chief among them is that there is a good chance that at some point during your working adult life you will have an abusive boss – the kind who uses his or her authority to torment subordinates. Bullying bosses scream, often with the goal of humiliating. They write up false evaluations to put good workers’ jobs at risk. Some are serial bullies, targeting one worker and, when he or she is gone, moving on to their next victim.

Bosses may abuse because they have impossibly high standards, are insecure or have not been properly socialized. But some simply enjoy it. Recent brain-scan research has shown that bullies are wired differently. When they see a victim in pain, it triggers parts of their brain associated with pleasure. (See 10 ways your job will change.)

Worker abuse is a widespread problem – in a 2007 Zogby poll, 37% of American adults said they had been bullied at work – and most of it is perfectly legal. Workers who are abused based on their membership in a protected class – race, nationality or religion, among others – can sue under civil rights laws. But the law generally does not protect against plain old viciousness.

That may be about to change. Workers’ rights advocates have been campaigning for years to get states to enact laws against workplace bullying, and in May they scored their biggest victory. The New York state senate passed a bill that would let workers sue for physical, psychological or economic harm due to abusive treatment on the job. If New York’s Healthy Workplace Bill becomes law, workers who can show that they were subjected to hostile conduct – including verbal abuse, threats or work sabotage – could be awarded lost wages, medical expenses, compensation for emotional distress and punitive damages.

Not surprisingly, many employers oppose the bill. They argue that it would lead to frivolous lawsuits and put them at risk for nothing more than running a tight ship and expecting a lot from their workers. But supporters of the law point out that it is crafted to cover only the most offensive and deliberate abuse. The bill requires that wrongful conduct be done with “malice,” and in most cases that it has to be repeated. It also provides affirmative defenses for companies that investigate promptly and address the problem in good faith. (See “When Bullying Goes Criminal.”)

The New York state assembly is expected to take up the bill next year. At least 16 other states are considering similar bills, and some employment-law experts think antibullying legislation may have real momentum now.

Legislatures are not the only ones standing up to bullies. In 2008, the Indiana supreme court struck a blow against workplace bullying when it upheld a $325,000 verdict against a cardiovascular surgeon. A medical technician who operated a heart and lung machine during surgery accused the surgeon of charging at him with clenched fists, screaming and swearing. The formal legal claims were intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault, but the plaintiff argued it as a bullying case, and had an expert on workplace bullying testify at trial. (Comment on this story.)

Ideally, employers should rein in abusive bosses on their own, but that rarely happens. Many bullies are close to powerful people in the organization and carefully target less powerful ones. When John Bolton was nominated to be ambassador to the U.N. by President George W. Bush, a former subordinate told the Senate that Bolton was a “serial abuser” and – in a phrase that has since entered the bullying lexicon – a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.” (See “How Not to Raise a Bully.”)

There are reasons workplace bullying may be getting worse now, including the bad economy. In good times, abused workers can simply walk out on a job if they are being mistreated. But with unemployment at around 9.5%, and five job seekers for every available job, many employees feel they have no choice but to stay put.

Another factor is the decline of organized labor. Unions were once a worker’s front-line defense against an abusive boss. If a supervisor was out of line, the shop steward would talk to him – on behalf of all of the workers. But union membership has fallen from 35% of the workforce in the 1950s to under 13% today, and some unions are less aggressive than they once were. (See what to do if you have a bad boss.)

That leaves litigation. There seems to be a strong constituency for laws allowing workers to sue over workplace abuse. The vote on the Healthy Workplace Bill was bipartisan and not close: New York state senators favored it 45 to 16.

If states enact laws of this kind and lawsuits begin to be filed, juries are far more likely to sympathize with the bullied worker than the bullying boss – and damages awards could be large. There is one easy way for employers to head all of this off: get more serious about rooting out abusive bosses before serious damage is done.

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My Take: Every want to put your boss on a dolly truck in his fancy jeans and send him or her straight to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?  I had a boss like that once about five years ago.  The company I worked for makes work benches for the filming industry. No Mek Denim there, just a lot of saw dust and metal scraps. The boss’s wife ran a San Diego wedding décor company out of the office, so I also worked for here, too.  This guy was a complete tyrant: he would yell at her and me at the same time over little things like no soda in the machine or mail not being opened by 10 a.m. It was a disaster.  One time the woman’s San Diego CA wedding decorations delivery was left on a dock outside and he kicked it over and broke the entire box of outdoor lights she’d ordered for an event.

There is mental abuse, and there is physical. Sometimes the yelling and angry conversations are so subtle, you don’t know it’s happening.  But be aware.  Abuse begins with words.

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Illegal copycats

Several cities across the country are cracking down on illegal dvd duplication.  In fact, Los Angeles city officials and law enforcement recently put out a call for action, asking residents to report people who are selling DVD copy products on the streets, a common occurrence near the south central and mid-city areas.

After receiving a liver transplant and a Tennessee hospital, the Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs seems to be getting closer to returning to work as his doctors gave him an excellent prognosis. The Apple CEO received a liver transplant because he was in end-stage liver disease. This was posted on the hospital’s website when he received the transplant

“He received a liver transplant because he was … the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,” Dr. James D. Eason, chief of transplantation at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, said in a statement late Tuesday. “Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.”

Eason said in a news release posted on the hospital’s Web site that when Jobs received the transplant, he was in end-stage liver disease.

The doctor made the disclosure with Jobs’ permission. Jobs has been on a medical leave since January. Eason did not reveal when the operation took place, citing patient privacy. However, The Wall Street Journal reported it was two months ago.

Apple did not confirm the newspaper’s report and has stated that Jobs is looking forward to returning to Apple, which he started in 1976, at the end of June. Eason said the hospital could not reveal further information on the specifics of the transplant.

“That’s all that we are giving out at this time,” hospital spokeswoman Ruth Ann Hale told The Associated Press.

Wall Street has grappled with the implications of Jobs’ health since August 2004, when investors learned the CEO had kept a cancer diagnosis secret until after he underwent surgery. The company’s past silence on matters of Jobs’ health made shareholders jittery when he appeared increasingly, even alarmingly, thin last year.

Investors sent the stock tumbling 5 percent to its lowest point in a year on a rumor last October that Jobs had suffered a heart attack.

Then shares slipped 2% in December when Apple said that Jobs would not speak as usual the next month at the annual Macworld conference, then bounced up 4 percent on Jan. 5 when Jobs explained his weight loss as a treatable hormone imbalance. They sank 7% a week later after Apple said he would be taking six months off because his medical problems were more complex than he initially thought.

Since then, Wall Street’s whiplash has had time to heal, especially because Apple’s stock has weathered the recession better than those of most of its competitors. Cupertino, California-based Apple put Tim Cook, its chief operating officer, at the helm during Jobs’ absence.

Apple shares were up 99 cents at $135 in premarket trading last month. They are up more than 70% from their 52-week low of $78.20 on Jan. 20.

Almost 6 months ago Bloomberg news reported that Apple was facing a review by the Securities and Exchange Commission while leading an investigation into the reports of Steve Jobs’ health problems. Earlier this month Bloomberg reported that Apple’s reports about Jobs’ health are still under scrutiny by the SEC

But the 1,039 word piece, reported by Connie Guglielmo, David Scheer and Karen Gullo, offers no new information about the government probe, what it’s after or what progress it has made.

The story quotes a former SEC lawyer, a former SEC enforcement attorney, a securities law professor, and the author of a paper on advocating CEO health disclosures.

The pivotal question, as the experts point out, is what happened in the nine days between Steve Jobs’ Jan. 5 announcement that he had a “hormone imbalance” and his Jan. 14 statement that he was taking a five and a half month medical leave.

Connie Guglielmo led the Bloomberg team that reported in January that Jobs was considering a liver transplant. The fact that Jobs had the surgery — and had been sick enough to go to the head of the transplant waiting list — was not revealed until June 20, a few days before he returned from his medical leave.

Given that her sources had nothing new to say about the SEC review, it’s not clear why Guglielmo chose to revisit the story today, less than two weeks before Apple is scheduled to release earnings for what analysts think will be a strong quarter.

There was one nugget of news in the piece, however. It had been widely reported that members of Apple’s board were being briefed by Jobs’ doctors on his condition. The Bloomberg story names them: Art Levinson, former CEO of Genentech, and Bill Campbell, the former CEO of Intuit.

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My Take: It sounds to me like somebody is on a witch-hunt! I can understand how a company stocks would fluctuate if the CEO/founder got sick, but trying to save it that person is doing it on purpose? Many people get sick and sometimes they do not know exactly what is wrong for while. After several tests, doctors visits and examinations, they should find out what is wrong. There are many symptoms that resemble that of a heart attack, however, in reality they are not.

I do not know if Steve Jobs actually had a liver transplant or a heart attack. One thing is for sure, if he did have a liver transplant, he is not going to need a DUI attorney. It is not highly recommended that you drink alcohol after having a liver transplant. He may have needed a DUI lawyer before at some time, but he will not need one any time soon if he had a liver transplant.

Whatever his health is like, I would recommend that he study the Alexander Technique in Manhattan. It would definitely improve his health and making feel better. I understand that there are many famous people who study the Alexander Technique and enjoy it including singers and musicians. The reason being, it helps you learn how to use your body and muscles the way God intended.

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