Bulletproof. Fireproof. Proofread.

Quick, Somebody Call the Hyperbole Police! There's an Emergency at Money Magazine

In the painfully thin February issue of Money magazine (cheap paper stock and just 108 pages), one of the cover refers takes us to a story on "6 Ways to Bulletproof Your Job."
However, when you get to the story, it has been disarmed. Now it's called "Fireproof Your Job."
Whatever they called it, it's regrettably filled with truisms and bromides than real advice. Among them:
"Share client leads or ideas to generate revenue even if that's not part of your responsibilities."
"[M]ake an effort to to associate with the people the boss respect most and who routinely nab the best assignments."
"[Y]ou may be able to save your job by offering to forgo a bonus or take a cut in base salary in exchange for, say, stock options or a temporary cut in hours."

It amounts to advice coming from people who sound like they've never been laid off before. In other words, they have no idea what they're talking about. But that doesn't stop them from being quoted by Money.
It doesn't matter what they say, they're experts, right?
The reality is who stays and who goes when there's a layoff-involuntary separation--reduction in force is invariably a lot more complicated than whether you're a team player or are foolish enough to volunteer to work more and get paid less.
I know this from someone who's been on both sides of the fence when the pink slips have rained down. Being good, hell, even being a superstar means squat if some chairman sitting 3,000 miles away decides he wants profits to increase another 3 percent, and it's decided your team can be cut in half.
There's no such thing as being indispensable anymore, plain and simple.
That's the real story that should have been written.