White' Male' And Worried

Last April, Doug Tennant lost his job as a long-term contract employee for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in Tracy, Calif. He says he was the first one in his three-person unit to be laid off. He claims the others--a black woman and a man of Indian descent--were kept on even though he was more qualified. Tennant, who is white, blames PG&E's push for a more diverse workplace. "I feel like I'm losing out," he says. PG&E says his race and sex had nothing to do with his departure.

Marilyn Moats Kennedy, a Chicago-based career counselor, recently got a plaintive letter from a white male who wanted a job hauling baggage for United Airlines Co. It seemed that all the candidates who were having any luck were women and minorities. "How am I going to get on with the airlines?" the man wrote. "Wrong pigment, wrong plumbing."