You work crazy hours. You beat every deadline. The reward: a pink slip and two weeks of severance pay. After climbing up the corporate ladder, you slip back to the first rung. From a corner office you go to unemployment, and then a dead-end job. Putting your career in reverse is better than going without a paycheck. Once part of the upwardly mobile, you learn to accept downward mobility. Tonight, On Point: squeezed out of the top jobs, four people share their stories.

Guests:

Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, and author of “The Mutual Gains Enterprise: Forging a Winning Partnership Among Labor, Management, and Government”;James Jankiewicz, former senior consultant at Novell, Inc., and now a part time employee at Sears

Mike McGuire, Trombone instructor, former senior marketing writer at a software company, and former program director at non-profit agency matching parolees with attorneys

Bob McFael, administrative assistant to California State Bar Association and former database administrator at startup company

Nicholas Cianka, former owner of 11-person consulting firm and now freelance computer consultant