Virginie Paulin

Virginie Paulin's voice still trembles when she recounts how she was fired from what she considered her dream job at Ikea in France. "I felt total incomprehension, I was stunned," she said. As a 12-year employee of the Swedish home furnishings group, Paulin had risen to become deputy director of communications and merchandising for Ikea's two dozen stores across France. But then she was forced out after a year's medical absence — and after what was subsequently revealed to be an investigation of her by Ikea's French headquarters, which suspected she wasn't as sick as she had said.