Police in Kingston, Ontario, were called to the scene by a man who claimed two thugs assaulted him on his way to work and tried to steal his wallet.

The man had a swollen lip and a possible broken nose, the Whig Standard reports.

After questioning him, the police began noticing holes in his story. Eventually, he broke down and told the truth: He’d punched himself in the face several times and concocted the mugging story to use as an excuse to skip work.

Police didn’t release the name of the man’s employer, but the officer who questioned him said, “I can only assume that they didn’t have a great sick plan where he works.”

In the end, the cops were kind enough to give the “victim” what he wanted. He got the day off — but he had to spend the day in jail for filing a false police report.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen an employee do for a day off? Let us know in the comments section below.

Five months ago, Jason Fruen of Manchester, England, lost his job as a mechanical maintenance engineer.

After sending his resume to companies and having no luck, he adopted a different strategy: He started wearing the resume.

Fruen donned a sandwich board that read, in big bold letters, “Mechanical maintenance engineer, seeking employment,” along with his telephone number, the Daily Mail reports.

His plan: Stand by an industrial complex and hope someone pays attention. He didn’t have to wait very long.

On his first day of self-advertising, a car pulled over. The owner of a local company offered him a job.

Unfortunately, it was only for a two-and-a-half month temporary assignment. So now, Freun is hitting the streets again, starting every day at 5:30 a.m.

What extreme job-seeker tactics have you seen or heard about? Would anything like Freun’s gimmick grab your attention enough to consider someone for a job? Let us know in the comments section below.

While working at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Elsie Hinton was warned by her boss four times about napping during work hours.

The fifth time she was caught, she got fired.

Now she’s filing a complaint demanding the DOT reinstate her, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Hinton says she suffers from sleep apnea, which prevents her from getting continual rest at night. She uses medical equipment to help her sleep, but claims it had been malfunctioning.

The DOT maintains it shouldn’t have to use taxpayer money to pay an employee to sleep.

Does Hinton have a case?

Maybe. Some courts have agreed that sleep apnea is a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that allowing periodic rest breaks could be a reasonable accommodation for employees in some positions.

What do you think about the outcome of this case? Let us know in the comments section below.

For example: A college dean in North Canton, OH, has resigned after trying to “fix” two parking signs she considered to be wrong with spray paint.

Betsy Boze recently resigned as dean of Kent State University’s Stark Campus after being stopped by security while spray painting a parking sign at another college’s campus.

Boze told the Canton Repository her spray art wasn’t graffiti. She claims she was “simply correcting an error on the sign” at neighboring Stark State College of Technology. She says an arrow was pointing in the wrong direction.

The two schools share some parking.

Why the dean would try to change the signs herself instead of contacting someone in Facilities is unclear.

Boze told the newspaper she wanted to say more about the incident, but couldn’t.

Fazul Karim has been sued by a ruling party official for calling historic figure Sheikh Mujibur Rahman a “dried plum” in a 2006 poem. The phrase means “good for nothing” in Bangladesh.

A government spokesman told Agence France Presse that Karim “has been sent into retirement … for writing a derogatory poem on Sheikh Mujib.”

Sheikh Mujib was assassinated along with more than a dozen members of his family in a military coup in 1975.

His daughter is current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Sheikh Mujib was named father of the nation after the country won independence following a war against Pakistan.

An elementary school principal in Eagan, MN, is on paid leave after the parents of a kindergarten student said he made their son remove paper towels the boy had dropped into a toilet.

The boy’s parents, Elijah and Shannon Hannah, filed a complaint against Principal Doug Steele in an incident involving one of their sons, who hasn’t been named in media coverage by the Star Tribune.

The boy claims the trouble started when he used a bathroom and wiped himself with paper towels, accidentally causing the toilet to clog.

The boy’s teacher called the principal who allegedly made the boy clear out the toilet bowl bare-handed.

Through his attorney, Steele has provided a slightly different story. He says the toilet contained only water and paper towels and that he only asked the six-year-old boy to remove the towels and put them in the trash.

Steele’s attorney says firing would be too harsh a penalty.

Elijah Hannah says the principal should lose his job. The Hannahs have said they will consider legal action if the district doesn’t fire Steele.

Steele is entitled to a hearing, and asked for one, which could take two to three months.

His attorney claims the school board wants to fire Steele.

Citing legal reasons, the school district said it will continue to decline comment on the case until the end of the hearing process.

The only information we have so far on this case is what’s been reported in the media. However, Steele does admit he made the boy take paper towels out of the toilet with his bare hands.

Is firing too harsh in this case? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

In this tough economy, it’s hardly unusual for people to look for second jobs to make ends meet. Example: A teacher advertised online that she was looking for extra work because her bills were piling up. Unfortunately, her ad was on the “casual encounters” section of a popular Web site. And her school computer was involved.

Update: The Columbus Dispatch has now reported that teacher, Amber Carter has resigned from her teaching position and pled not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of prostitution. Prosecutors are still reviewing a charge of unauthorized use of a computer that the sheriff’s office filed against Carter. HR Blunders’ original post on this story continues below.

Now, fourth-grade teacher Amber Carter has been charged with prostitution. She’s admitted she posted an ad on Craigslist and used a school computer to send an undercover officer e-mails arranging a meeting, according to the Logan County sheriff’s office.

And until her case moves further along in the legal system, she is still collecting her teacher’s salary of $56,000, even though the Bellefontaine, OH, school district has placed her on administrative leave.

Detectives say it appears Carter used her school computer to meet men and women and charge them $50 or $100 for various sex acts.

The investigation started when the local sheriff’s office received an anonymous e-mail saying a local woman was advertising sex services online, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

An undercover officer posed as an interested customer and exchanged 24 e-mails with Carter.

In an e-mail sent on a Monday at 9:07 a.m., well after school had begun for the day, she offered sex and suggested a time.

The next day, Carter took a half-day of sick leave and left work early. She was arrested shortly after noon.

The Dispatch obtained a recording of Carter’s meeting with the undercover officer. She took $50 in exchange for sex. (Caution: The recording contains explicit content.)

Work computer seized

Besides the prostitution charge, which is a misdemeanor, Carter faces a fifth-degree felony count of unauthorized use of property. Detectives have seized her school computer.

She has a spotless 13-year record with Bellefontaine schools. The district superintendent is quoted as saying he’d like to fire her now “but constitutional rights and due process come into play so the lawyers are proceeding properly.”

School district lawyers have suggested to Carter that she resign, but she hasn’t.

Was this an isolated incident for Carter? Sgt. Ryan Furlong doesn’t think so. He suspects Carter has been doing this for a while because “she was calm, cool and collected in that hotel parking lot. Not nervous at all. This wasn’t her first time.”

Certainly, this is an extreme case of an employee in financial trouble looking for an extra source of employment. Does your company have a policy about second jobs? What would happen if one of your employees used a company computer for a side business — even one that’s not illegal? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A police complaint says Ravone Jones showed up at the Qdoba restaurant where he worked one night and grabbed himself a beer, according to The Capital Times.

The restaurant manager told him he had to pay for the beer. Jones allegedly became irate and threw a $5 bill at the manager.

Next, Jones went to some young women seated in the restaurant and began talking to them. They asked the manager to get Jones away from them.

The complaint says the manager asked Jones to leave four times.

Then, he allegedly went to the front of the restaurant and started throwing brownies and cookies onto the floor. The complaint says he also went into the kitchen and threw pots, pans and boxes of hot sauce.

A police officer said as he was taking him to jail, Jones remarked that he was trying to get fired from Qdoba.

The officer said when they booked Jones, he said he wanted to collect unemployment, but couldn’t if he quit.

We’re guessing that Jones isn’t going to get unemployment payments.

A new survey shows office romances are a given: 40% of U.S. workers have dated a colleague with 31% going on to marriage.

If so many office romances led to marriage, can they be that bad? It might depend on how many of those marriages end up in divorce. No one has developed figures on that, yet.

In our example of Ted and Alice, you’re more likely not to have a problem than in other situations. That’s because they’re from different departments.

But when Barney starts dating his supervisor Betty, it’s a different story.

HR consultant Susan Heathfield advises companies institute a policy that prohibits a supervisor from dating any employee who reports directly to him or her. She also recommends the policy state that you expect staff members to behave professionally and that a romance can not impact the workplace negatively.

Does your company have a policy on office romances? Have you ever witnessed successful or disastrous workplace dating? Maybe you married someone from work. If so, let us know about it in the Comments Box below. And happy Valentine’s Day.

When twice the usual number of employees call out sick — and it happens on Super Bowl Sunday — is it a case of couch potato fever? Or, as union representatives suggested in one case, was it burnout because of staff cutbacks? You make the call.

The city of Atlanta had to close five of its fire stations on Super Bowl Sunday because 27 firefighters called in sick. The average number of firefighters out sick on any given day is 13.

Enough staffers reported to work the following day to keep all the stations open.

City Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran blamed the temporary closures on a combination of staffing reductions, hiring freezes and furloughs, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Cochran said firefighters call in sick more often on a weekend with a holiday or big event like the Super Bowl. However, he said he didn’t believe this was an organized action.

The head of the firefighter union, Lt. Jim Daws, said staffers called in sick because they get “burned out” by having fewer co-workers. Atlanta has also done away with overtime for firefighters to bridge temporary staffing problems.

Minimum staffing to operate is 147 firefighters. On Sunday there were 131 on duty.

Daws says there wasn’t Super Bowl-related goofing off. He said the larger number of absences is the consequence of budget cuts.

Cochran said, “Some of our members genuinely are sick.”

Can employers prevent this?

Some companies have developed policies to prevent employees from using sick days around long holiday weekends. Example: To earn holiday pay, employees must work the entire workday before and the day after the holiday. Exceptions can be made when an employee asks ahead of time to use a vacation day or if the worker can produce a doctor’s note.

Has your company ever experienced a problem with workers taking sick days before or after a holiday, or on the day of a big event, such as the Super Bowl? Did you have more employees call out the day after the Super Bowl, possibly nursing hangovers? And does your company have a policy to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Let us know in the Comments Box below.