Like the two sanitation workers in Columbia, Mo., who
discovered the hard way that the old advertising line “this Bud’s for
you” didn’t apply to them. The men from the city’s Solid Waste Division
were caught on video using a city truck to haul away 50 to 60 cases of
expired Budweiser and Michelob Ultra from the city landfill. Their
“find” was among 700 cases of beer that Scheppers Distributing Co. had
dumped there in April 2010, according to various media reports.
However, once at the landfill, the beer became city property.
Reportedly, one of the men quit when the city government confronted him
about his involvement; the other man potentially faced disciplinary
action.

I Scream, You Scream…

Two boys, ages 15 and 16, who turned in job applications at an
ice cream parlor in Valparaiso, Ind., in July likely won’t be hired.
While the clerk left to file the applications, one of the boys grabbed
some money from the tip jar and ran. Alerted by the sound of clattering
change, the clerk turned, saw what happened and chased them. She caught
them. One boy turned over the $2 he had stolen, according to an ABC News report of
an Associated Press story. The other boy, who apparently didn’t steal
any money, gave some of his own money to the clerk to avoid getting in
trouble. Both were arrested on preliminary theft charges—not an
auspicious beginning to the work world.

Fired? Who, Me?

In what sounds like something straight out of a Seinfeld episode, a UPS worker who was fired
in September 2008 kept showing up at the facility in Manhattan. The man
had lost his job after allegedly engaging in a package-throwing fight, but he kept showing up for work, contending that he still
worked there. In 2010 UPS filed a suit to bar him from the location,
seeing him as a risk because of his knowledge of how the facility’s
security operates, according to a New York Post report.

Then there was the stealth employee in Virginia who was on the
payroll of an agency for 12 years drawing between $300,000 and
$480,000—not including benefits—without ever reporting for work.
The hooky-playing woman was discovered after a new director took over
at Norfolk Community Services Board, an agency that is funded by
federal, state and local money, CNN reported in August 2010. The
employee was terminated.

Forget MBA Classes

A U.K. government-funded course at South Thames College in
London offered lessons in 2010 on how to shop and walk in high heels.
Chyna Whyne—a former backup singer for Seal, Eric Clapton and
others—taught the Sexy Heels In The City class. Tuition for the six-week
class was $268.02 in U.S. dollars. Whyne, a self-professed “high-heel
guru,” is the author of a book on the same topic. London’s Daily Mail
reported that her course, which included tips on how to strut on a
catwalk, was designed to prepare female students for the business world
and their social lives.

Fast-Food Foolishness

Working at fast-food restaurants can be fraught with stress. In
May 2010, a worker at a Wendy’s in Daytona Beach, Fla., allegedly was
the victim of an irate customer who tried to use her pink Taser gun on
him after she complained that she and a friend did not get packets of
mayonnaise and mustard in their drive-through order.

It all started when the women reportedly hurled obscenities at
the worker from the car, and then reached through the drive-through
window and started slapping people when they were ordered to leave. One
of the women allegedly got out of the car, entered the restaurant and
chased the employee as she tried to zap him with a Taser gun. The
employee fled the premises, and the woman with the Taser gun reportedly
returned to the vehicle after the manager threatened to call police. The
women were arrested later after one of them contacted the restaurant to
complain about poor service and claiming that the other woman had to
use a Taser in self-defense. Charges were filed.

But unruliness can happen on both sides of the counter, apparently.

A Burger King employee in Sacramento, Calif., purportedly
printed out “f--- you” twice on the receipt he gave a customer. The
message appeared in the space normally reserved for the “thank you” to
customers. The manager and employee were fired, according to an NBC report in November 2010.

And a former McDonald’s franchise manager in Brazil could be
excused for humming the Mickey D’s theme song, “I’m Lovin’ It.” He won a
lawsuit against the company, claiming it was to blame for his 65-pound
weight gain during the 12 years he worked there. He felt forced to
sample the food every day to ensure that it met company standards;
McDonald’s hired mystery clients to report on the food and its
restaurants. The man also partook of the free lunches that were a
company perk. The court ruled in the man’s favor in October and ordered
McDonald’s to pay him $17,500.

Remember That Bonus 16 Years Ago…

County employees in suburban Atlanta have been asked to return
thousands of dollars in bonuses they were paid 16 years ago when a
payroll anomaly overpaid them one week in 1994, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The county has recovered $75,186.09 from 329 employees, collecting it from paychecks at retirement. It still has $39,690.46 to recover from about 180 workers.

At least they’re not headed to Arctic-like temperatures for not meeting their annual goal.

That’s the case for a sales team at Just Born, the family-owned
U.S. candy company whose products include Peeps, Mike and Ike, and Hot
Tamales. The incentive for the sales team to meet its 2010 goals was an
all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii; if they failed, they needed to pack
mukluks instead of flip flops for a trip to Alaska.

And while they had a good year, achieving a 2 percent increase
in sales over 2009, it was not the 4 percent that had been the goal.
Goodbye sun-kissed beaches and tropical waters.

They ended up in Fargo, N.D. instead of Alaska, bunking at the
city’s tallest building—the 19-story Radisson hotel—in a city where
temperatures hovered at 7 degrees and 2 feet of snow covered the ground
in December. The nearly two dozen sales people had fun with the outcome,
according to various news reports,
planning a sleigh ride, toboggan rides, winery tours, a VFW spaghetti
dinner, and watching the movie “Fargo” in a conference room.

In 2011, they can look forward to an all-expense-paid trip to Rapid City, S.D. if they don’t meet their goal.

Doggone Story

A PetSmart employee working an overnight shift one evening as a
favor to his manager lost his job in January 2010 for bringing his
three-year-old dog to work.
The 31-year-old former military dog handler didn’t want to leave his
dog, Gizmo, by himself all day and night, so he brought his canine pal
to the New Jersey store that night when the store was closed. He left
the dog in the store’s empty “doggie day care” facility, checking on him
about every 15 minutes.

Two weeks after working the special shift, store and district
managers asked the employee for a written report of that night. The
worker’s report led to PetSmart firing him for “theft of services” after
18 months on the job.

The company eventually offered the man his job back and a
transfer to another store, according to an MSNBC report. The man
accepted but changed his mind when he got a job offer from a company that uses animals to search for hazards.

And you know it's a rough economy when even a member of the police canine corps is sacked. Wando, a Pennsylvania city’s drug-sniffing dog, lost his job when his handler was among nine workers laid off in September.

Fire in the Hole ... um, Filing Cabinet

An apprentice electrician who blamed his 12-hour workdays for breaking up his family resorted to arson as a way to strike a work/life
balance. The 24-year-old man set fire to a filing cabinet at his place
of employment in Melbourne, Australia. He also grabbed a laptop and nine
sets of car keys that he dumped in a nearby garbage bin.

He broke into the plumbing and electrical company one February evening, supposedly with the intent of slowing down his hectic work
schedule. Mission accomplished—he was sentenced to nine months in jail,
was suspended for two years and was ordered to complete 100 hours of
unpaid labor.

A woman who taught special education and was nominated three
times for Pennsylvania’s teacher of the year lied for years that she had
an inoperable brain tumor, ABC News reported
in July 2010. At one point she used her alleged illness to take eight
weeks of leave to undergo treatment. Co-workers at the middle school
even raised money so she could take a free trip to Disney World.

When she did not exhibit any symptoms of the illness over time,
suspicions arose. Then the school district noticed that her medical
records lacked official letterhead. It contacted the neurosurgeon whose
signature appeared on the woman’s documents. The jig was up when the
physician refuted her claims. The teacher resigned in May 2010 and was
arrested in July 2010 on forgery charges.

Make Mine Pepperoni, with a Job on the Side

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) started
advertising job openings on pizza boxes in the Washington, D.C., region,
a Washington Post
columnist reported in July 2010. The ads, which were launched in 2009
and included a link for making an online application, proclaimed that
Washington Reagan National Airport and Washington Dulles International
Airport were hiring. The ad noted that job applicants for full- and
part-time work at the TSA can find “a career where X-ray vision and federal benefits come standard.”

There is one less TSA employee at the Philadelphia
International Airport. A screening agent who was supposed to be checking
equipment, not passengers, there thought it was funny to pretend to
find cocaine in passengers’ bags and confront them, National Public Radio reported
in January 2010. The small bag of white powdery substance he used for
his prank was actually creatine powder, a nonprescription dietary
supplement. That TSA agent is now an ex-TSA agent.

New Comic Hero

Unemployment is no laughing matter, but sometimes a good laugh can be a salve.

Enter The Adventures of Unemployed Man who can send out “thousands of resumes in a flash of an eye,” and his sidekick, Plan B. Plan B can’t get work because he’s too old but can’t afford to retire.

As Voice of America reported
in November 2010, the two wage “an epic battle against economic super
villains” such as Pink Slip, Outsource and the main character’s
“on-again, off-again seductress and nemesis,” The Human Resource.

Unemployed Man and Plan B are aided by “other
down-on-their-luck superheroes” such as Wonder Mother, who builds an
invisible jet from the fragments of glass ceilings that keep women from
advancing at work.

Their adventures are chronicled in the new graphic novel written by Erich Origen and Gan Golan, The Adventures of Unemployed Man, where “a team of jobless crusaders sets out to discover a great recession full of adventure.”

Maybe Unemployed Man could use a crime-fighting canine.

Kathy Gurchiek is associate editor for HR News. She can be reached at kathy.gurchiek@shrm.org.